Preparing for The Digital Video Advertising Boom in 2024

Video is now a crucial part of modern advertising campaigns. It is an effective instrument for brands because of its capacity to capture, inform, and emotionally connect with audiences.

We´re all in the middle of 2024, and it´s time to dig deeper into choosing new campaigns to try, creating budgets, establishing advertisement objectives, and deciding which channels to concentrate on. But there is one certain thing. Your brand will gain from more video content this year, regardless of whether you have a strong video marketing plan or are still considering your first shot.

There is a reason why video marketing has such a high conversion rate. Videos may be quickly shared, easily interacted with, and entertaining when done well. Indeed, 51% of participants in a recent study on video advertising stated that they are likelier to share video content than blog entries, product pages, or social media posts.

That´s excellent for expanding your audience and establishing your brand. Enter the digital video advertising bloom. Your brand´s chances of obtaining views, engagement, and shares will rise if your video is on the trends.

So, let´s go deep into the 2024 video advertising trend!

1. Real People on Camera

The "Real People on Camera" trend provides relatable and aspirational content in an era where social validation often stems from digital platforms. Brands that leverage this trend effectively manage to build trust and credibility with their audience. The "Real People on Camera" video trend is more than just a fad; it represents a shift towards a more authentic and relatable form of content that appeals deeply to audiences, especially tech-savvy millennials.

2. Short-form Videos

Short-form video marketing material is one of the best strategies to expand your brand´s visibility.

3. Video SEO

Google declared earlier in the year that it would drastically reduce the number of video thumbnails that appeared on the search engine result page (SERP). Google specifically stated that it would no longer display videos if they weren´t the page´s primary content.

As a result, fewer videos are now showing up in the SERP, and advertisers are adjusting their advertising content plans to reflect this update. 

What does this mean? Videos have to be your primary content to be featured on SERPs and get more visibility. So, it would be a good idea to consider focusing on video SEO.

4. Videos in Newsletter and Email Creative

Reletter claims that just on Substack and LinkedIn, there are over 1.6 million newsletters available. It´s a fantastic chance to include video content.

5. Muted Videos

It may surprise you that 85% of Facebook videos were viewed silently in 2017. Many short-form videos are watched silently in waiting rooms, in the workplace, and in bed next to a partner. To support this trend, it´s important to include subtitles in a video so the audience can still understand the content without needing to turn on the sound.

Now that you know the digital video advertising trends that boomed in 2024, it´s time to start and optimize it. Knowing how to use video efficiently is essential, regardless of experience level in this digital advertising environment. We´ll help you how!

1. Know Your Audience Well

It´s critical to thoroughly understand your target audience before recording. Since different populations have different tastes in video material, you need to adjust your strategy accordingly. Consider things like gender, age, and hobbies. By making sure your video content fits their requirements and tastes, you can make it more likely to connect with viewers personally.

2. Establish Specific Goals

You need to define specific, measurable goals, whether they be to raise sales, generate leads, increase website traffic, or increase brand awareness. Setting clear objectives will direct your content's production and assist you in evaluating the effectiveness of your video campaigns.

3. Create Engaging Story Telling

Storytelling is at the core of successful video marketing campaigns. Stories generate emotional responses in people. Your video should have a clear narrative framework.

4. Keep It Brief and Engaging

The fast-paced digital environment of today has made attention spans shorter than ever. Your videos should be engaging from start to end and go right to the point. Generally speaking, most videos should not exceed 2 minutes in length. On the other hand, viewers are more likely to remain interested for a longer time if the information is truly captivating. To keep viewers interested, use attention-grabbing graphics, text, and a call to action.

5. Mobile Responsive and SEO

Make sure your video is SEO optimized to guarantee it reaches a larger audience. To make your video material more SEO-friendly, include a transcript and use important keywords in the tags, title, and descriptions. Furthermore, make sure your videos are optimized for mobile devices since a large percentage of viewers access video content via tablets and smartphones. Fast load times and responsive design are necessary for a flawless mobile experience.

Remember to promote your videos after you´ve produced and published them!

To reach a larger audience, share your videos using email campaigns, your website, and social media. To increase visibility, consider paid advertising. Lastly, use analytics tools to determine how well your videos are performing. Monitor data like views, interaction, conversion rates, and click-through rates. Use these observations to improve your next video advertising campaign.

To summarize, video is an engaging and dynamic medium that can greatly improve your advertising plan. You can make videos that successfully convey your brand message and help you reach your advertising objectives by knowing your audience, establishing clear goals, telling compelling narratives, keeping material brief, and optimizing search engines and mobile devices. To stay ahead of the highly competitive digital advertising space, never forget that video advertising is a continuous process that requires constant experimentation, learning, and improvement.

