Data from Extreme Reach Provides Brands and Agencies with Updated, Realistic Benchmarks for Gauging Campaign Success

Video advertising technology provider Extreme Reach released its 2017 Video Advertising Benchmark Report, bringing brands and agencies fresh insights into performance trends and comparisons for judging campaign success.

The annual report examines trends in click-through, completion and viewability rates as well as bot traffic and time spent, with breakdowns according to purchase method (i.e., premium media vendor vs. media aggregator) and device used (i.e., desktop, mobile, tablet and connected television [CTV]).

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Among the report’s key findings on top issues are:

• Ad Fraud: Video appears to be winning the fight. Compared to 2016, filtered bot traffic is down 31 percent on average and 40 percent for aggregators. This drop can be attributed to increased pressure for better accountability from advertisers, as well as a corresponding increase in vigilance among ad tech vendors.
• Viewability: Viewable completion rates (proportion of impressions that are both viewable and completed), have been rising since 2015, and we’ve reached a point where the pace of change is slowing. The consistency over 2016 and 2017 enables the numbers to serve as more reliable guidelines for assessing performance. On average, across all variables, a viewable completion rate between two-thirds and three-quarters is the norm. For advertisers, this insight is helpful when judging their campaign success, with 66 percent qualifying as “good” and 75 percent being “superior” rates.

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• Engagement: Brands are focusing on completion over click-through (CTR) as a video ad campaign goal, which indicates the use of video for branding and top of funnel awareness that TV has long been known for. Steep declines in CTR (-14.7 percent overall, -35.7 percent for premium) and increases in completion (up 7.7 percent overall and 14.1 percent for premium) suggest advertisers are targeting sustained viewer attention instead of driving clicks away from the ad unit.
• Devices: With data proving the days of desktop dominance are behind us, the report confirms all advertisers should be thinking mobile first and looking to include CTV/OTT in their campaign strategy. The average percentage of impressions served on mobile phones increased every quarter throughout 2017, while desktop impressions decreased. Year-over-year, mobile devices gained a 25.9 percent greater share, while desktop dropped 8.6 percent. The change is more marked when comparing 2017 to 2015 (up 36 percent for mobile, down 38.5 percent for desktop). Connected TV also saw a gain in impressions served for 2017 compared with 2016, reinforcing the devices’ growing opportunity for advertisers.

Also Read: The Three Types of Ad Fraud Marketers Should Know About – and How to Tackle Them

“Ad industry transparency was a big theme for 2017. For advertisers, the ability to make comparisons against reliable numbers is particularly important when it comes to the fight against ad fraud. The continued decline in fraudulent activity we saw between last year and 2016 suggests that advertising tech vendors are listening state Mary Vestewig, Senior Director, Video Account Management, Extreme Reach.

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