'Net Features : video, video advertising

Video Ad Spending Soars

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 20:42:00 GMT

Web marketers are likely putting the finsihing touches on their plans for 2013 right now; here's to hoping they haven't left video advertising out of their promotional mix.

A new report from Adap.tv indicates that online video ad spend rose 27 percent in 2012 and is expected to grow another 20 percent in 2013. If spending increases in one channel, it has to go down in another of course and broadcast TV, Cable, Print and Direct response channels all suffered.

Below is a video of Adap.tv President Toby Garbiner discussing the report, but here are two additional highlights from the research study that caught our attention:

- Real-time bidding via DSP's, and interest in private exchanges tripled in Q3
- Fill-rates for publishers are up an average of 19 percent over last year.
- Available inventory is up 67 percent from 2011
- CPMs are up an average of 12 percent from 2011

Watch live streaming video from digiday at livestream.com

Video Ads Come to LinkedIn

Allison Howen — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 15:45:00 GMT

There is a whole new way for advertisers to reach their prospects through LinkedIn.

This is because the professional social network has announced that the company’s self-serve platform, LinkedIn Ads, now allows advertisers to use videos to promote their brands. The platform also works with YouTube, which means that brands can leverage videos from their existing YouTube presence to promote their brand on LinkedIn.

According to a LinkedIn blog post, the video ads will appear in 300x250 units across the social network and will compete for impressions in the same way that the site's traditional text and image ad formats do. Furthermore, when a LinkedIn user is engaged with a video ad, the video will take over the entire ad unit and play for 30 seconds. After the video’s completion, users have the ability to click through to the advertiser’s landing page or website.

Video Advertising Gets Social

Michael Garrity — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:45:00 GMT

Online video is hot. Social media has mostly taken over the world. So, why haven't these two highly popular advertising avenues been married yet? (My guess is fear of commitment.)

Slowly, but surely, it's starting to happen. Recently, video advertising solution provider Innovid announced major enhancements to inRoll Studio that will allow users to to create interactive video ads that offer social media and microsite functionality. These ad units will be able to quickly launch on all sites and devices almost effortlessly.

The inRoll platform allows advertisers to add interactive elements to pre-roll video ads to improve interactivity (obviously), increase awareness, foster brand engagement and introduce better tracking and targeting capabilities into the videos. This new update will help make inRoll enhancements more social, which is never a bad thing on today's Web.

Innovid is even helping to tailor specific features to some of the Web's most popular social networks to help customers get the most out of their ads. For instance, they can include actions to drive users to their Facebook profile pages by encouraging them to "like" the pages with interactive elements over the pre-roll.

Other social network-specific options include the ability to display real-time Twitter feeds over their pre-roll, let users tweet and retweet the content from the pre-roll, add streaming YouTube videos, include "like," "subscribe" and "share" functionalities for YouTube and leverage a variety of other social media channels (Digg, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest) with a "Share This" feature to let users share marketer information.

According to an Innovid press release, advertisers using inRoll Studio are seeing an average 500 percent CTR increase over their banner ads.

The Video Race: Who’s Winning?

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:36:00 GMT

Comscore today released data from its Video Metrix service showing that U.S. Internet users watched an average of 13.6 hours of online video content in February 2011, engaging in more than 5.0 billion viewing sessions.

As you might imagine, when it comes to the top online video properties by video content views, the usual suspects appear. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in February with 141.1 million unique viewers. Microsoft Sites captured the #2 ranking (up from #7) with 48.8 million viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 46.7 million viewers. Facebook.com came in fourth with nearly 46.7 million viewers, while VEVO ranked fifth with 45.9 million viewers. Google Sites had the highest number of viewing sessions with 1.8 billion, and average time spent per viewer at 262 minutes, or 4.4 hours.

For those struggling with video content, video advertising is coming on strong. In fact, Video ads accounted for 12.4 percent of all videos viewed and 1.2 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

According to Comscore, Americans viewed 3.8 billion video ads in February. Hulu generated the highest number of video ad impressions at more than 1.1 billion. Tremor Media Video Network ranked second overall (and highest among video ad networks) with 548.3 million ad views, followed by ADAP.TV (396 million) and SpotXchange Video Ad Network (343 million). Time spent watching videos ads totaled 1.7 billion minutes during the month, with Hulu delivering the highest duration of video ads at 454 million minutes. Video ads reached 42 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 30 times during the month. Hulu also delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 48 over the course of the month.

Online Video Advertising Entering a Golden Age

Mike Phillips — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:00:00 GMT

It appears that online video advertising is no longer in the realm of "experimental media buys" but has fully entered the mainstream. And major profits are to be had.

According to media research firm Borrell Associates, streaming video advertising is set to grow more than 60 percent -- reaching $5.6 billion next year. And this growth is not limited to big agencies or businesses with massive budgets. According to Borrell, two of every five video ad dollars spent will come from local advertisers.

