Traditionally, marketers had to put up ads by negotiating with ad placement companies, buying posters, and going through an entire ordeal. But then came the advancements in AI and machine learning, and ads became digital.
In the US alone, several marketing forecasts show that budgets allocated to programmatic video will increase by more than 40 billion dollars by the end of this year.
This is no surprise as according to a video marketing survey, during the pandemic marketers created video content to inform and educate (38%), to advertise/sell products (20%), to offer support (emotional/technical) (18%), to tell relatable stories (16%), and to reposition their brand (8%).
1. What is programmatic video advertising?
Programmatic video advertising involves bots buying ad space based on preset requirements.
The advertiser has to choose the target audience, set a budget, and provide access to the ad, amongst other important data inputs.
After this, the system takes the user data while using real-time bidding to display the highest bid ad to the user who matches the target audience. All this takes place within nanoseconds.
2. Why should you use programmatic video advertising?
Helps reach a particular target audience
Before the advent of digital, you could buy ad space or a TV commercial slot to target your kind of audience.
But with programmatic video advertising and the online digital landscape, using behavioral data to find the ideal user and display the most suitable ad became a possibility.
You can obtain quantitative data reporting
Programmatic video advertising also shows the report and data of how successful your ad has been in attracting the audience and the ways you can improve it.
This quantitative data reporting gives a solid and foolproof evaluation of your video ads.
Let the algorithms do all the work
Another thing that programmatic video advertising has made easier is making connections and taking decisions on its own.
There is no need to directly contact the sales/marketing team or any digital advertising platforms.
Just feed the system enough info and let the algorithms do all the work for you.
Promote your ad on multiple channels
Unlike putting up posters or billboards or even taking up TV slots, programmatic advertising is multi-channeled.
Since this type of advertising relies solely on the data input, the ad can reach across channels and be displayed on mobile devices, computers, or even TV (yes, programmatic TV may soon become a reality).
Easy to update your campaigns
With programmatic video ads, you can stop worrying about your published ad as if it was carved in stone.
Since you have complete control over the input you give the program, you can make changes easily and directly. Whether it’s updating the demographics of your target audience or anything else.
3. Cautionary tales
Chances of online fraud
With all the benefits of programmatic video advertising, the risk of working with an online medium still persists.
The bots can be used to artificially drive up the bid price to fool people to spend more.
Misreported data metrics
When you’re working with third-party apps, there is a risk of getting misreported results.
So, you need to be careful about how the system collects and analyzes the market and the ads’ performance.
Less control and more dependence
With more dependence on this online technology, you put a lot of trust in the program.
As there is no other medium involved between you and the platform, your ads may end up appearing on sites/blogs/pages that are not compatible with your brand and values. The Guardian has covered how Nike and Amazon ran into this problem.
4. Types of programmatic video ads
In-stream
In-stream ads are the ones that usually appear before during or right after a video (this is pretty common on YouTube).
Pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll ads are all in-stream ads.
Here is an example from YouTube:
Pre-roll
The pre-roll ad comes under the domain of instream video ads and plays before a selected video gets played.
After a few seconds, you may choose to ‘Skip ad’ or, in other cases, have to watch the whole ad before you can watch the video.
Mid-roll
Mid-roll ad again comes under instream video ads and plays during a video or in the middle of the user watching it. These ads are basically set in the videos of more than 8 mins.
Like the pre-roll ads, you can either skip them or have to watch them till the end.
Post-roll
Post-roll is an instream ad that plays after a video finishes.
They are usually 10 to 15 seconds long but can be as long as three minutes.
All these kinds of instream video ads appear in a video that has opted for an ad revenue program.
If you’d like to work with an agency to produce videos for social media, get in touch. Our team can help.
Read more: 20 Tips on How to Get More Views on YouTube
Out-stream
Out-stream video ads appear while you’re in the middle of reading an online article.
Like pop-ups, these video ads can sometimes be effective at engaging a user or just being side-lined, so make sure you use them strategically.
Here is an example:
In-display
In-display ad doesn’t auto-play like an in-stream or out-stream ad.
Instead, it appears at the top of the YouTube feed, and the user can make a choice to click on it if they’re curious to know more about the ad content.
Read more: Mobile Video Advertising: Everything You Need To Know
That’s all folks
So, do you want to take advantage of programmatic video advertising?
Well first, you’ll need a strategy and a standout video. To get started, get in touch with us.
Our team of strategists and video producers would love to help.