When Measuring Success of Programmatic Video Campaigns Marketers Rank Click-Through Rates as Least Important Metric

According to a new survey of senior marketers released today by Unruly, click-through rates are the least important metric when measuring the success of online video campaigns. Instead, viewability and completed views were the highest priorities among marketers in both the U.S. and U.K.

One thousand brand marketers in both countries were interviewed as part of the Unruly Programmatic Video Pulse Survey, the largest ever survey on programmatic video advertising. The survey highlights a number of shifting business trends around video advertising.

In a press release, Unruly CEO Scott Button said, “Our survey reveals the extent to which the tectonic plates of ad tech have shifted. CTR, once the key KPI for marketers, is no longer as relevant, instead making way for engagement metrics such as viewability, completed views or interaction rates. With the increasing number of programmatic targeting capabilities at our fingertips, the research highlights a massive shift in the way marketers are evaluating their digital video campaigns.”

The research also found that three-quarters of senior marketers are expecting to shift more of their online video ad budget to programmatic over the next 12 months, while two-thirds of marketers say they have already transferred a portion of their TV ad budget to online video during the last year, illustrating the growing shift toward digital. Yet more than half of the marketers rated their programmatic video knowledge as “average”, “poor” or “very poor”.

Other business shifts the survey highlights include:

• Quality of inventory, ad fraud, and the skills gap are top concerns for marketers: In the U.S., the top concerns for operating in the programmatic video sector include quality of inventory (20.8%), low levels of viewability (17.7%), and the skills gap and lack of internal expertise (15.8%). In the U.K., the top concerns are quality of inventory (17.8%), skills gap and lack of internal expertise (15.3%), and ad fraud – robots (14.5%);
• Advertisers are looking for ways to combine programmatic targeting and emotional targeting: Emotional/psychographic targeting is the most desired programmatic targeting capability among both and U.S. and U.K. marketers, ahead of demographic, behavioral and prospect-based targeting;
• Success metrics are shifting as advertisers move toward verified engagement metrics: Viewability and completed views are king and queen, while CTR has fallen to the bottom of the pile.
• Programmatic video budgets are growing – and at the expense of TV: Two-thirds of marketers plan on transferring budget from TV to programmatic video in the next 12 months.

In the release, Button added, “As more budget shifts to programmatic video, marketers need to rethink how they approach their video strategy, everything from content creation to distribution, so their videos can travel across screens and meet their audiences wherever they are watching video. Our survey found that most marketers understand the need for custom creatives when applying targeting capabilities of programmatic video. Marketers need to develop a strong content stack to deliver appropriate creatives that can complement the advanced targeting capabilities that programmatic offers across the Open Web.”

He concluded, “With budget moving from TV to online, specifically through programmatic channels, it’s alarming to see that less than half of respondents in our survey felt they had a good handle on programmatic video knowledge. Programmatic ad buying provides marketers with a huge opportunity to better target their audiences, however, if we continue to see a lack of education in the industry, it’s going to lead to wasted budgets. The smart marketers are the ones who are going to invest heavily programmatic ad buying across departments.”

To see the full survey, along with recommendations on how to effectively reach target audiences programmatically, you can download it here.