Online Video Ad Views Spiked in October

November 16, 2012

This article is included in these additional categories:

Brand Metrics | Digital | Paid Search

Americans viewed nearly 11 billion video ads in October, as data from comScore Video Metrics reveals. That is a sharp spike after 3 flat months (9.6 billion in July, 9.5 billion in August and 9.4 billion in September). Video ads reached 52% of the US population in October, up 1% point. But they reached those viewers an average of 68 times in October, up significantly from an average of 60 times in September.

Overall, 183 million US internet users watched more than 37 billion online content videos in October. While the number of the number of video ad views spiked, the number of videos viewed fell by 2 billion. That mirrors research from FreeWheel, which has consistently found online video ad views to be growing faster than online video views.

According to a Forbes Insights report [download page] produced in partnership with ShareThrough, the top of objective of online video advertisers is awareness (68%), followed by branding (55%) and customer retention and loyalty (43%). Customer acquisition (26%) is less of a goal.

BrightRoll Overtakes Google as Top Ad Property

Further details from comScore indicate that for the second month running, each of the top 5 ad properties delivered more than 1 billion video ads. BrightRoll Video Network overtook Google for first place with more than 1.8 billion ads (up 38%) with Google delivering 1.7 billion (down from 1.8 billion in September). Hulu was third with 1.5 billion, followed by Liverail.com (1.2 billion) and Adap.tv (1.1 billion).

Hulu once again delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers, at an average of 59 (up from 51), compared to Google sites’ average of 19 ads per viewer (down from 20).

NDN Moves Up the Video Content Property Rankings

Google Sites maintained the #1 spot among online video content properties in October, driven chiefly by video viewing on YouTube.com. Google took in 153.2 million unique viewers, up about 2% over September. Yahoo sites were second at 55.3 million, while NDN jumped into the third spot with 53.2 million, an impressive 31.5% hike. VEVO (53.1 million) and AOL (53.1 million) rounded out the top 5.

Vevo Top YouTube Partner, Again

The video music channel VEVO held its first-place ranking among YouTube partners, with 52.2 million viewers (up about 7%). Machinima climbed two slots into the #2 position with 35.1 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios (28.9 million), Warner Music (26.3 million) and Fullscreen (25.1 million).

Once again, Machinima demonstrated the highest engagement at 49 minutes per viewer””significantly down from 70 minutes in September. Vevo was second with 39 minutes per viewer, up a minute from September. VEVO streamed the highest number of videos (603 million), followed by Machinima (521 million).

Other Findings:

  • The duration of the average online content video was 6.1 minutes (down from 6.4), while the average online video ad was steady at 0.4 minutes.
  • Video ads accounted for 22.6% of all videos viewed (up from 19.3%) and 1.6% of all minutes spent (up from 1.3%).
  • Online video reached 86% of the US internet audience in October, up from 85% in September, but down from 87.7% in August.

About the Data: The Forbes Insights/Sharethrough survey tapped 136 marketing executives. 46 respondents came from companies with revenues between $500 million and $1 billion, and the rest from companies with revenues of $1 billion-plus. 59 survey respondents had titles of director and up. Roughly half described their business outlook in positive terms, and about 2 in 3 said that their media budgets were at least $1 million. The vast majority (99%) are located in the United States.

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