The Rise of CTV in Video Ad Distribution

The TV industry has changed significantly in the last ten years, and this trend isn't slowing down. Advertisers' attention has evolved as viewers drift away from linear TV and get more involved in CTV. 

Amazon Prime Video has started to run advertisements this year, following in Netflix's recent footsteps. This gives marketers another way to capitalize on the advertising prospects in ad-supported streaming.

What are the chances, benefits, and difficulties of putting your video ad campaign on the streaming screen in 2024? 

More people are paying attention to CTV for good reason. Quick changes in consumer behavior toward streaming have created a huge window of opportunity for the market to grow programmatic internet video into higher-end settings. With addressable media and content capabilities that we have been accustomed to in the rest of the digital ecosystem, CTV offers advertisers the best consumer ad experience—immersion with the TV screen.

Connected TV advertising has become a potent and successful marketing tactic in today's digital world. With its direct-to-consumer strategy, accurate targeting options, and outstanding outcomes, CTV advertising gives businesses fresh ways to engage with their target markets. According to Insider Intelligence, CTV ad spending will increase by $5.5 billion annually in 2024. According to forecasts through 2027, advertisers should anticipate declining linear TV spending while CTV ad spending rises.

What Are The Advantages and Difficulties of CTV Advertising?

With CTV, advertisers can target the right audience using first-party data. Along with improved targeting capabilities, CTV allows advertisers to pinpoint audience locations more precisely by providing IP information, allowing them to run ads in hyperlocal areas. Studies have demonstrated that customers made more purchases from CTV commercials than traditional TV ads, demonstrating the effectiveness of these benefits. 

CTV offers several extra benefits, including measuring data to assess ad effectiveness, enhanced storytelling opportunities that allow for more engaging, narrative-driven advertisements, and connecting with audiences through barcodes that guide viewers to a brand's website.

Despite CTV's many advantages, a few things to remember are ad fragmentation, privacy issues, and technical limitations. Ad fragmentation impacts CTV advertising effectiveness. Because viewers vary among many streaming services and gadgets, CTV campaigns may experience a decreased return on investment and wasted advertising expenditure.

Privacy concerns present another difficulty for CTV advertising. CTV platforms risk upsetting consumers and violating their privacy when gathering user data for targeted advertising. Advertisers must struggle between protecting user privacy and delivering tailored ads to keep consumers' trust and avoid legal trouble.

Technical restrictions may involve compatibility and ad delivery problems. Because different streaming platforms have varied ad formats and technical requirements, it can be difficult for advertisers to guarantee that their ads appear appropriately everywhere. Furthermore, interactive or dynamic ads might not be supported by CTV devices. Because of these technical limitations, CTV ads may become less innovative and effective. As a result, advertisers must carefully analyze the features and capabilities of each platform and device they target.

Maximizing Advertising Impact with Connected TV and Integrated Strategies

Following a successful 2023, CTV offers advertisers fresh, premium settings to connect with attentive, growing, and addressable audiences. 

Advertisements in premium settings attract up to three times more attention than those in traditional settings. However, Connected TV (CTV) ads can be harder to measure and more fragmented due to the high demand for attention and return on investment (ROI) for each campaign.

Combining CTV, online video, and display ads into one seamless strategy enhances the customer experience and makes your ads more effective. This approach ensures that your ads reach more people and work better from the moment customers see your ad to the moment they decide to buy your brand.

With the added benefit of more creative ads, CTV advertising enables brands to take a direct-to-consumer and direct-response strategy, more precisely targeting customers and engaging with them in a personalized way. Always remember that content is king, so making interesting and relevant advertising content enables viewers to interact with the product. Furthermore, interactive advertisements can be customized to the viewer's interests by utilizing the bigger screens and high-definition capabilities of CTV devices to create engaging viewing experiences. This increases consumer loyalty and brand awareness even further.

It's crucial to use a multiplatform approach when developing CTV plans, integrating advertisements with other digital marketing techniques, including influencer marketing, social media, email campaigns, and search engine marketing. By integrating CTV advertisements with these tactics, brands may expand their reach and enhance their visibility across many media platforms. Increased engagement and conversions will result from this, which can be tracked. The data gathered will help you make wise decisions for upcoming promotions.

What Is The Future of CTV Advertising?

CTV is an excellent alternative for advertisers as the market keeps changing, and we move into a cookie-less world with more rules and worries about data privacy. Compared to typical digital advertising, CTV does not use third-party cookies to offer relevant adverts. CTV uses device ID or IP address-based household-level targeting, and this privacy-compliant data allows more advanced methods of reaching target consumers. According to Comscore, web and mobile will be the most popular channels for performance marketing in the upcoming year, with CTV ad spending expected to rise the highest.

