For a deep dive into the latest in video marketing on mobile devices and apps, be sure to download your copy of our 2020 Mobile Video Advertising Trends Report today!
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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what is a video worth? For advertisers, conveying their message through video has long been the most preferable option. There’s a reason that brands have invested so heavily in television advertising in the past and newer channels like YouTube.
And indeed as time spent using mobile broadly and apps specifically have risen, brands are expanding and rethinking their video advertising strategies to include apps. As we’ve highlighted in our previous reporting on the topic, we found that programmatic in-app video ad spending grew 47% in the U.S. between 2017 and 2018. In Q4 2018 and Q1 2019, video ad spending in the U.S. was up 156% compared to Q4 2017 and Q1 2018. This growth occurred even though video ads generally cost more than other formats, which is a testament to the power and effectiveness of video advertising.
In the past, why was programmatic in-app video advertising on the rise? In part, because it was (and remains) highly effective. After all, videos are inherently much more visible than smaller ad formats like banners, which ensures both improved viewability and engagement. Video advertising is also highly engaging, enabling brands to tell memorable and impactful stories using both visuals and audio.
It is important to note that just about all video ads run by InMobi include interactive end cards. The share of video ads purchased via private marketplace deals in the U.S. that had interactive end cards went from 10% in 2018 to 60% in 2019.
It’s also important to note that in 2019, 70% of served video ad impressions in the U.S. via InMobi Exchange were 20 seconds or less, while around 10% of video ads were six seconds or less — and we expect both figures to significantly grow in 2020. These figures are important to highlight, as they provide another explanation for why in-app video advertising is so effective for advertisers.
At this point, it’s hardly a stretch to say that in-app video advertising will very likely continue to grow in the future. We’ve been making this point since at least 2017 — and so far, we’ve been right. At every step of the way, more advertisers have woken up both to the benefits of video advertising and the benefits of in-app advertising.
Of course, it’s critical to keep the global realities of 2020 in mind when making any prognostications. COVID-19 has brought out a worldwide recession with economic ramifications that will likely last well into 2021 for some industries. Even brands that clearly see the benefits of in-app video advertising may not be able to fully invest in this kind of marketing for much of the year.
What will hopefully change in the future is how advertisers think about in-app programmatic video advertising. Too many brands are likely just taking their existing ads and just porting them over to mobile without enough thought as to how quality mobile advertising should work. But, by 2021, we are confident that advertisers will run more vertical over the horizontal video, abandon outdated tech like VPAID and ensure all of their programmatic advertising is viewable, brand-safe and shown to the right audiences at the right time.
We do want to differentiate between mobile and in-app video advertising, especially with apps now appearing outside of mobile devices. In particular, as connected TV viewing rises, advertisers will need to be sure that they can apply the best practices learned from mobile video advertising onto this nascent environment.
There’s a lot more where this came from! Be sure to download your complimentary copy of InMobi’s 2020 Mobile Video Advertising Trends Report today for more data and insights on average click-through rates, top countries for in-app video advertising, the ideal duration of a video ad, the benefits of interactivity and a whole lot more.
Matthew Kaplan has over a decade of digital marketing experience, working to support the content goals of the world’s biggest B2B and B2C brands. He is a passionate app user and evangelist, working to support diverse marketing campaigns across devices.
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