Dive Brief:
- Mobile marketers face a key challenge in creating engaging video ads for smartphones while avoiding the tendency to repurpose video made for other platforms like TV and desktop computers, according to a study released today by YouAppi. Ninety-six percent of respondents claimed they faced challenges with mobile video, and the leading challenge cited by 44% of them was developing compelling creative.
- The second biggest challenge cited by 35% of respondents was finding properties to effectively deliver video. Forty-two percent of respondents said that they run their mobile videos on six or more channels, while 17% run mobile videos on more than 20 different channels.
- A lack of metrics for mobile media is another major challenge, with 46% of respondents reporting that they aren’t satisfied by their ability to measure their mobile video programs, the study found. Respondents said they face a barrage of 15 different metrics, including cost per install (CPI), click-through rate (CTR), video completion rate (VCR) and cost per completed video (CPCV).
Dive Insight:
More than half of all video viewing now happens on mobile and digital video ad spending is growing at a rapid pace. However, as YouAppi's report points out, marketers are still trying to pinpoint best practices.
Marketers face many frustrations with video that social apps like Facebook and Snapchat seek to address. Whether it’s a technical issue like the formatting of ads or developing new ways to place video spots in mobile content, digital media companies realize that they need to engage mobile audiences with video. As a study by Animoto found, 84% of consumers reported watching video content on mobile devices, and 81% of marketers reported optimizing videos for mobile through tactics like planning for users to view with the sound off.
Every media company seems to tout metrics that make things look good to advertisers, and mobile is a comparable newcomer to long-established industries that sell ads. As the YouAppi study found, mobile ad metrics are a major source of frustration for marketers who are shifting their branding efforts to where their audiences are. The study suggests that mobile media platforms need to develop a more standard set of metrics to help marketers understand what exactly they’re paying for.
Ninety-four percent of respondents said the importance of mobile video has increased in the past few years, and 93% said mobile video will continue to grow in importance. That finding is supported by other research published by Ooyala, the video technology company based in New York. Mobile viewing accounted for about 57% of all video plays worldwide in Q1 2017, an all-time high for video use on smartphones and tablets, Ooyala said. Mobile video made up 50% of all video plays in that quarter, up from 48% a year ago, in North America where connected TV penetration in broadband homes now exceeds 69%, TBI Digital reported.