Online Video Consumption Grows & Grows

The average person will spend 100 minutes each day watching online video in 2021, up from 84 minutes this year, according to Zenith Media’s latest Online Video Forecasts 2019 report.

The amount of time people spend viewing online video has multiplied across the world, at an average rate of 32% a year between 2013 and 2018.

The consistent upswing in consumption is mainly attributable to improvements in display sizes and quality of mobile devices, faster mobile data connections, and the spread of connected TV sets.

Jonathan Barnard, Head of Forecasting at Zenith:

“The consumption of online video is growing rapidly, and the average person will spend half as much time viewing online video as they spend viewing conventional television this year.

This fast-expanding supply of audiences is fuelling rapid growth in demand from advertisers, making online video the fastest-growing digital channel by advertising expenditure.”

Zenith forecasts that advertising expenditure on online video will rise from US$45bn this year to US$61bn by 2021, at an average rate of 18% a year, compared to 10% a year for internet advertising as a whole.

YouTube’s New Video Reach Campaigns

Although online video consumption is booming, current online video marketing solutions leave a bit to be desired.

In some ways this is the opposite problem to that which TV has, i.e. TV has effective marketing options, but dipping longer-term viewing figures.

Despite the self-commissioned studies from the major digital players, the jury is still very much out on how well their online video offerings actually perform.

Especially on mobile and for activity beyond direct response.

Hence, YouTube’s new brand video offerings announced earlier this week at Ad Week New York.

With YouTube’s new Video Reach Campaigns, marketers can now leverage YouTube’s machine learning to run smart full-funnel video campaigns.

Video reach campaigns should offer a more straightforward, efficient way for marketers to achieve their brand awareness goals with YouTube.

Rather than managing separate campaigns for 6-second bumper ads, skippable in-stream ads, and non-skippable in-stream ads, now you can upload multiple video creatives into a single campaign.

From there, Google’s machine learning will automatically serve the most efficient combination of these formats to help you reach your audience at scale. 

Full Funnel Online Video Campaigns

A significant theme Google discussed as its recent Google Marketing Live conference was the length and complexity of the average user journey.

It actually kicked off a session featuring a Google-led study, featuring a particular shopper who wanted to buy a single pair of jeans.

The person spent 73 days looking and interacted with more than 250 digital touchpoints (searches, video views and page views) before making a purchase.

It is influencing this type of decision-making process that the new Video Reach Campaigns are set to play.

For best results, Google advises dovetailing Video Reach Campaigns with TrueView for action to drive whatever online action is important to your business.

TrueView for action campaigns launched early in 2018 and are one of YouTube’s star performers.

TrueView for action campaigns help drive leads and conversions by adding prominent calls-to-action (CTAs), headline text overlays, and an end screen to your video ads.

Using this video campaign subtype, you can encourage customers to explore your product or service, share their contact information, and take other actions valuable to your business. 

Also announced at Ad Week is the expansion of TrueView for action ads to the YouTube Home feed.

Offering prime YouTube real estate and a decent opportunity for any organisation looking to drive more, high-value conversions.