3D Advertising: How to Multiply Your Marketing Results
3D advertising is the latest strategy brands are using to enhance their marketing results. By giving your customers the ability to interact with life-like 3D Models in real-time, you can make your brand stand out and increase engagement and conversions while cutting costs. Although the technology involved is sophisticated, getting started is easier than you might think with the right user-friendly tools.
Here we’ll walk you through what you need to know to start using 3D advertising. First, we’ll define what 3D ads are. Then we’ll explain how they work and the benefits of 3D advertising campaigns. Finally, we’ll show you how to incorporate 3D into your marketing strategy and which tools can help you get started.
What Is 3D Advertising?
3D advertising is a digital marketing strategy that companies use to create interactive three-dimensional ads, such as pay-per-click Google Ads or Facebook Ads, where users can experience the ads while browsing the web or scrolling through social media. 3D advertising involves creating realistic 3D product models your customers can interact with as they would interact with your physical product. 3D advertising is often used with Augmented Reality (AR) advertising to create an immersive user experience by bringing your product into the user’s real-life space. These two advertising methods are closely related but distinct:
3D advertising allows customers to see products from different angles, such as front and back, zoom in, or manipulate views through actions such as rotating objects. Customers also can select different versions of a product image to view, such as other color options.
AR advertising displays allow customers to interact with your products in their physical environment. For example, customers can scan a QR code or tap a button in their mobile newsfeed using their smartphone to view a footwear product on their person as a virtual try-on. Another everyday use of AR in 3D advertising is product placement. This function allows customers to use their smartphones to place a 3D model of a product in their real-world environment. For example, a customer can place a 3D true-to-size model of a couch in their living room to see if it matches the space and decor.
3D advertising displays are especially suitable for eCommerce because they overcome the reluctance some customers may experience when they can’t physically see and touch a product. With 3D advertising, that hesitation can be diminished, replaced by an interactive experience that will help drive attention to your products and increase sales. Imagine searching Google for a new pair of running shoes and being inundated with different brands and styles. As you look through the options, an ad with a 3D model of running shoes appears on your screen. As you interact with the ad, selecting different colors, zooming in to see the pattern details, and getting a full 360 view of the product, you feel reassured that you are making an informed purchase. 3D advertisements have retention rates nearly five times higher than 2D ads. AR ads on Facebook and Instagram perform 28% better than video ads.
How Does 3D Advertising Work?
To take advantage of 3D advertising, you will first need to create or upload existing 3D models of your products into a 3D Commerce Platform. Various companies provide 3D Model Creation Services. VNTANA has a fantastic program in partnership with our different 3D partners to help business owners create 3D assets if they have not done so already. VNTANA also has a 3D designer freelance network to connect you with.
Once you create your 3D assets, you next need to upload them to a platform so they can be converted to the right format and file size required by the various platforms. Google, Meta, Snap, and other ad networks each have their own unique specifications that the 3D file must conform to in order to work properly. Without an automated 3D optimization process, your time could be committing significant time and expense to manually optimizing each 3D model for these various channels. To make 3D assets available for easy retrieval and display, they should be organized through an efficient content management system (CMS). VNTANA includes robust CMS features to help you tag and manage your products, making them easy to find for your webmaster and customers.
After uploading, your 3D assets can then be used in an online web browser or ad where customers can interact with the objects. Details in shirts, shoes, purses, and even furniture can now be seen without leaving home or office. If someone was hoping to see how that coffee table would look with the rest of their furniture, this is now possible. Imagine what this can do for your product-based business.
To help customers see your products in 3D or AR, your site can use a 3D web viewer to create sharable images of your files optimized for fast downloading by customer devices. VNTANA lets you paste an iFrame code onto your site or eCommerce store or share a QR code which enables customers to view products in their physical space on a smartphone or tablet. We also offer plug-ins and export presets for the most popular channels including Facebook and Instagram. This makes the process of uploading and exporting 3D assets as easy as Vimeo or Youtube for video. It also allows the entire process to be completed by your advertising agency or social media manager — no technical 3D knowledge required.
Five Benefits of 3D and AR Advertising
3D and AR advertising confer multiple valuable benefits on brands that use them. These include:
- Brand differentiation
- Increased advertising engagement
- More cost-effective advertising
- Longer dwell-time on ads
- Higher conversion rates with reduced returns
These benefits make 3D and AR invaluable tools for marketing and sales teams.
1. Brand Differentiation
Using 3D ads makes your brand stand out from competitors limited to traditional digital ad campaigns that utilize 2D images, 2D videos, or copy. As a business owner, your online presence is more important now than ever. Before consumers purchase products, visit restaurants or even rent a home, consumers are relying heavily on online search and reviews to make a purchasing decision. So maintaining your products online and finding unique ways to present these products to your customers is essential.
From Google My Business to Facebook and Instagram, a strong presence online will help your company get noticed and attract customers to your business. But how does a business owner stand out amongst the rest in a world of Instagram Stories and Reels, Tik Tok, Facebook, and Linkedin profiles?
A way to differentiate yourself is by being one of the first businesses to utilize AR and 3D advertising. While other companies are catching up to this emerging technology, you can get ahead of the curve. This will draw attention to your products and capture your audience in ways you never thought possible.
2. Increased Advertising Engagement
Your advertising engagement naturally increases when your ads stand out from competitors because they’re more lifelike and interactive. Customers pay more attention to your ads and are more likely to read them, interact with them, and click through to your site. For example, if your ad allows customers to try on different clothing fits, this automatically encourages interaction. This lays a foundation for increased engagement with your brand and products.
3. More Cost-Effective Advertising
More engaging ads are more cost-effective. Because 3D and AR ads attract more attention and engagement, you need to display fewer ads to acquire a lead. This lowers the amount you need to spend on PPC ads and social media ads to get results. Moreover, when you use a user-friendly platform like VNTANA to create your ads, you expend less labor. The result is you save money while generating more revenue per dollar spent.
4. Longer Dwell-Time on Ads
Dwell time is the amount of time a prospect spends on a search results page, website, or ad. This key performance indicator correlates closely with advertising campaign performance, making it an essential metric for marketing teams.
Because AR and 3D ads are more engaging, they increase dwell time. This reflects an overall improvement in your marketing effectiveness.
5. Higher Conversion Rates with Reduced Returns
The benefits above help yield higher conversion rates and reduced concerns. Because 3D and AR ads engage customers and allow them to experience a more realistic preview of your product, they better understand the experience of owning your product. This better understanding of the product leads to higher confidence in its quality and whether it will fulfill the customer’s needs. This increases conversion rates.
At the same time, customers’ greater pre-purchase understanding of the product tends to decrease returns. 3D and AR visualizations allow customers to experience the product and make a more informed purchasing decision, reducing their likelihood of returning the product.
How to Incorporate 3D Advertising in Your Marketing Strategy
As more providers enter the 3D and AR advertising space, incorporating these technologies into your marketing becomes more accessible. With the landscape becoming more and more virtual, companies are jumping at the chance to help businesses display their products and 3D advertising. Some significant players currently supporting 3D and AR web advertising are Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Unity, among many others. Each platform has its tools to help you create unique experiences:
- VNTANA has partnered with Meta to make it easy for marketers to run ads on Facebook and Instagram
- SparkAR is the tool you can use to create 3D and AR filters for Facebook and Instagram.
- Lens Studio is the tool to create 3D AR filters for Snapchat.
- Google Swirl is the technology for Google 3D ads.
- Unity will match you with a trusted partner to build the perfect 3D and AR ad.
All platforms allow you to put ad dollars behind the experiences to expose them to more users. For Facebook and Instagram, they will appear in a user’s feed. For Snapchat, they will be promoted as a story. And Google Swirl ads will appear like banner ads today but with 3D content.
This new technology is a no-brainer with this growing number of user-friendly providers. What once took days or even weeks can now be done in minutes! This is also a great way to share assets among coworkers and employees to get feedback before creating physical prototypes. For 3D designers, sharing files with clients and employees has been streamlined and shortened. Changes can be seen in real-time, making the workflow much simpler and quicker with VNTANA.
Start Advertising in 3D with VNTANA
Now that you understand what 3D advertising is and what platforms support it, rather than trying to navigate how to create your 3D ads, try out VNTANA. We have all the experts you need to get your products scanned, 3D assets made, and the software to help you share those assets everywhere. Contact us today!