A separate report earlier this year from eMarketer predicted $1.5 billion in online video ad spend for 2010, and $5 billion by 2014 -- behind Borrell's predictions but still showing tremendous growth. While the numbers might not match up, one thing is clear -- online video advertising is hitting its stride.

Another strong indication? Hulu's CEO, Jason Kilar, told Bloomberg that ad revenue had already topped $100 million this year for the streaming video site. That's ahead of a rumored IPO for Hulu, which is hearing estimates of $2 billion or more. The last video site to garner over $1 billion was YouTube when it was purchased by Google in 2006. And we all know how that has turned out.

This is good news for every Web business. As online video consumption has risen, so has the prominence of streaming advertisements. As such, consumers have become quite accustomed to (and accepting of) these ads and more than willing to sit through 15 or 30 seconds to get the content they want. What's more, the explosion of smartphones, launch of the iPad and the pending influx of more tablet devices set to hit the market in mere months gives users even more opportunity to watch online video away from the confinements of a desktop computer. In fact, in a recent survey of 31,000 consumers conducted by Texterity and audited by BPA, of those who own iPads, a full 72 percent said they watch video on the iPad.

The takeaway here is that video is not a luxury for online businesses -- it has quickly become an integral part of the publishing and advertising landscape. Video is easy to create and distribute, and there is real opportunity to monetize on these videos. Consumers are watching video at a record pace, too -- a real opportunity to advertise your business to an active, engaged and captive audience.

Want to get involved in online video advertising? Check out BrightRoll, SpotXchange, VideoEgg and, of course, advertising on YouTube.

Video Out of Control (In a Good Way) in the U.K.

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:19:00 GMT

ComScore's Video Metric Service released data indicating that the total number of videos viewed online in the U.K. in April 2009 grew 47 percent versus year ago to 4.7 billion videos.

The report also found that 21.8 million U.K. Internet users viewed a total of 971 million online display ads on multimedia sites during the month, based on data from comScore Ad Metrix, a recently introduced service in the U.K. providing competitive intelligence on online display advertising.

So what are the top U.K. online video properties based on videos viewed? YouTube of course dominated, and experienced a 58% growth in views. Other pure play properties include Megavideo.com, dailymotion.com and Facebook.com.

"With nearly five billion videos viewed in the U.K. in April, online video is a powerful and growing vehicle for online advertising placement,” said Mike Read, SVP and managing director, comScore Europe. “The online video market currently relies heavily on display ads for monetization, and in the coming months and years we can expect that video ads will play an even more prominent role. Despite the market’s overwhelming size and audience at this phase of the growth curve, it is also clear that we’re still in the early stages of advertising optimization and effectiveness in this increasingly important entertainment channel.”

Try Veeple (Clickable Video) People

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:41:00 GMT

The next generation of online video has arrived, people -- and it goes by the name of Veeple.

Veeple offers “VaaS” (Video as a Service), offering web publishers with a software tool that makes anything within a video clickable. Website publishers essentially can add in-stream text, web page links, graphics, product images and thought bubbles to enhance and monetize videos in an engaging, yet non-intrusive manner.

With Veeple, any video can be edited for interactivity. Enriching video content in this manner will be most interesting to marketers and affiliates as they will be able to embed links and send users directly to whatever site they choose.

Veeple’s Flash-based technology looks simple to use and includes advanced analytics to monitor interactive spots, ad placements and viewer behaviors. VaaS service is free to try through March 2009. Veeple users will be paying 0.002 cents per view thereafter.

Here's a clip from Wayne's World using Veeple. Within the "product placement" scene, the Doritos bag was hyperlinked to Doritos.com.
See it live in the Veeple showroom.

Video SEO (VSEO) On The Move

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:13:00 GMT

Location-based SEO mavens Where 2 Get It announced a partnership with online video ad provider Mixpo that will allow clients to leverage video search engine optimization (VSEO). Mixpo will enable W2GI clients to create, deploy and optimize online videos ads for the purpose of generating additional organic traffic.

Video produced by a client would be featured on a local landing page and would be optimized for search (one could assume through metadata) and depending on the quality of said video, help drive conversions. Videos can be further customized to provide a location tag directing consumer to a specific local business location. Check out this excellent example of this on-page video SEO in action for Office Depot.

"We look forward to working with Where 2 Get It to enhance the effectiveness of their local search engine optimization solutions by leveraging the power of online video advertisements," said Anupam Gupta, president & CEO, Mixpo. "The Mixpo video ad platform is focused on driving direct response for locally focused businesses and we believe this fits in very well with Where 2 Get It's emphasis on addressing local marketplaces."

Adding video to landing pages is an exceptional way to increase conversions and add a little movement to web pages. If you’re considering producing videos for the purpose of promoting your website and its products and services, check out this excellent YouTube Keyword Research Tool from ReelSEO.