STUDY: Nearly Half of Advertisers Leverage Advanced Video Ad Formats Driving a 335% Higher Engagement Rate

April 29, 2020

Innovid’s Global Video Benchmarks Report findings validate advanced video advertising drives considerable engagement for brands

Report highlights best practices that marketers can implement immediately in today’s shifting advertising climate 

NEW YORK, NY (April 29, 2020) – Innovid, the only independent advertising and analytics platform built for television, today announced its Global Video Benchmarks Report, which represents the most complete view of video advertising data available in the industry. The study reveals that nearly half of advertisers leverage advanced video ad formats worldwide, driving a 335 percent higher engagement rate when compared to standard pre-roll ads. Additionally, the pace of connected TV (CTV) impression and engagement growth has scaled dramatically with a 67 percent increase in volume YoY. 

“Now, more than ever, it’s important for brands to adapt and pivot their strategies to reach consumers in personalized, compelling ways,” said Zvika Netter, CEO and Co-Founder, Innovid. “As we enter this new era of personalization, our research shows that advertisers are embracing advanced creative as a major part of their omnichannel marketing strategies to remain nimble, effective, and in tune with their consumers’ behavior. This is the moment for advertisers to be bold in their choices and consider how they will personalize, deliver, and measure performance across all channels with CTV at the center.”

The year-long study analyzes more than 600 advertisers and 200 billion video advertising impressions served on Innovid’s platform, between January 1 and December 31, 2019, providing a unique and critical snapshot of the current state of video advertising and how it’s changed year-over-year. The report explores nuances by device, region and vertical along with commentary to provide additional context. 

The findings answer essential questions for marketers including if advanced creative is worth the effort, the differences between CTV, mobile, and PC devices, what targeting strategies are most popular, how publisher impressions are changing, how trends differ by region, and more. As brands future-plan for the remainder of 2020, 2021 and beyond, it’s imperative to understand the accelerated move towards CTV,  and the trends and benchmarks to make smart business decisions. 

Some of the report’s key takeaways and findings include: 

  • Advanced creative became mainstream among marketers
    • Nearly half of advertisers leveraged advanced ad formats, driving a 335 percent higher engagement rate when compared to standard pre-roll ads. 
    • Geo-targeting and sequential messaging emerged as the most common personalization strategies.
  •  CTV continues strong impression growth and engagement
    • CTV continued to divert impressions away from personal computers (PCs) with a 31 percent impression share showing a year-over-year volume increase of 67 percent.
    • While historically mobile has led all devices for engagement, interactive ad units on CTV produced an engagement rate that was almost 6x higher (3.4 percent) with a year-over-year impression growth of 105 percent. 
  • 15, 30-second ads stand the test of time
    • 57 percent of ads were fifteen seconds, proving to be the ad length of choice for marketers.
    • While CTV advertisers used 15 and 30-second ads evenly overall, when it came to the subset of interactive units, 71 percent of those ads were 30-seconds.
  • Traditional publishers fully embrace digital
    • Traditional, non-broadcast publishers leaned more heavily on CTV, with a year-over-year increase in ad impressions of 66 percent on streaming devices.
    • Across all devices, year-over-year traditional publisher impressions rose 47 percent.

“Our analysis unveiled some trends that we have long predicted, including the accelerating significance of CTV’s role in video advertising,” added Netter. “At a time where CTV consumption is increasing dramatically, recently outperforming mobile for the first time this year according to our Innovid iQ data, cord-cutting is having massive implications. Our study showed that brands earn on average 83 incremental seconds with consumers utilizing a CTV interactive ad unit. It’s important for the market to fine tune their video advertising strategies to meet the moment.”

You can read the full Innovid Global Video Benchmarks Report here and explore weekly, topical insights on the Innovid iQ dashboard.  

About Innovid

Innovid is the only independent omni-channel advertising and analytics platform built for television. We use data to enable the personalization, delivery, and measurement of ads across the widest breadth of digitally enabled channels in the market including TV, video, display, social, and OOH. Innovid serves a global client base of brands, agencies, and publishers through over twelve offices across the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific.