Audience Targeted Premium Video Ad Views Are on the Rise

October 25, 2019

Although audience targeted ad views still only account for a small portion of all premium video ad views, their share is climbing. In fact, growth in audience-targeted video ad views in Q2 2019 was more than triple the rate of content-targeted video ad views, per a new report [download page] from FreeWheel.

Audience targeted ads, defined by FreeWheel as “those that use unique identifiers to deliver ads to specific devices, households or users,” accounted for 7% share of total ad views in the US during Q2 2019. The number of audience-targeted ad views was up by 82% year-over-year, compared to the 23% y-o-y growth for content targeted ad views.

This follows along with previous research Blockgraph (a division of FreeWheel) that highlights the steady growth of audience-based and data-enabled TV advertising over the past year and into 2020. As such, Kantar reports that 52% of marketers across the globe expect to see their budget for advanced TV to increase next year.

The Entertainment and Media industry plus the Automotive sector both over-indexed in the use of audience targeted campaigns. A total of 20% and 17%, respectively, of their campaigns were reportedly audience targeted. Overall, almost two-thirds (62%) of audience targeted campaigns were behavioral (audience targeted on advanced segments such as auto intenders or sports enthusiasts) in nature. The remaining 38% of audience targeted ads focused on demographics (based on age and gender).

Video Views and Ad Views Up

Total video ad views in the US continued to climb in Q2, up by 27% y-o-y, with premium video views also seeing double-digit growth (13%) in the same period.

Full-episode content (more than 5 minutes) accounted for the majority (55%) of total ad views in Q2 2019, with the number of views of this content up by 19% y-o-y. However, growth rates continued to be highest for live video, with views up 44% year-over-year to account for 38% of all ad views during the quarter. The report does note that this growth in live content ad views is comparatively less than the 90% growth it experienced in Q2 2018.

Much like Q1 2019, connected TV (CTV) remains the dominant device for premium video viewing, accounting for 55% of all ad views in Q2 2019, compared to mobile (17%), set-top boxes VOD (14%) and desktop (14%). Half of all ad views on CTV were during the full-episode format, with live accounting for another 47%.

While 81% of premium video ad views were booked through direct deals during Q2, the number of video ad views served via programmatic channels grew twice as fast (45% vs 23%).

The full report, including data for video ad views in Europe, can be downloaded here.

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