What We Can Learn From the Past Year's Video Advertising

BY Rachel Cagle
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Video advertising is on the rise. FreeWheel’s Q2 2017 Video Monetization Report found that, within just this past year, video ad views have shot up 17% and video starts increased by 26 percent.

Here’s how the content formats through which video ads were viewed were divided up in the second quarter of 2017:

  • Full-​Episodes (5+ minutes): 61% of total ad views
  • Live: 21%
  • Clips (0–5 minutes): 18%

Year-​over-​year, the two content formats that are linked to traditional television (Full-​Episodes and Live) have also shown a significant amount of growth. Live’s ad views increased by an impressive 40% year-​over-​year. 73% of these views occurred during sports content, 17% during the news, and 10% during entertainment. Full-​Episodes’ year-​over-​year growth reached 17%, with 93% of its views coming from entertainment, 5% from sports, and 2% from the news.

Clips was the only format that decreased year-​over-​year, but it only dropped by 2 percent. This format’s ad views were pretty evenly divided among the content genres with sports on top at 39% and news and entertainment following close behind at 36% and 25%, respectively. FreeWheel encourages video advertisers not to give up on Clips. The company points out that Clips are still useful when shared through social media.

So, what are ad viewing’s most popular devices per content format? Here are the percentages of each device’s ad views per content format:

Full-​Episodes Live Clips
·      Set-​Top-​Box VOD: 100% ·      Set-​Top-​Box VOD: 0% ·      Set-​Top-​Box VOD: 0%
·      OTT Device: 74% ·      OTT Device: 21% ·      OTT Device: 5%
·      Smartphone: 49% ·      Smartphone: 16% ·      Smartphone: 35%
·      Tablet: 68% ·      Tablet: 12% ·      Tablet: 20%
·      Desktop/​Laptop: 35% ·      Desktop/​Laptop: 26% ·      Desktop/​Laptop: 39%

Not surprisingly, traditional TV linked content format was more popular among stationary devices while Clips was more successful on mobile devices.

No matter which format your clients prefer to place their video ads in, you now know the most effective devices to position the ads for. Not only that, you can reassure your clients that video advertising is an efficient advertising medium that is clearly connecting with consumers.


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