According to a consumer survey by Amagi, 61% of participants were open to seeing free, excellent content in exchange for advertisements. Of those surveyed, 39% stated they could tolerate seeing advertisements for up to two minutes for every hour of content, and 12% for up to five minutes. This study provides evidence that marketers should arrange their campaigns to include CTV commercials.

The popularity of linked TV has surged due to the pandemic and streaming services, which emphasizes the importance of making the changeover. With the growth of CTV, developments in programmatic technology, and AI-powered technologies, advertisers now have more ways to engage with their target audiences, monitor ad performance in real-time, and improve campaign results. CTV advertising allows for more cost-effective and high-engagement campaign results than traditional advertising platforms.

Understanding the Difference: Digital Video vs. Television

Understanding the distinctions between digital video and traditional television is crucial in the rapidly evolving media consumption. Let's delve into each platform's nuances to better comprehend how content is consumed and how ads are delivered. This blog offers digital video and television content examples, highlighting their function and ad placement. It will then help you make wise choices to improve your marketing strategy, maximize the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns, and improve your return on investment in digital marketing and advertising.

Let’s get started!

Digital Video

• CTV: Connected Television

Connected Television refers to TV-like content delivered via the Internet, typically through Smart TVs or over-the-top (OTT) devices. This category includes both subscription and non-subscription streaming services. Some inventory may be distributed in the mobile or desktop environments and includes the following:

• AVOD, advertising-based video on-demand, is a monetization technique that uses video-on-demand services. AVOD viewers can access all of the free video material on the platform. This approach relies on advertising with a large audience instead of charging users to consume content. Users find it appealing to watch their favorite videos for free. By the end of 2023, there will be about 140 million AVOD watchers in the US; by 2026, that number is expected to reach over 170 million.

• Free ad-supported streaming TV services, aka FAST. Free content access and advertising-based revenue are the key points of similarity between AVOD and FAST. Similar to cable TV channels, FAST channels are linear with commercial interruptions. The user cannot choose what is broadcasted on the channel, unlike with AVOD. (e.g., Pluto TV, Tubi, Xumo)

• Ad-supported paid subscription video services (e.g., Hulu, Paramount+)

• vMVPDs or virtual multichannel video programming distributors. It is a service that enables customers to view their preferred TV channels online without needing cable subscriptions. In addition, devices like laptops, tablets, and smartphones can access vMVPD service. Viewers can also stream on-demand video material, such as movies, with modern vMVPDs. Similar to cable TV services, viewers of vMVPDs pay a recurring subscription cost, typically every month. (e.g., Hulu Live TV, YouTube TV, Sling)

• Social Video

Short-form videos shared on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and YouTube fall under the social video category.

• Online Video

Web or app-based publishers often produce short-form videos for online consumption, catering to audiences seeking quick and engaging content.

Television

• National Broadcast/Cable TV

Traditional linear TV programming is distributed nationally and tends to have uniform ad placements across households viewing the same shows. This includes data-driven linear TV bought for national distribution.

• Local Broadcast/Cable TV

Like national TV, local broadcast or cable TV targets specific metro-level audiences, ensuring that households watching the same shows are exposed to the same advertisements.

• Audience-Based Linear TV

Cable and satellite television are included in linear television, often known as traditional broadcast television. Unlike on-demand material, which each viewer chooses to watch according to their own schedule and tastes, linear content adheres to a fixed programming schedule. So, to answer the question “What is linear TV?” consider it the traditional, multi-decade TV viewing experience. Linear TV advertising is pre-purchased, meaning advertisers must purchase ad space based on the show’s rating and not the audience.

• Audience Addressable TV: Since linear TV advertising is the same for everyone, addressable TV advertising differs from traditional TV advertising. Advertisers can serve specific ads to individual households during linear TV programming based on data such as location, behavior, and demographics, providing a more targeted advertising approach.

• Audience-indexed linear TV: Buyers can identify programs, networks, and time slots that align with their target audience demographics, optimizing ad placement to reach the desired viewership.

In conclusion, digital video and traditional television offer distinct strategies for content creators and advertisers to engage with audiences. While digital video provides flexibility and reach across various platforms, television maintains its relevance through targeted audience segmentation and mass exposure. Understanding the unique features of each medium is essential for developing effective content strategies and advertising campaigns in modern media consumption.

What is Automatic Content Recognition in Programmatic Ad?

The way people consume content has changed drastically in the digital age. Back then, enjoying video was only possible through TV channels, with a minimum of content to watch. Right now, we may access various content on various platforms anytime and anywhere. Technological development played a major role in the evolution of media content consumption, called Automatic Content Recognition (ACR).

Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) is a revolutionary technology in media content consumption. It makes it possible for devices to recognize and index the content material shown. Numerous features in our content consumption experience, such as interactive & relevant advertising and personalized content recommendations, are based on this technology. ACR technology is fundamental to creating a more personalized and engaging media content consumption experience by bridging the gap between content creators and consumers. The closest example of an ACR application you might be familiar with is the series or movie recommendation based on your current watch. In fact, there are more applications of ACR technology.

