We’ve been hard at work on the next Ooyala Video Index report here at VideoMind. Our resident data scientist, Dr. Matt, has been digging up some interesting online video stats from the last quarter—and we wanted to provide a peek at some of the trends we’ve encountered so far.
Here's a snapshot, taken over a five-day period in Q4. It shows how two real companies are monetizing their online video content with ads. Publisher A has an ad fill rate of 35 percent, which means that only about a third of its ad insertion requests are actually filled. Publisher A's ad completion rate, however, is relatively high—at 93 percent. As Dr. Matt puts, "most of the time, Publisher A doesn't show an ad—and even when they do they don't lose much of their audience."
Publisher B is different. It has a higher ad-fill rate (56 percent), which means more of its ad insertion requests are filled, either by an ad partner or an ad network. On average, however, a smaller share of Publisher B's viewers (81 percent) end up watching the ads from start to finish.
What's the take away? All else equal, Publisher A should increase the number of ads they serve. Whether this entails partnering with an ad network that has more inventory, increasing its ad load, or both, Publisher A is likely under-monetizing its online video content.
This is just one example of how video analytics can help publishers identify areas where they are leaving money on the table. Admittedly, it oversimplifies the challenges involved: "just insert more ads” isn’t a viable monetization strategy, as increasing ad load—especially by inserting ads that aren't relevant to your viewers—almost always reduces completion rates.
More realistically, the next step for Publisher A would be to analyze how ad fill and ad load (how many ads are shown per video) impact viewer engagement. The goal is to find that balance between ad completion rate and ad load that maximizes revenue for a given video. From there, it's all about using analytics to enable ad targeting—because at the end of the day, serving only ads that are relevant to your viewers is arguably the best way to make them happy. And happy viewers stay engaged, watch longer, and complete more ads.
Want to learn more? Stay tuned for our Q4 Video Index report!
About the Ooyala Video Index:
The Video Index is a quartely look at the state of online video. It's based on Ooyala’s analysis of more than 1 billion daily analytics pings, which reflect the anonymized viewing behavior of over 100 million monthly users from more than 100 countries.
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