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Archive for January, 2010

19 January 2010

Turn your Video Ads into Interactive Apps – and Supercharge Clicks and Conversion

Online video ads already offer some of the highest engagement metrics around; people simply prefer to watch an ad or marketing message than to read it. But if you really want to increase the power of your marketing videos, consider turning your videos into interactive apps. By adding custom Flash or HTML applets directly within video ads, marketers can now allow viewers to interact with the ad without ever leaving the player.  

Whether you add interactive elements to in-stream or in-banner video ads, these “souped up” ads will engage viewers in a way far beyond traditional video ads, which are more like TV commercials online than true interactive video experiences. Unlike the passive medium of video-only ads, interactive video ads enable advertisers to directly engage their customers. Interactive video ads also instantly measure viewers’ responses by tracking their real-time interactions, instead of just measuring the old standards of views, clickthrough, and conversion. 

For viewers, the ads deliver immediacy of interaction: instead of having to click through to a website, users can often get all the information they need directly from the interactive ad. And when you make it easy for potential customers to get the information they need, they are much more likely to follow through on a purchase.

But what type of interactive elements should you add, and how? The answer to the first part of the question is simple: any type you want. The sky’s the limit as to the type of applets you can add to your video ad. Some ideas include:

  • Taking a virtual house tour after seeing an ad for new homes for sale;
  • Seeing a Flash tour of a car interior and requesting a test-drive;
  • Displaying a map to find the closest store location;
  • Sharing the video with a friend and adding your own commentary;
  • Showing a series of video clips for a concert tour;
  • Participating in a trivia contest or quiz to win a discount;
  • Requesting a quote for an insurance policy or home loan

Here is a great example of a video ad that uses custom interactive elements.

You can add these app-style ads to your marketing mix by using a service like Jivox. With Jivox’s custom interactive element feature, you simply develop a small applet in Java or Flash, and then click to add it to the video ad.

By adding custom interactive elements to video ads, companies can change their ads from a passive to an active medium, boosting direct response, social recommendations, and immediate product discovery via the video advertising channel. The end result is a better-informed, more engaged customer, improved ad performance, and, ultimately, higher ROI on video ad campaigns.

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18 January 2010

The State of the Online Video Ad Market

There have been a lot of predictions lately about how much the online video market will grow in 2010 – and beyond. The consensus: a lot. One recent article was entitled Online Video Continues Ridiculous Trajectory, citing ComScore research that more than 168 Million U.S. viewers watched online video during September, accumulating nearly 26 Billion total views. (That seemed like a big number until the next month, when that number reached 31 billion.)

Undoubtedly, online video has reached critical mass – 84% of Internet users now watch video online and spend an average of 10 hours a month doing so. And advertisers are catching on: in December, eMarketer predicted that U.S. online video advertising market will be worth $5.2 billion by 2014, growing around 40% each year between 2009 and 2014.

The report states: “These extremely high growth rates are the result of video ads moving from the sidelines to center stage, becoming the main form of brand advertising in the digital space.” By contrast, paid search grew by just 2.2% in 2009, while classified ad spending declined by 30.2%.

While large brands are definitely getting into the swing of it, it’s the small and medium-sized business that are embracing video advertising most quickly. A recent study by Ad-ology Research found that 28% of small businesses are planning to increase spending on online video marketing in 2010 – 75% more than last year.

The increase in Jivox’s own client base in 2009 reflects this tremendous growth. Thousands of businesses now use Jivox to create, publish, and measure the effectiveness of online video advertising. The online video market is no longer an emerging sector; it is here to stay, and so are video advertisers of all sizes across all sectors.

