Today’s consumer is watching video on screens of all sizes – on desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, and let’s not forget, on the big screen in their living room. Advertisers want to be where their target consumers are and they’re watching on connected screens. In fact, according to Pew Research, more than half of U.S. Internet users watch online video every day. By 2017, online video will account for 74% of all online traffic! (source: KPCB)

This shift in viewing habits dates back to around five years ago when the average time consumers spent consuming mobile video suddenly doubled on mobile phones and tripled on tablets. This growth has continued, according to eMarketer, at a rate of about 10% each year. Conversely, over this same period, the amount of time adults spend each day with traditional TV, radio and print has been on the decline.

This change in consumer behavior is driving demand for programmatic video. There just aren’t enough stats to illustrate how real the market is for digital video ads. Some of our favorites:

• Digital video advertising spend will quadruple from $6.8 billion in 2015 to $28 billion in 2020. (eMarketer)
• Mobile video ads are the fastest growing digital advertising segment over the next five years. (BI Intelligence)
• Mobile video ad revenue will grow from $3.5 billion in 2015 to $13.3 billion in 2020, representing a 30% compound annual growth rate. (PwC)
• Programmatic video is seeing broad adoption and steady growth, accounting for 41% of all digital video dollar spent, representing 58% growth from over the last two years. (IAB)

WHY THE PUSH?

Beyond the obvious desire to follow audiences where they go, programmatic video offers other compelling benefits as part of a strategic marketing mix. For example, consider creating a programmatic video audience to match your TV audience. Leverage your TV budgets and creative assets and extend your reach online using look-alikes through search, keyword contextual, and whitelist targeting tactics.

If you don’t have the assets for TV, programmatic video ads cost substantially less to produce than television and provide much higher levels of targeting. And unlike television, which plays an important role of awareness but largely goes unmeasured, online ads can positively impact awareness and also come with video interaction reports that demonstrate true measurement of viewership. As is true of all Simpli.fi ad formats, we offer complete transparent reporting for our video ads that give more insight than CTR or CPA, allowing you to show evidence of success including:

• Number of impressions served
• Number of clicks
• Sites where the ad was served
• Number of users who watched 25%, 50%, 75%, or the complete ad
• Number of users who paused or restarted the video
• Number of users who muted or unmuted the video
• Number of users who watched the ad in full screen

Types of Programmatic Video Ads

Need another reason to love video? They are normally displayed front and center. Simpli.fi supports all kinds of targeted video ads and can deliver across in-app, mobile web, and desktop browser inventory types.

• Pre-Roll
  — Video ads that play before free content on sites like Yahoo!, The Weather Channel and many others.

• Mid-Roll
  — Video ads that play in the middle of a video. Works well with longer videos, like television episodes.

• Post-Roll
  — Video ads that appear at the end of online video content.

• Non-Skippable
  — Video ads 15 seconds or less. Viewed before continuing to free video content.

• Skippable
  — Video ads longer than 15 seconds with the option to skip after five seconds.

• In-Banner
  — Video ads converted to run in standard display banner spaces.

• Interstitial
  — Ads that play in-app, often between rounds or levels of a game.

IT’S NOT JUST FOR LARGE NATIONAL ADVERTISERS

Advertisers who already have video assets are obviously in a good position to take advantage of this shift in media consumption. But both large and small businesses are starting to understand that they need video to stay competitive. An Animoto survey of small/medium sized business owners revealed that 62.6% plan to increase their video spend in the next year.

So the question becomes: is your programmatic partner ready to help you add video to your display, mobile and social mix? Most, if not all, can work with video assets. But for many businesses today, reaching the right buyer at the right time with the right message is still a challenge. At Simpli.fi, it’s something we do every day for every client. We apply our platform’s highly-targeted tactics, custom audiences with pinpoint precision, real-time optimization and the power of unstructured data to help our clients maximize reach and relevancy.

Give us a ring or reach out to us at hi@simpli.fi and we’ll talk about how we can apply a highly targeted methodology to support your video programs.