Quarterly Analysis of Digital Advertising Benchmarks Reveals Trends Driven by Increased Cord-Cutting, Demands for Trust and Brand Safety

Video advertising technology provider Extreme Reach released its Q2 2018 Video Advertising Benchmarks Report, offering brands and agencies up-to-date insights based on key performance metrics.

This most recent analysis of data on click-through, completion and viewability rates as well as bot traffic and time spent by device used (i.e., desktop, mobile, tablet and connected television [CTV]), showcases the growing opportunity of advertising on CTV/OTT (over the top) platforms. Additionally, examining breakdowns of success factors according to purchase method (i.e., premium publisher vs. media aggregator), Extreme Reach projects that brands will continue to invest in premium inventory, which drives higher viewability and completion rates while providing more assurance of brand safety.

Among the report’s key findings are:

• Premium Outperforms Aggregators and CTV Beats all Other Devices For the second quarter in a row, video completion rates (VCR) are on the rise across nearly every device type and ad length. The biggest gains were seen across premium inventory, where an astounding 92 percent of video ads played in their entirety, an increase of 16 percent over Q2 2017. Video Completion Rates for ads served to premium publishers in Q2 2018 were 37 percent higher than through aggregators. Additionally, this is an area where CTV demonstrates a significant edge, reaching a 97 percent completion rate across premium inventory in Q2 2018 vs. 87 percent for other devices serving impressions on premium publisher sites.

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• CTV Impressions Overtake Mobile With a 111 percent increase over Q2 2017 and a 23 percent increase over Q1 2018, CTV was, for the first time, the top performer in the percentage of video impressions served by Extreme Reach. Largely driven by consumers’ cable “cord cutting” in favor of platforms like Roku, as well services such as Hulu, CTV accounted for 38 percent of all video ad impressions in Q2. Mobile (smartphones) comprised 30 percent of overall impressions, down from 33 percent in Q1.
• Impressions on Desktop and Tablets Continue Their Descent Desktop and Tablets both experienced the fifth straight quarter of decline, clearly signaling that these platforms no longer have the eye of most consumers. In fact, desktop accounted for 23 percent of impressions, or less than half its 52 percent average share for the full year in 2015. Tablets now account for just 9 percent of video impressions, down from a high of 25 percent in both Q2 and Q3 2016.
• 6-Second Ads Still Gaining in Appeal – and Results This increasingly popular ad length also showed big gains with completion rates averaging 82 percent, an increase of almost 11 percent from the previous quarter.

“Just when we think we’ve reached the stability that comes with maturation, the rapidly-evolving digital landscape brings us more exciting developments. This quarter, reveals the amazing opportunity in CTV,” stated Mary Vestewig, Senior Director, Video Account Management at Extreme Reach. “CTV is clearly on the path to becoming the dominant platform for media consumption, and premium inventory is the most sure-fire audience draw. Soon, I’m sure we’ll see more moves like Roku’s new ad marketplace, as these platforms prove a viable means of reaching audiences now fragmented across linear and OTT TV.”

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