What should you look for when it comes to a video advertising solution?

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what to expect from video, especially as it differs from other media you may buy such as TV and digital display. And with every new buzzword that emerges, it becomes harder to distinguish which factors matter most in choosing a video ad provider.    

To help de-clutter the process, we've put together a list of 10 things you should look for—based on our research into what advertisers and agencies want—and packaged them in new video advertising playbook.

Here are three of the 10 things you should look for in a video ad provider....

Brand advertisers and their agencies have caught on in a big way to the massive audience shift that’s been occurring over the past 24 months from TV to multi-screen video.

In fact, a recent survey found that 70% have shifted TV ad money to video this year, including 35% of them that have shifted more than 40% of their TV ad budgets.¹

What do advertisers want when it comes to video?

To answer that question and ultimately inform our video ad platform, we distilled dozens of research studies, video campaign RFPs and scores of our own interviews with brand advertisers and agencies.

Here are a few highlights of what we found....

The industry discussion over video ad viewability has been intensifying for several months now.

The most recent uproar is over whether two of the largest content publishers in the world—YouTube and Facebook—will allow third parties to verify viewability in their proprietary ad networks.

A few big brands are saying they will refuse to advertise with them if they don't.

In the first three articles of this series, we discussed how correctly planning and buying video advertising can triple the value of your media spend, i.e., deliver $300K value for every $100K you invest. To recap:

• Buy completed views, not impressions. That way, you can guarantee you get 100% direct return on ad spend (ROAS). Otherwise, your direct ROAS could average 40% or lower.
• Measure and value partial views. When you buy the right inventory on cost-per-completed-view (CPCV), the value of free partial views usually equals 110% to 175% of ad spend.
• Measure and value the “multiplier effect.” When you benchmark and measure brand lift and the effects on all your paid, earned and owned media, video ad campaigns return an extra 100% or more of added value.

Now, here’s the kicker…the 4 Ws of video ad value. Let's see how they add priceless value

Online video advertising is the fastest growing digital media, with worldwide revenues projected to hit $5 billion next year. This growth has created a lot of opportunities but also a lot of confusion.

One area of confusion for advertisers and agencies is just what to ask for in an online video advertising RFP. As a result, many RFPs are not as specific as they could be or they tend to fall back on familiar approaches that have worked for years with TV and traditional digital media.

In a recent survey of advertising agencies, Response and Brand Lift were the second and third most valuable results they wanted from online video advertising campaigns. (See the first article in this series for an in depth discussion of the number one most valuable result—Completed Views.)

Here in Part 3 of our series, we’re going show you how to get your online video campaigns to drive so much added value from response and brand lift that it helps triple your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) or more.

A few weeks ago, we claimed CPMs were dead as effective media buying units for online video. (“RIP, CPMs” Mar 12, 2015)

Now, Google has given a big boost to that notion by going all in for Cost-Per-Completed-View (CPCV) media buying, which we’ve long championed. The company just announced that YouTube will roll out purchasing of TrueView via its demand-side platform, (DSP) DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM) in coming months. 

In Part 1 of this article series, we told you the first step to getting triple the value (or more) for your online video ad media spend was to buy completed views instead CPMs.

Buying completed views provides exceptional value because you only pay when people watch your full commercial.

It’s even more valuable when viewers choose to watch your full ad vs. being forced to watch it, like with YouTube's TrueView video ads, which are skippable after five seconds. Viewers who choose to watch your ad are 75% more engaged with your message than when they're forced to watch. And that translates into taking more action—searching, following, and ultimately, buying.

This is Part 1 of a four-part series of articles that chronicles how brand strategists and media planners can achieve 3x-plus return on their media buys through well-managed online video advertising campaigns.

A few months ago, we released a "Tipping Point Alert" about ad industry movers and shakers that are shifting significant dollars from TV and other media budgets to online video ads. Now let's explore how you can turn every one of those shifting dollars into three or more in ROI.