Rich media may be high on the agenda for creative departments, but the form doesn’t appear to be paying dividends for ad serving platform Sizmek.
Q3 financials for the company read across the lines of a “lower than expected” 3% year-on-year rise in revenue, to $39.5 million, as finance generated by the company’s rich media division saw a 35% decline.
Rich media items typically include images or video which owe to the description of a ‘richer’ ad experience. Spend on these formats appears to be on the up according to research from Smaato, which points to a 264% lift in worth during Q3 2013 compared to 2012.
Though despite launching a series of new tools to capitalise on the buzz surrounding rich media – released in November, the Social Toolset being one – Sizmek has been unable to build up a strong head of steam in something which has captured advertiser imaginations.
Rich fails on return
Based in New York, but with offices across the EMEA, the company specialises in delivering multi-screen campaigns and was able to offset some of the losses made by rich media with business generated by the remaining core products.
Revenue from in-stream video offerings grew 90% compared to Q3 2013, while client spend on data-driven products – including programmatic decisioning – rose 73%.
The star of the show was however – and predictably – Sizmek’s mobile division, which saw revenue lift 97% in Q3 compared to last year.
Rich media has for some time acted as a hindrance to such results as the company attributed its modest 7% year-on-year revenue increase in Q2 to a stagnation in rich media uptake on desktops.
Remaining positive
Considered one of a cluster of go-to ad platforms for brands looking for technology to engage with users on the move and specific times, Sizmek finds itself in a state of flux with one of its most prominent offerings.
Speaking after the financials were made public, Sizmek CEO Neil Nguyen chose against focusing on rich media and spoke of his positivity surrounding growth in business on mobile, video and other platforms.
“We are pleased to see our strategy to diversify the product mix to higher growth areas continues to gain traction, today representing 75% of our total business and growing at 30% for the quarter,” he commented.
Investors in Sizmek also appear to be looking on the bright side of things. Share prices for the group rose 9.6% on Friday after the earnings were released, reaching a high of $6.19.