Some Video Impressions Are More Equal Than Others
At its best, advertising in online video lets marketers present their most engaging creative to attentive consumers. That’s why pre-roll and other in-stream video advertising sells for substantially higher CPMs than banner ads (which a user may not even notice, let alone click on). In the past few weeks, though, there has been quite a bit of discussion about the risks that advertisers face when buying online video inventory, particularly about the danger of ads that run in videos located “below the fold” on webpages or ads associated with content that starts playback without requiring any user initiation.
These days consumers can find video running on TV network websites, embedded on blogs and social network profiles, and even on mobile phones. This explosion of content syndication has been wonderful for consumers, letting them watch their favorite movies and shows wherever and whenever they want to. Unfortunately limitless choice for consumers has led to confusion and uncertainty for marketers.
Now that even the major broadcast networks are syndicating their prime time shows across multiple websites and allowing users to embed them anywhere they choose, everyone working in online video needs to have a firm grasp of the different contexts that video can appear in, and the relative value of any resulting advertising impressions.
To that end, we’ve put together a whitepaper that provides concrete definitions for many of the terms that people use to describe video syndication and lays out some of the steps we’re taking to ensure that advertisers only pay for video impressions when a real person actually watches a video on purpose. We’d love your feedback.