As video consumption behaviors shift, so must marketers. While a lag between viewing behaviors and ad buying strategies remains, recent data suggests that marketers fed up with linear buys may now be ready to turn to programmatic video, and soon.
Today, marketers are running into numerous frustrations when attempting to run successful television ad campaigns. Indeed, according to a survey of 500 marketing decision makers, the top factors limiting the success of television ad campaigns point to fragmented & distracted audiences.
With respect to audience fragmentation, 54.8% of marketers surveyed noted that their target consumers simply have “too many channels to choose from”. To compound this, 43.4% of marketers noted that cord cutting is making their target audiences particularly hard to reach.
Even when audiences can be reached via linear television buys, marketers note difficulty in capturing audience attention. First, 45.8% of marketers felt that consumers are too distracted by their second screens (ie: their mobile phones and tablets) to pay attention to their commercials.
Even when they are looking at the television during commercial breaks, over a third (36.2%) of marketers find that “breaking through the ad clutter” is a difficult task that’s holding back their campaigns.
So how are marketers shifting their strategies to mitigate these frustrations? According to an IAB study:
- 52.3% are turning to cross-device audience recognition
- 49.2% are looking for better reporting, measurement, & attribution
- 40.0% are looking for smarter AI powered solutions
- 29.2% are turning to omnichannel programmatic buys
As a result, traditional television ad spend is expected to fall 2% over the next 4 years. Meanwhile, digital video ad spend is expected to climb 92% over the same period. In many areas, that increase in spend is expected to happen programmatically:
As advertisers are looking for ways to garner the attention of distracted audiences, so channels that claim mobile attention in those in-between moments are expected to surge. For instance, social video ad spend is expected to grow 49% by 2020.
As these marketers branch out and explore new channels for video engagement, it’s no wonder that half of advertisers are looking for better reporting & cross-device attribution, or that nearly a third of them are looking to streamline their buying process programmatically.
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