Video ads are bought like TV ads

Warc, 7 August 2014

LONDON: Nearly all (96%) UK advertisers bought online video ads in Q2 2014 as they would for TV ads, according to new research from Videology, the global video advertising platform.

Out of the 852m impressions served in the UK via the Videology platform over the quarter, that meant only 4% used the cost per action model as opposed to guaranteed cost per thousand (CPM).

Rich Astley, UK managing director of Videology, said reserved buying at a fixed CPM has now become fully embedded as the way for advertisers to buy video.

"As television and video buying becomes more converged advertisers want to know they can purchase video in the same way regardless of which screen it will be broadcast on," he explained.

"Guaranteed programmatic buying is at the core of our offering and it is clearly having an effect, as nine out of ten campaigns are purchased in this way," he added.

Turning to the type of device chosen for ads, Videology reported that the share of campaigns combining PC, mobile and connected TV doubled in Q2 2014 and now account for half of the total.

PC only campaigns had a 36% share, PC and mobile accounted for 11%, mobile only for 2%, and just 1% of advertisers used both PC and connected TV.

FMCG advertisers dominated, taking 40% of all impressions over the quarter, followed by entertainment (13%), retailers (12%), financial services (11%), and automotive (6%).

FMCG advertisers also increased their share by 54% quarter-on-quarter while retailers recorded a "massive" 71% quarterly increase.

Elsewhere, the popularity of 20-second ads was shown to be on the rise, having grown their share 30% quarter-on-quarter. 30-second ads, however, still had two-thirds (66%) share.

And In terms of targeting, over half (56%) of UK advertisers continued to rely solely on traditional demographic targeting, although there was a 65% increase in the share of advanced targeting year-on-year.

Data sourced from Videology; additional content by Warc