Online Video Advertising: Hit or Miss
Finally, he says, when running in-stream banner ads, you want the ad to run silently with user-initiated audio and a Stop button so viewers can stop the video if they wish.
Long-Form is OK for Marketing Ads
One clear exception to all of these rules about brevity is when you run longer-form marketing ads. In this case, you may still want to break the video into digestible chunks, but the length can be longer than a straight advertisement might be. Reinstein explains these are message ads, aimed more at a B2B than a consumer audience. These ads may display in an in-stream banner on a media site like The Wall Street Journal. The advertisers run a teaser loop to draw the user in, but it’s entirely up to the user to watch or not. "The user has to make a choice, whether it’s our technology or anybody else’s. The user can see the looping video, but then they have to click on the banner ad to keep watching," he says.
What’s more, he says, when viewers click the banner, it’s important that they stay put on the site they originally arrived at because they wanted to view information on that media site. "When I click that banner it’s crucially important that I know I’m going to watch the video in this space, that I’m not going to be pulled out and have my page refreshed and now end up on some other vendor site or delivery site that I didn’t come here intending to see. We’ve found there is a tremendous lift to response rates when viewers find out they can watch without leaving the [site]," Reinstein says.
Not everyone agrees, however, that it’s crucial to keep the eyeballs of the viewer on the original site. In fact, Ben Crain, VP of Media at Rapt, thinks you have to have confidence in your content and that viewers will come back. "That’s been a conundrum from day one. Within any ad, you can click through and go to the marketer site. Consumers are showing up for content and if the content is good enough, even if they leave momentarily, they will come back and the publisher needs to trust that’s the case. If it’s not the case, they have more fundamental problems than clicking through the ad," Crain says.
Mix it Up
When viewers go to a site and watch video ads, nothing turns them off faster than seeing the same ads over and over. That’s why it’s important to have a good ad-rotation going, and at the same time, don’t overwhelm the viewer with too many ads when the fact is they came to see your content.
Brightcove’s Adam Berry says ad-rotation is an absolute necessity to keep viewers from getting frustrated with the experience, a bad situation for all concerned. "If you don’t have good creative rotation, you drive your viewers crazy," he says. "If a viewer comes to your site and they are going to watch, say, 15 video clips over the course of multiple visits, if you are only running two creatives and they are forced to watch one creative multiple times, that frequency gets too high, and the viewers start to check out." In order to alleviate this, Berry says, you need to develop a strategy for frequency-capping and creative rotation.
It’s not just the number of creatives involved, though; it also has to do with how often you serve ads to visitors. Even if you have a good rotation, if you are serving them up before every piece of content, you will still annoy the viewer. Glickman says publishers must avoid saturating a site with ads. "Certain sites are notorious for serving an ad before every piece of content," he says. Publishers are trying to make money, Glickman says, but they will lose viewers if they don’t do it the right way.
Final Word
If you haven’t begun thinking about online video advertising, it’s time to start. Research shows that viewers are not only willing to watch online video ads, they are likely to take action when they do. Users who are used to watching these types of ads on TV understand that to view high-quality content, the publisher has to make money, and that means ads. But as with any advertising medium, there is a right way to do things and it’s important that you follow some of the guidelines discussed in this article to be certain your ad has the impact you want without alienating the audience you are trying to impress.
Sidebar: What Could the Future Bring?
Even while online video ads continue to grow, it’s an area that’s so new that it is continuing to change and develop. We asked the experts what’s in store for online video ads.
David Hallerman, Analyst, eMarketer
Hallerman sees technology on the horizon that will run ad content over the video in the corner, not unlike a ticker or VH1 Pop-Up Video content. He says these types of ads could display for around 15 seconds or until someone clicks to see more. What he likes about this idea is that it doesn’t interrupt the viewer experience of watching the desired content and on some level calls the viewer to pay attention.
Ben Crain, VP of Media, Rapt
Crain sees the industry continuing to grow steadily, but struggling in the coming months to overcome growing pains and understand how to monetize video. He wants to see advertisers come up with something more creative than the standard 30-second spot that has been running on television all these years, and he expects to see more content that caters to the online environment.
Adam Berry, VP of Marketing, Brightcove
Berry thinks that sponsorship could come to the forefront, especially for advertisers looking for brand recognition rather than direct-sales results. This could include product placement or branding integrated into the page where the content plays. He also sees a role for viral marketing sites—for example, releasing your ad on YouTube, an increasingly common practice. There may also be more branded content such as marketing a travel show sponsored by a cruise line.