US advertisers are putting their much of their money behind video, with national advertisers allocating more than half of their advertising spend towards the format in the first quarter of 2019. This rise in investment comes as total premium video ad views in the US grew by 20% in Q1 2019, with live content format accounting for a bigger portion of premium video ad views, per new quarterly data [download page] from FreeWheel.
Q1 2019 saw premium ad views on live content increase 45% year-on-year (y-o-y), with more than one-third (36%) of US premium video ad views coming during live content. While still well behind the full-episodes format, which garnered 57% of premium video ad views in the US, live content has taken a bigger share of video ad views than a year earlier.
CTV and Mobile Apps Dominate Video Ad Views
As the device type with 45% share of all ad views, connected TV (CTV) is the dominant platform for premium video. Recent research by Extreme Reach echoes these findings, with its data revealing that CTV now accounts for nearly half (49%) of all ad impressions. The device continues to grow in advertising stature, seeing 44% y-o-y growth in ad views during Q1 2019.
Mobile ranks second for ad views by device, accounting for 24% of all ad views in the US. Interestingly, mobile apps account for a full 93% of those premium video ads viewed on mobile, compared to the 7% on mobile web.
CTV and mobile apps are also the two devices where live content is most prominent. Two-fifths (41%) of premium ad views on mobile apps are on live content, while 39% of ad views on CTV are on live content.
Research from Blockgraph (a division of FreeWheel) noted that data-enabled and audience-based advertising are increasing in use among TV advertisers. Alongside that finding, these most recent figures from FreeWheel reveal that audience targeted advertising campaigns for premium digital video have increased by 48% y-o-y.
About the Data: Findings are based on the usage of professional, rights-managed video content from census-level advertising data collected through the FreeWheel platform.
