98% of video buyers now purchasing video programmatically
As programmatic’s ubiquitous presence continues to be felt across the industry, a new study has found that nearly all video buyers (98 per cent) in the European markets surveyed are doing so programmatically, with approximately 40 per cent of their total video budgets being channelled this way.
The European State of the Video Industry report by AOL, found that on the sell side, 97 per cent of those surveyed are selling digital video programmatically, with nearly three quarters of those making their premium video inventory available for sale via programmatic buying.
Brands cite buying efficiencies (59 per cent) and integration with automation/CRM systems (57 per cent) as driving the trend, while more than a third (35 per cent) are sceptical of agencies expertise.
Digital ad spend in the UK now accounts for 33 per cent of the market, fuelled by mobile ad spend, which has increased 51 per cent year-on-year to $1.08bn.
Within this space, our research shows that mobile video is the most robust growth area. 42 per cent of the buyers we surveyed reported a rise in their mobile digital video budgets between 2014 and 2015 – an increase when compared with other platforms including desktop and OTT/Connected TV.
Although mobile video is growing rapidly, both buyers and sellers report that major obstacles still persist. Cross-device targeting is the biggest bugbear for buyers, with over half (53 per cent) citing it as a top three challenge to buying mobile video.
This is followed by attribution and measurement (44 per cent), which has come a long way in desktop environments, but is more difficult to track in mobile due to the reliance on deterministic or probabilistic identifiers across mobile web and in-app inventory.
In addition to this, mobile video creative optimisation is still a major pain point for brands and advertisers, with 39 per cent of buyers citing it as a challenge to investing in mobile video.
The report also found that although TV ad revenues are not declining in Europe, nearly two-thirds of the video buyers (61 per cent ) in the survey who have seen an increase in their digital video budgets say that broadcast TV budgets are being reallocated to video advertising.
AOL worked in partnership with Advertiser Perceptions to create the report, which collected quantitative data on digital video from 411 brands, agencies and publishers in the UK, France, Netherlands and Germany.
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