Video ad views up 31% in Europe
December 15, 2017
FreeWheel, the advertising management solution, has published its Q3 2017 Video Monetisation Report (VMR), revealing a further growth in video ad views, fuelled by the continued rise of OTT devices and STB VoD inventory.
The latest figures showed a 31 per cent year-on-year growth for ad views in Europe, with a 35 per cent rise in video starts.
Ad views on OTT and STB VoD devices grew in both Europe and the US. Digitally inserted ads on STB VoD increased by 190 per cent year-on-year in Europe, while OTT saw a 44 per cent rise – following a 32 per cent rise in Q2 – and now accounts for a quarter of the ads viewed.
This highlights a continued shift towards the consuming of content in a premium, high viewability, living room environment. It is mirrored in the US, where OTT and STB VoD viewing combined made up almost half of ad views (49 per cent), while desktop viewing continued to decline – down from a 37 per cent share in 2016 to 28 per cent in 2017.
The highest growth area in Europe this quarter came from the monetisation of clips content – up by 77 per cent year-on-year. This shows the potential of short-form content of five minutes or less across genres to act as a gateway for wider library offerings.
Other key findings nclude:
- Monetisation of live content in Europe dropped slightly from the 4 per cent in Q2 2017 to 3 per cent, despite growing 14 per cent compared to last year. This is primarily driven by the increase in long-form monetisation around entertainment shows, which are a key part of Q3 viewing.
- With publishers more and more concerned about finding a balance between user experience and monetisation, ad loads in Europe decreased again in Q3. There are now an average of 4.2 ads, lasting 76 seconds within an on demand full episode, as opposed to 5.2 ads lasting 106 seconds in 2016.
- Full episodes and live stream drove 80 per cent of premium video ad views in the US, with news, entertainment and particularly sports continuing to drive the growth of live stream monetisation.