CHICAGO: Agencies are increasingly confident in the return on investment to be gained from online video and are devoting more focus to this area, new research has shown.
A third quarter survey of advertising agencies conducted by STRATA, a supplier of media buying and selling software, found that 71% reported more interest in that medium compared to a year ago, the largest increase in the history of the survey.
Almost half (45%) said they were confident they were getting good value in recent online video ad purchases, up 51% on the same time last year. At the same time the proportion of agencies still unsure of online video advertising value had dropped by around a quarter over the year to 36%.
A major contributing factor to this surge in conviction is better targeting: 55% said their online video ads reached their intended targets most of the time, up 38% from a year ago.
At the same time, agencies have been exploring new ways to increase the reach of video ad buys through video aggregators and ad networks. Just over half (52%) reported that accessing these was now ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to them, a jump of over 54% from the second quarter.
On a similar point, three quarters (76%) of agencies said it was ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to extend their buys into premium online video from cable/broadcast networks, a 32% increase from a year ago.
« As confidence in online video ROI grows, agency appetite and acceptance of different forms of digital video will only rise, » said J.D. Miller, director at STRATA.
« We are seeing agencies increasing their focus on automation tools including programmatic, to find the right inventory, the right audience at the right time. »
On the last point, the survey found 40% of agencies were making at least 20% of their buys programmatically.
This was across a range of ad types, including mobile (29% of agencies), streaming video (22%), and streaming audio (24%).
But many agencies still have worries over the quality of inventory (60%) and the transparency of inventory sources (45%).
Data sourced from STRATA; additional content by Warc staff