How to Serve the Right Video Ad to the Right Viewer

Online video offers advertisement targeting beyond what broadcast networks could ever image. Leading that movement is Luke McDonough, co-founder and CEO of Real Gravity. McDonough sat down for a red carpet interview at the recent Streaming Media East conference in New York City to explain what's now possible for advertisers.

It's not just enough to match the ad to the content, he says. Now it's possible to match the ad to the viewer's level of interest.

"What really matters in video is getting context right, so are you serving the right video for that particular page for that particular user," says McDonough. "Now, the intuitive obvious one is it's a golf site so you're running golf video. But typically sites have these Venn diagram subsets of users where there's total addicts who come everyday to this site and they come and they watch a ton of stuff. Then there's this other group that comes but they usually only shop. And most sites know what their types are, and it may actually be, even on a specific subject on a particular article page, that there's a different video that will appeal to that particular user subset."

Through innovations in online video advertising, brands can stream sequential ads across a network of sites, so that viewers see a sequence of ads in the right order. Click-through rates rise when the viewer is well-matched with the ad.

"If you can get, obviously, behavioral data, but then also site data and session history about the users of a site, you can get very good at matching which particular video you should run for that user on that page right then," McDonough says.

To view the entire interview, watch the video below.