Mobile app promotion №30. Mobile advertising in video networks

Alexander Sergeev

wrote this on Июн 13, 2015

Mobile advertising is remarkable for the fact that various formats are used in it: from trivial static banners to full-screen interactive advertisements. Video is one of the most efficient and popular advertising types. Today we’ll tell you how does video format work and what advertisers and monetizers should know.

 

Video advertisements on mobile devices

Video format in mobile advertising has taken it’s niche quite quickly and has won a significant part of the market from other advertising types. This market sector made up $720 million in 2013 and it was twice as big in a year. The forecast for 2018 is that the market share of mobile advertising will increase to $6 billion.
The growth of video advertisements popularity on mobile devices is explained by several reasons. One of the main factors is a wide use of 4G fast mobile Internet which allows to download and watch videos. These 2 indices correlate on the graph.
Video advertisements have a great advantage in comparison with other formats. It provides more loyal users than banners, for example. There’s a simple explanation to it: a user understands from a video what’s in the app. That’s why he/she makes a thoughtful decision about installation.

 

Types of mobile video advertisements

Advertisements in the form of video can be divided into 2 types:

1. Skippable — a user can close them in the beginning and skip them.
2. Non-skippable — there’s no possibility to skip them until they end.

Besides, they can be divided into 3 categories according to their duration:

1. short (not more than 15 seconds).
2. medium (from 15 to 30 seconds).
3. long (more than 30 seconds).

Video advertisments is also placed in games as it’s the most suitable there. Here’s the reason why: it’s embedded into a game process. Having watched it, a user gets a reward in inner currency.
As for payment models, there are various types of them in video networks. Here are the most demanded ones:

• CPM or CPCV (cost per completed view) — payment for a fully-watched video.
• CPC or CPVI (cost per viewable impression) — payment per launch (not a fully-watched video).
• CPI (cost per install) — payment for installed apps.
• guaranteed audience — payment for showing advertisements but with a condition that there will be a share of users with indicated geographical and demographical parameters among those who watched it

 

Video advertisements in numbers

• non-skippable advertisements are the most popular ones. It has ⅔ of the market.
• specialists’ investigations show that short videos (less than 15 seconds) and medium ones (from 15 to 30 seconds) show the highest CTR, their clickability is 1% — 2%. CTR of long videos (more than 30 seconds) doesn’t usually exceed 1%.
• video advertisements are usually more popular on iOS, 80% belonged to the platform a year ago but today Android is winning the positions back.
• the more often video advertisements are offered, the more its CTR drops. Optimal frequency is chosen during testing but it largely depends on theme and type of an app.
• the prices for advertising in video networks are very different and depend on many factors. For example, 1000 of video launches (without obligation to watch it till the end) may cost $10-15 or $25-35 for fully-watched videos.

 

Video creation

Efficiency of an advertisement largely depends on the video itself. You should work thoroughly on its plot and make the essence of your app as clear as possible for users who will watch it. But you should also keep to a short format and not overload audience with information. Also make sure that your video looks good on both smartphones and tablets.
Don’t forget about different methods and tricks which increase efficiency of advertisements:

• use emotions. It may be fear, curiosity, humor or even erotics (but only a hint). An emotional response should appear in users from the first seconds of a video.
• place app logos or brands in a video. It will make your product easy to recognize.
• you can also place several lines of text in a video. Thus, you’ll be able to repeat main theses. But remember, there should be minimum of text.

If you don’t want to spend time and other resources on creating an advertising video, there is a service in creating video in many networks. Some even do it for free.

 

Video advertising from the point of view of monetization

Mobile video advertisements are spread in special networks. It’s placed by the same principles as other advertisements are. Usually, SDK is built in into an app or a code to a website.
Payments to publishers who monetize their apps are carried out by different models: some pay for fully-watched videos (CVV — completed video view), others — for installs. Developers always have a choice. Prices on eCPM usually range from $1 to $8 and seldom exceed $10.

You can set up the quantity of times it will be shown from the project dashboard. There all the necessary metrics as well.
Video advertisements may seem an ideal monetization method but there are some disadvantages to it:

• it often irritates users which created an audience flow-out.
• it happens usually when demand on advertisements is lower than supply and the income of monetizers drops significantly in this case. But everything depends on situation on a definite market.
• this type of monetization suits only games as gamers watch videos because of promised rewards. It’s problematical to built it in the apps of other categories. Nobody will watch it probably. Though, there are some exceptions.

 

Popular advertising video networks

• AdColony — one of the biggest players on the market. The network is remarkable due to the fact that it uses own technology of instant video delivery — Instant-Play. One of the advantages is high quality of video without speed loss which affects overall advertisement efficiency positively. They work by eCPM model with monetizers.
• Vungle — is a special video advertisement market, one of the biggest and most powerful ones. There are many various agencies among its clients. They orient mainly on publishers which monetize apps. They work on CPI model.
• NativeX — is an advertising network oriented on mobile games primarily. It’s available for both monetizers and advertisers.
• UnityAds — it belongs to Unity (engine for mobile games is its main product), Advertisers are offered to work by CPI scheme, monetizers — by eCPM.
• Vdopia — a large automatized platform for selling and purchasing advertisements. The main advantages: intellectual algorithms of purchases and flexible campaign setups.

Besides, there’s a possibility to place video advertisements in apps for advertisers and monetizers in largest networks as AdMob, iAd, etc.

 

Conclusion

Mobile advertisements is quite a beneficial format for both monetizers and advertisers. Smartphone and tablet users like it which make it more efficient than banners.