With the adoption of laptops, tablets and smartphones, we’re now able to consume content, especially video, whenever and wherever we want. Video content has become a driving force for the Web. In November of last year, comScore reported that 87.1 percent of all Internet users in the U.S. watched an online video. It’s no surprise that many of these views took place on YouTube, with its wide video selection and more than one billion unique monthly visitors. Whether it’s your favorite sitcom or movie, coverage from your preferred news source or a hobbyist sharing his or her latest work on YouTube or Vimeo, online video is quite the advertising vehicle for marketers to reach and connect with customers.
There are three types of video ads for advertisers to consider.
- In-stream video ad – Most are familiar with the pre-roll, where the ad runs before the video content in the same video player. There are also mid-roll and post-roll video ads, which run just like they sound, during and after the video.
- In-banner video ads – These ads feature video content inside a standard banner ad unit. You’ll often hear in-banner video ads referred to as a rich media treatment.
- Branded video content – These videos blur the lines between advertising and entertainment, seeking to both entertain and move viewers to action.
While video ad spending growth continues (it’s expected to become an almost $6 billion industry this year in the U.S.), its place among the rest of the digital landscape is more modest. A Forbes article noted that the top 100 advertising brands allocated an average of 1.5 percent of their media spending to online video last year.
Advertisers have shown a willingness to invest in video advertising, perhaps because of its measureable qualities. As we all know, the digital age affords marketers the chance to target, monitor, analyze and optimize more than ever before. Common metrics to measure digital video advertising include:
- View rate
- Completion rate
- Click-thru rate
- Engagement rate
- Impressions
Other things to consider when evaluating online video advertising may include:
- Site running the ad
- Device serving the ad
- Time of day the ad is being served
- Video’s length
- Video’s value proposition
- Video’s production value
- Volume of ads on the site
A study by the Jun Group, “The State of Opt-In Video and Consumer Engagement,” indicated that video ads 30 to 60 seconds in length generated the highest engagement rate at 4.5 percent. The lowest? Sixteen to 30 seconds garnering an engagement rate 38 percent lower at 2.79 percent.
At the end of the day, video advertising deserves its place in an advertisers’ digital repertoires. Even though it’s been around for some time now, digital video helps marketers stand out, giving them the awareness required to achieve their lead- or sales-oriented objectives. And with accessible tools to measure effectiveness, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to optimize your way to the top.
From in-stream to in-banner to branded content, M/C/C is so convinced in this trend, we have invested in an in-house video production suite and video expertise to take our client’s digital strategy to the next level.
