Video advertising is still behind display advertising when it comes to relevance. The display ad space has taken full advantage of visitor tracking capabilities to retarget ads to visitors based on their past behavior on a brand’s website.
Yet, online video advertising has the potential to bring together the best of two worlds: strong brand impact from the richness and viewer attention of the TV world, plus the performance focus and targeting possibilities from the display world. Two great tastes, that taste ever better together.
At SundaySky we are applying these same display advertising disciplines to the video ad space. So grab an iced beverage and cool down with my three hot tips for improving your video engagement:
- Generate video in real time. If a brand wants to engage a viewer based on the most current consumer behavior and ad context, the video should be generated at the point of a click to present the most relevant content and call to action.
- Personalize the content. One size does not fit all viewers, especially with video. Video ads should be targeted based on customer profiles, behaviors and previous activities with your brand.
- Focus on the return on investment (ROI). Spending money to develop and introduce videos in hope for value isn’t a sound strategy. Make sure the video strategy is smart, and that you have clearly defined success criteria and a control group approach to measure the impact against this criteria.
The increase of online video viewing is driving increased volume of potential advertising. This should increase reach and the increased inventory should provide downward pressure on the cost of video ad impressions. The increased time spent watching online videos translates to increased commitment to watching pre-roll ads, which represent our primary placement. In addition, with more available inventory, you not only can improve your reach, but also optimize performance.
As with most advertising approaches, too much drives fatigue and can have a negative impact on viewing behavior. Currently 21.6% of time spent with video is actually video ads. At this point in the market’s development, this seems like a reasonable mix. As the medium grows and new advertising strategies emerge, I expect this could grow. Especially because the more relevant the ad, the more tolerant the viewers will be. Online video offers opportunities to deliver more personalized and targeted ads that will actually bring the viewer added value. One of the emerging trends we’re seeing is the convergence of content and advertising, where the ads are part of the content viewing experience. For instance, the below ad from “Madagascar 3” delivers a :30 pre-roll ad, then drives the viewer to a YouTube page to interact with the content.
When it comes to online video advertising, we see that many brands are leveraging lessons learned from TV advertising and applying it online. However, online video advertising presents new opportunities. From pure brand awareness campaigns, brands can now deploy smarter strategies that would allow them to measure the impact of video ads and deliver more targeted and personalized ads to the viewers.
