Video Ads

What is Video Advertising?

Video advertising is promotional content that plays before, during or after streaming content. Some marketing professionals also expand the video advertising definition to include display ads with video content, such as those that start playing when a person puts a mouse cursor over them and native video ads promoted on digital ad networks.

The Current State of Video Advertising

Video advertising is one of the most popular ways to reach online audiences. Experts believe video advertising will dominate the next decade, which suggests that now is an ideal time for marketing professionals to learn more about it and investigate how it could improve their reach and overall effectiveness with campaigns.

Although marketing with videos is gaining popularity, that doesn’t make it a guaranteed win for marketers. The results of an Irish study indicated 60% of respondents felt there was too much advertising associated with on-demand video platforms. Also, 35% said they got frustrated with those ads because they prevented them from watching their desired content.

Stats like those indicate marketers must be exceptionally careful to create video ads the audience perceives as genuinely valuable and relevant. The placement of a video ad also matters, since the goal is to make any advertising content minimally disruptive. If an ad appears where there’s a natural break in the programming, such as before a presenter discusses a new topic, viewers may be more willing to tune in. More and more marketers are using advanced solutions like Outbrain Smartads Scroll-to-Watch and Click-to-Watch video ads, in which the viewer actively opts-in to watch, and regains control over the online experience they want to have. This directly contrasts with the intrusive and annoying nature of pre-roll video, and brings much better completion rates.

What Type of Marketing KPIs Is Video Advertising Suited For?

Before solidifying a video advertising approach, choose the best key performance indicators (KPIs) to track. With KPIs, you’ll know if your efforts are paying off or if tweaks are necessary. The first step in an optimized video ad strategy is to choose a goal. What do you hope to achieve by the end of the campaign?

The Google BrandLab uses three categories when choosing KPIs – awareness, consideration and action. The KPIs you choose will vary based on what you’re trying to achieve. Here’s an example of some of the outcomes you might want and the KPIs associated with them.

• Awareness: Percentage of conversations about the brand, increase in recall or recognition and number of unique views.
• Traffic: Percentage of new visitors to a site and of people who visit after clicking on a link in a video.
• Lead generation: Number of conversions, cost per lead on video channels versus non-video channels and overall conversion rate.
• Purchases: Number of purchases due to a link or a promo code shown in a video ad and the average amount spent.

Types of Video Ads

One reason marketers are eager to give video ads a try is they can choose from many different variations. In-stream ads are the most familiar. These appear before, during or after video content. YouTube relies on in-stream ads, for example. Some advertisements are interactive, encouraging a viewer to click a link or claim an offer.

Alternatively, non-linear ads play outside the main video, sometimes as an overlay. If a person clicks on one of these ads, the primary content they’re watching stops. Non-linear ads don’t connect to other content. If you don’t want to view it, you can keep scrolling.

You can also choose variations within the broad types, too. One possibility is an ad that plays inside a game. A video advertisement geared toward gamers is the rewarded ad. It incentivizes viewers with a game-related perk, such as an extra life, a health boost or a new tool, in exchange for watching a video. You could also invest in a native auto-play ad, which lives at the end of content, such as a blog post. It works especially well if the ad supports the content a person just consumed. If someone read an article about how to choose a coffee maker, a native auto-play ad might introduce a person to a new model of that appliance.

A relatively new option is a shoppable video ad. As you might guess from the name, shoppable ads try to encourage people to practice their purchasing power and buy things rather than just browsing for them. For example, once a viewer sees a video for a product, a link appears so that they can buy the item right away. Even better, the shopping part of the experience happens directly in whatever app the person is using. TikTok, a platform particularly beloved by teens, is reportedly testing shoppable ads by making them available to selected influencers.

The best video ads provide content that complements whatever viewers are doing online. In 2018, Amazon began testing a format called “Video in Search”. Advertisers using it could make their ads show up below the fold in search results. The videos had to be less than 90 seconds long and contain audio. Amazon intended for these ads to drive traffic to product pages, an Amazon Store or a custom landing page. The company only showed them to people visiting Amazon on an iPhone or iPad.

More advanced video ad types like native video give the viewer a chance to opt in and take control of the viewing experience. This format is gaining ground as it proves its effectiveness way beyond standard instream video. We’re talking significantly better results for completion rates and dwell time.

Pros

• It costs less. The online platform is cheaper than the traditional medium. Why? Because it is boundless. Gone are the days when marketers had to budget its talent and creative scripts, production team and air time slots in order to launch a campaign. Brands can share their values and identity through a series of advertisements and still save a pretty penny at the end of the whole shebang.
• Results come in real-time. The measurement of a successful marketing campaign lies in the number of feedback and sales it sees. Brands can track the behaviour of its ad on a minute to minute basis, down to the location of the viewers. Of course, online platforms also encourage consumer engagement, which provides brands with real-time feedback in which they can take action immediately.
• Not limited to one format. The digital universe is limitless, as long as the codes are in your favour. Marketers and agencies can design and build ads in rich media formats which include URL link, expandable banners, and call-to-action via hashtags or click-through. Of course, there are also standard ads, which are fail proof and surprisingly more effective in driving click-through. Less is more.
• Always with the consumer and available on multi-screen. Let’s face it, online video is available in your back pocket, on your desktop and will be disrupting your upcoming romantic Valentine’s Day dinner. The platform is everywhere there’s a screen. What more could a marketer ask for in terms of exposure?
•  Global domination. With online video, a campaign is no longer limited to local engagement, but global exposure. The web is an incredible tool that reaches every crevice of the world, except the countries with no broadband penetration or enforced bans. The wish of a marketer is to create content that is worty of viral status.

Cons

• You can’t force viewership. Well, if someone has already seen it once, chances are they wouldn’t want to sit through it again; unless that is your ad is so amazingly creative and interesting that viewers will loop that 3-15 minutes 47 times everyday. The only thing you can hope for is critical mass (sharing). And admit it, you all love that “Skip ad” option and get sort of annoyed when you have to wait 5 seconds to do so.
• Wrong slot, ouch! Online video ads can be placed in the wrong slot, at the wrong time. For example, a working professional is not going to be browsing through the web at peak working hours; likewise, students when school is in session. Booking the right slot is probably more elusive than a solving a mystery murder case.
• Well, that was awkward. Brands generally prefer not to appear on content that is adverse or inappropriate. Unfortunately, there’s no way to regulate or prevent that from occurring.
• There’s not enough data to justify the ad space. There is no proper measurement for reach. The web’s reach is rather vast, but that vastness also means limited information on viewers and, ultimately, consumers. There is no way of tracing the effectiveness of online video ads to profit. If marketers can’t justify its investment and support it with figures, how would controllers and financial chiefs be assured the budget was a smart move?