We spoke with several industry leaders to share their insights on trends that we can expect to see in 2018. This is what they had to say.
Programmatic moves to mobile video
Programmatic spend for mobile continues to grow. Mobile publishers, app developers and buyers are all looking for ways to maximize ROI in this eco-system. According to Zenith Media, mobile is a key driver in programmatic video growth and global mobile video ad spend is predicted to reach $22B in 2018.
As mobile video continues to dominate the trend reports, we spoke with Sheryl Deija, Chief Strategy Officer, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and asked her for her views on the 2018 mobile market:
“Mobile video will become more personalized through dynamic, data driven strategies driving marketers to build a creative strategy that addresses a more personalized experience.” Touching on the impact of native mobile video she said “serving mobile video in content that is relevant to the product category has a strong impact on performance of the placement, improving efficiency up to 90% (i.e. impact on brand consideration per $ spent).”
In-app video advertising expected to grow substantially
Within the mobile in-app market, new revenue generation models are leaning to in-app advertising. In-app mobile ad spend has been showing promising growth and is expected to outpace mobile web nearly 3-to-1 this year.
ComScore research shows mobile users spend 88% of time in-app, which far outpaces the time spent in mobile browsers.
As in-app monetization continues to captivate the mobile market, Cedato VP Products, Yair Miranda forecasts: “In 2018 we expect in-app video advertising will continue to grow. More companies are navigating to in-app video advertising as a potential for higher engagement and improved ROI. Apps offer a new world of opportunities for mobile programmatic video, and we anticipate seeing accelerated programmatic video transactions in the in-app space.”
Video header bidding becomes integral part of the video stack
We asked leading media consulting firm Prohaska Consulting for their take on where video header bidding is going:
“We anticipate that 2018 will mark the year header bidding starts to take hold for programmatic video as it did for display in 2016,” said Michael Stoackel, VP, Global Tech Strategy & Publisher Operations, Prohaska Consulting.
In video as always, new technologies require longer adjustment processes to account for video’s complex requirements. Nevertheless, publishers have begun to report a lift in ad rates of at least 20 per cent after deploying video header bidding.
“This year we began to see growing acceptance of video header bidding. In 2018 we anticipate a steady increase in video header bidding adoption and transactions as the industry pivots to unified yield optimization. To truly realize the value of video header bidding, reaching higher fill rates, minimizing playback errors, and seeing a significant lift in monetization, a hybrid technology is required, optimizing on both client and server sides.” said Cedato CMO/BDO, Dvir Doron.
Greater emphasis on shorter, cleaner transactions between buyer and seller
Multiple technology solutions emerged over the last year, looking to optimize the video supply path, mitigate invalid traffic and fraud and enable buyers and sellers to shorten the transaction path. Video optimization technologies such as header bidding did wonders to increase value and publisher margins, and at the same time opened the door to more middlemen. VPAID was recently recognized by the IAB as a culprit for lost revenue. There are more examples than we’d like to admit. 2017 saw an influx of new tools to create a more direct and efficient pipeline between publishers and buyers. Video Supply Path Optimization is one example that reduces duplicative inventory and Queries Per Second (QPS) which results in an increase in transparency and higher bid rates.
“Publishers have a lot to gain from cleaner pipes along the entire value chain. A new breed of video optimization technologies is introducing more transparency, and a more direct transaction environment that enables more control and filters out the unwanted noise. New technologies encourage buyers to increase their trust in the sell side and transact directly. We are expecting to see more solutions emerge as publishers increase their own programmatic operations “ said Ron Dick, CEO, Cedato.
Ad-tech turns to CTV for enhanced video ad results
Increasingly consumers are streaming and viewing high quality video ads within online TV. In 2018 we anticipate seeing significant growth in Connected TV (CTV) based video advertising. CTV is not new, but demand for the channel is rising. Agencies believe the popular 15 and 30 second videos, running in a CTV environment, can achieve an impressive 90 per cent completion rate. We turned to eMarketer Principal Analyst Paul Verna to hear his take on the growing demand:
“We see 2018 as a year in which momentum will build for connected TV advertising. There will still be barriers to widespread implementation, including device and platform fragmentation, lack of scale, and other business and workflow issues. However, as ad buyers and content platforms continue to work through these challenges, we will see more marketers using connected TV as an extension of both the digital and traditional advertising spaces.”
To learn more about up and coming trends and predictions in the video advertising space visit our blog – video perspectives.