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6 January 2010

Online Publishers: Now is the Time to Offer Video Ads

As we move into 2010, media sites are taking a look at the wreckage of the ad sales downturn during the last 18 months. Many online publishers are wondering what’s next: how can they generate new sources of ad revenue in 2010 and beyond to support quality content creation? The answer is to offer online video advertising. Publishers that haven’t yet launched online video inventory are missing out a huge revenue-generating opportunity. Consider these recent findings the point to the huge uptake in online video advertising:

  • Video impressions have outpaced Rich Media by 60% in the last three and a half years. – Eyeblaster, November 2009
  • Online video advertising spending in the US, the world’s biggest advertising market, will grow from $1.1 billion in 2009 to $4.1 billion in 2013 – eMarketer, October 2009
  •  The ROI on video ads is double that of non-video Rich Media ads. – Eyeblaster, November 2009

It’s no surprise that marketers are eager to buy video ads. Of the U.S. online video users who have watched an online video ad, 52% of those viewers took action after watching that ad – with 16% completing a purchase as a result of the ad, according to the Online Publisher’s Association. That’s a 16% conversion rate for video ads – compared to an average click-through rate of less than 1% and an average conversion rate of less than .5% for banners. Video’s high conversion rates mean you can charge much higher CPM rates for video inventory than you can for static display ads.

So if you’re an online publisher and you don’t already offer video advertising inventory, now is the time to jump on the bandwagon. Here are a few tips to get you on your way.

Step 1: Deploy an online video ad platform like Jivox that will enable you to incorporate online video advertising directly into your content website’s advertising inventory. The right video ad platform will allow you to create ads, define target audiences, launch video marketing campaigns for advertisers, and manage the process and results within an intuitive interface. You can either let your advertisers create ads themselves using a self-service online video ad creation service, or you can use the same tool to create ads for them. Make sure the platform also offers campaign management, billing, and reporting and analytics related to customer ad campaigns. Using the Jivox video ad platform, you can start selling and serving video ads within 24 hours.

Step 2: Promote your video ad program. Create some demo/spec spots for advertisers to demonstrate the power of video ads to your advertiser base. You may also want to provide a short fact-sheet on the service, pointing out key statistics such as the ones above that prove the effectiveness of online video advertising. Let advertisers know that creating video ads does not have to be difficult. They can either turn their existing TV spots into online video ads using a self-service video ad creation tool that leverages stock videos and enables the insert of calls-to-action and interactive elements; use existing still images and voice-overs to create the effect of a live-action video; or turn the creation of the ads over to your advertising team. Make sure to tell advertisers that their ads will contain actionable interactive elements (‘click here’, ‘buy now’, ‘click here for 20% off’, ‘share with a friend’ etc.) and will run in highly targeted placements based on ad subject matter, desired demographics, zip code, and other factors.

Step 3: Launch your video advertising program. Work with your video ad platform provider to do an analysis of appropriate CPM rates for video advertising based on actual ROI results of past campaigns and then have your ad sales team start selling to your existing advertisers. Assure your advertisers that the video ad program is entirely measurable and accountable – and that you’ll deliver regular reports on engagement metrics, clickthrough, conversion, and ROI, as well as provide strategic campaign optimization tips. Your main goal in offering video advertising should be to help your advertisers increase conversion; the higher CPMs that come from the program will be your reward for delivering high-quality video ad placements that actually work to drive sales.

Step 4: Publicize your results. If your video ad program is working to deliver great conversion and ROI to your advertisers, let everyone know! Put together a fact sheet on the program that shows the average clickthrough, conversion, and ROI metrics for the campaigns in your video advertising program. Advertisers want to know that video advertising is worth the cost – show them that it is.

The Jivox ad platform enables publishers to offer a variety of ad campaigns ranging such as in-banner, in-stream, and viral. The Jivox Video Ad platform can provide video ads in-banner or instream (pre-roll) and work with an existing ad server/trafficking system like Double-Click DART, Yahoo APT Aquantive, Atlas, and Zedo.   If you want to find out more about working with Jivox to immediately start offering video ads, check out our publisher page at http://www.jivox.com/whitelabel-overview.

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