ACR technology can completely change how users interact with content. Let's investigate how it is changing how users consume media content to learn about the usage of ACR technology in present and future times.

Let's start with its history. In the early 200s, the initial uses of ACR technology were limited to music identification. Over time, the technology has advanced and added broadcast and video content to its list of capabilities. The development of ACR fueled the media industry's need for more advanced data analytics, the increasing number of smart devices, and the growing demand for tailored content.

How Does Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) Work?

The speed and accuracy of the ACR's ability to detect content makes it special. There are usually multiple steps in this process:

1. Content Fingerprint Extraction: When a device with ACR technology plays content, the system uses the audio or video signal to create a special "fingerprint." This fingerprint captures the unique characteristics of the content and uses this fingerprint as its representation.
2. Database Comparison: Next, a sizeable database of known content fingerprints is consulted to compare the retrieved fingerprints. ACR technology companies maintain these databases regularly, updating them with fresh content.
3. Identification & Result: The final process is when the ACR system identifies the material. Then, depending on the application, some activities may be initiated, including recording viewing data, presenting the user with relevant information, or suggesting related material.

Because of its high technical expertise, ACR technology can complete this process in real-time, giving users instant results and opening up a wide range of applications that improve a media-consuming experience. ACR technology is leading the way in the development of media engagement.

Types of Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) Technologies

With the development of numerous media formats and applications, Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technologies have become more advanced with different mechanisms for detecting and processing content. These technologies are essential for improving user experiences across multiple platforms, delivering tailored content, and giving advanced statistical data. Here, let's examine the main categories of ACR technologies and their unique features.

1. Audio Fingerprinting. Audio fingerprinting is one of the most popular ACR applications. It generates a distinct digital signature or "fingerprint" by examining the audio track of the content. This fingerprint was then compared to a database of recognized audio fingerprints to determine it. This audio fingerprint is very useful for music identification services, TV and audio monitoring, and allowing smart devices to identify the music being played. Because of its resilience, it can reliably recognize the content, even in ambiance with noise or poor audio quality.
2. Digital Watermarking. Digital watermarking works by embedding a unique, undetectable code into the content. Although this watermark is meant to be undetectable, it can be detected on a device with ACR installed. In contrast to audio fingerprinting, which depends on content matching to a database, digital watermarking directly enables metadata retrieval and identification. This technology is very helpful for monitoring how content is distributed across various platforms.
3. Video Fingerprinting. This method is similar to audio fingerprinting but has expanded to visual content. It generates a unique fingerprint by analyzing individual frames or sequences in a video. In this procedure, video elements, such as color, form, and motion, are evaluated. Like audio fingerprinting, video fingerprinting is useful for identifying video content and has uses in content monitoring, copy-right detection, and improving video search capabilities.

What Are The Applications of Automatic Content Recognition (ACR)?

ACR technologies' adaptability has allowed them to be used in various contexts, greatly influencing how consumers interact with media and companies get more advanced analytics.

1. Increasing Audience Engagement with Tailored Content Suggestions.

Publishers may offer highly tailored content recommendations using ACR technology, which gives them real-time insight into viewers' behaviors in consuming content, resulting in improved user experience. This also helps in raising the publisher's revenue and engagement.

2. Real-time Analytics

ACR provides real-time analytics on audience engagement and behavior during media consumption activity.  This information is crucial for understanding audience preferences, streamlining content distribution, and customizing advertising campaigns to increase outcomes and profit.

3. Making Advertising More Effective

Serving relevant ads is easier with the help of ACR. This benefits advertisers and publishers significantly in developing interactive and targeted advertising campaigns that engage with the audience effectively, resulting in high revenue streams.

4. Copy-right Management

ACR technology helps content creators and distributors manage broadcasting rights and ensure that content distribution conforms with legal agreements by detecting where and how content is consumed. This is essential to stopping the illegal distribution and consumption of protected content.

The Challenges of Automatic Content Recognition (ACR)

The implementation of ACR technology presents several issues and concerns that must be taken into account regardless of its advantages:

• Data Security and Privacy Issues: Gathering and analyzing visitor data sometimes raises serious privacy issues. Maintaining customer trust requires ensuring data security, and adhering to privacy standards is crucial for building long-term relationships with customers and safeguarding the reputation.
• Accuracy of Content Recognition: Inaccurate content identification might negatively impact analytics and user experience due to the possibility of errors in content recognition. Recognition algorithms must be continuously upgraded to improve accuracy and adapt to new data patterns.
• Ethical Considerations: To prevent violating viewers' rights or encouraging manipulative behavior, ACR technology must be evaluated for ethical issues.