What is Roadblock Advertising?
It is a digital marketing strategy in which a single advertiser books all the available advertising slots on a website, network of websites or other marketing channels for a specific period of time. This approach guarantees that every visitor of the respective platform views only the advertiser’s messaging, thus maximizing user engagement and visibility. Roadblock ads are mainly used as a part of high-impact campaigns like new product or feature launches, brand promotions or new market penetration.
How it Works?
- Selection of Platform: The advertiser chooses a digital platform (or multiple platforms) that aligns with their target audience. This could be a popular news site, a niche blog, a network of related sites, or even a social media platform.
- Ad Space Purchase: Then comes the purchase of all the ad inventory on the chosen site(s) for a specific time frame. This could range from a few hours to a full day or even longer.
- Content Deployment: Various forms of advertising content are deployed across the site’s ad spaces. This can include banners, sidebars, pop-ups, video ads, and more.
Benefits of Roadblock Advertising
Great Visibility and Exposure
What if you could place a billboard on every street corner of the city – all drivers will see your ads when they go to work, see a movie or visit their parents. You get a similar effect with roadblock ads. No matter whether the user scrolls down the home page, visits the product page or reads a blog article, they will come across the advertiser’s message. Besides, the consistent exposure to the ads makes it much more likely for the potential customers to remember the brand and to interact with it. The famous Rule of 7 in marketing states that people need to see or hear the advertiser’s message at least 7 times before they purchase the product or service.
Targeted Audience
When companies decide to go for roadblock advertising, they select platforms or websites that match the lifestyle, interests and preferences of their ideal customers. This strategic placement of the ads is very impactful, since people are more likely to trust a brand and to make a purchase if it advertises on a website they find relevant and useful. For instance, a local gym might go for an online health magazine for its roadblock campaign, while a restaurant owner will probably choose a travel or a culinary blog.
Brand Awareness and Recognition
The consistency of roadblock ads in terms of logos, tone of voice, color combination, messaging, call-to-action and so on strengthens the brand identity. The availability of various formats like banners, videos or interactive ads helps advertisers unleash their creativity through storytelling or thematic ads. For instance, they can create a sequence of ads where they explain the problem their customers experience, elaborate on how much easier their lives would be if they did not have to face this issue. Finally, position their product or service as the solution or the bridge between the current and the desired outcome.
Measurable Results
The main advantage of digital advertising compared to print, TV, radio or any other channel is the ability to measure performance. Roadblock ads make no exception and below you can take a look at the most common metrics advertisers can keep an eye on:
- Impressions and Reach: It shows how many times the ad was displayed and the number of unique users who saw it. A higher number indicates a more extensive exposure.
- Click-Through Rates (CTR). The percentage of the ad viewers who clicked on the ad. For example, if 100 people saw it and 10 of them clicked on it, this shows a CTR of 10%. In general, a high click-through rate indicates the ad was relevant.
- Engagement Metric: Time spent on the ad, call-to-action buttons being clicked, shares, comments, landing page visits and so on.
- Conversion Rates: The number of users who took the desired action, such as signing up for a live demo, making a purchase or joining a newsletter.
Competitive Advantage
Consumers are bombarded with ads both in the online and the offline world. People are chased by ads on YouTube, Meta, Google, TV, radio, billboards, fliers, so small advertisers compete for the attention of the user with literally thousands of brands every day. By implementing a successful roadblock advertising strategy, a company can dominate the advertising space on a chosen platform. This makes it more likely for their product to stand out compared to the more traditional and common fragmented marketing approaches on a large number of channels.
The immersive nature of the roadblock ads can help build a buzz around a brand and boost the word of mouth marketing. As a result, the reach of the campaign can go even beyond the initially targeted audience. To elaborate on the gym example above – at first advertisers might decide to go after young urban professionals who have an office job and are looking for ways to stay active. If the ads are successful though, they might end up capturing an audience consisting of aging men having health issues or middle aged women willing to experiment with yoga, Pilates or cycling classes.
Effective Budget Allocation
As we discussed above, roadblock ads are super targeted and they address the most relevant audience. Consequently, advertisers don’t need to waste their budget on A/B testing different audiences or channels (Meta or Google), since they already know which websites or platforms their customers visit. This precision of the targeting improves the odds of the campaign being profitable and ensures every dollar is spent efficiently.
Publishers may be willing to offer better rates if the advertiser buys ad space in bulk. This would guarantee their inventory is filled and their revenues are predictable. For the advertiser, booking the ad space in advance might be more effective compared to purchasing individual spots over a longer period.
Types of Roadblock Ads
- Standard Roadblock Ads: Mainly used to increase brand awareness or to promote a specific product or service. They consist of banner ads, sidebars or leaderboard ads located at the top or bottom of the page.
- Homepage Takeovers: A more aggressive form of advertising, where the advertiser occupies the entire homepage of a website through large banners, background skins or videos. It is a suitable tactic for popularizing major product updates or launches, since the traffic on the homepage is normally the highest compared to the rest of the site.
- Interstitial Roadblocks: Full-page ads that appear before a particular page is loaded for the user. They feature rich media, including video or interactive content. Interstitials include discounts, promo codes or other promotional material. However, they have to be used in moderation, since they disrupt the user experience and Google might lower the SEO rank of websites excessively relying on these ads.
- Video Roadblocks: They can be in the form of pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll ads in video content, or as standalone video ads that play in traditional ad spaces. Video roadblocks are great for storytelling and engaging users with dynamic content. They are often used for campaigns where emotional or detailed storytelling is key to the message.
- Pushdown Roadblocks: They are banners at the top of a webpage. Upon interaction (either automatically or when a user clicks or hovers over them), they expand downwards, "pushing" the website content down. This expansion reveals a larger ad space for more detailed and interactive content. Advertisers can use them to incorporate videos, animations, games or quizzes, boosting user engagement.
Roаdblock Ads + Smart Ads
Roadblock advertising is a strategic and impactful way for brands to cut through the noise of the digital world, but they can sometimes overwhelm users with their prominence. In order to hit your sales goals you need to add some extra tools into your marketing mix. By combining roadblock advertising with Smart Ads from Smartico, you have a better control over the frequency and timing of your messaging. It helps you reinforce your brand positioning at different touchpoints, prevents ad fatigue and increases retention. Check out what Smart Ads are right here.
