Despite the problems facing the mobile ad industry on multiple fronts, most notably ad blocking, but also viewability, fraud and brand safety – the latest figures from Celtra’s Mobile Display Ad Performance Report for Q3 2015, offer some encouragement.

They show higher ad engagements rate in Q3 across all standard formats. Banners saw a 14 per cent increase in engagement rates, while interstitials were up 8 per cent higher. The engagement rate for expandable banners was 0.87 per cent; 10 per cent higher than in Q2. This, says Celtra, is mostly due to higher engagement rate on bigger screens such as desktop and tablet this quarter. Celtra’s ‘Reveal Banner’ unit delivered an engagement rate of 1.75 per cent, higher than expandable banners, and the standard banner (1.14 per cent).

User-initiated video completion and consumption rates are also up at 49 per cent for the standard banner; and 52 per cent for expandable banners and interstitials. Auto-play videos in technology creatives saw the highest video completion rate and video consumption rate across all formats, topping out at a 63.9 per cent video completion rate and 73.2 per cent video consumption rate in an expanded unit.

The report also looks at performance by vertical. The Entertainment sector had the highest share of impressions, with 19 per cent of all requested impressions). Entertainment and Retail interstitials delivered the highest engagement rate (4.4 per cent). For standard banners, the best-performing sector was CPG (1.6 per cent), while for expandable banners, the Entertainment sector performed best with a 1.14 per cent engagement rate.

The figures are based on all standard format type creatives (Premium DR banner and Rich Media), which includes the standard banner, expandable banner and interstitials as well as Celtra’s publisher-agnostic formats such as Interscroller and Reveal banner.

The report covers all devices and all industries. The analysis includes all eligible creatives, which does not include test campaigns or creatives with under 50,000 requested impressions.