Targeting online video advertising

Written by Dean Donaldson, digital experience strategist, EyeBlaster andVaughan Denny, head of rich media sales EMEA, DoubleClick Rich Media and Video

Preventing waste

One of the big promises of online advertising is that by using clever targeting, budgets can be used more efficiently as advertising isn’t wasted on those that a) can’t see it or b) are unlikely to respond to it.

This is especially important for video advertising, as it is usually more engaging than standard display advertising so a positive experience is more important. Video advertising has existed since the dawn of commercial television. While the way it is delivered may have changed, the aim hasn’t. You can use video to increase brand engagement and measuring this is where online video advertising excels.

For an example, if you are promoting a horror film, you are unlikely to reach a receptive audience by advertising on a mother and baby website. It is better to target the audience to make your advertising more efficient.

Bandwidth

If you are running a campaign featuring a beautiful video that has high production values and where the feeling of quality is essential, there is very little point trying to show these ads to someone who barely has enough bandwidth to download their email. They won’t respond positively and you will waste your efforts.

The desired quality of video footage in an ad has a huge impact on the technical specifications. The higher the quality, the higher the file size and the larger the impact on the viewer, both in terms of advertising impact and the technical demands upon the viewer’s machine.

Technical targeting

The technical aspects of targeting which affect the success of a campaign include, but are not limited to:

• Geographical targeting: allows you to deliver an ad against a person’s location. This is especially true when running multinational campaigns as delivering a video in the correct language with the correct information will increase its effectiveness.

• Browser and operating system targeting: allows you to target against the technology that a person is using. There may be little point in delivering a video ad to someone who hasn’t updated their browser for four years as the video probably won’t play.

• Connection speed: has particular impact upon video advertising as trying to squeeze a large video creative down a slow connection is frustrating to the consumer and is a waste of effort for you. This doesn’t mean that a user on a slow connection should be excluded from seeing the ad – just that they should see it in a different fashion – as a download rather than a stream for instance.

• Time of day targeting: allows ads to be delivered to someone at an appropriate point of the day. If you have a video ad that has the aim of driving people to a particular fast food chain then it will be better to show this to them in the two hours running up to lunch rather than first thing on a Sunday morning.

• Targeting against site content: is a technique that allows an advertiser to show ads to different users of a site. There is little point showing a video ad for the new VW Golf to someone who is searching for a second hand Ford Fiesta. Using keywords to target an ad means that the marketing spend works a bit harder.

• Behavioural targeting of video: isn’t available for all pre/mid/post-roll advertising but it will become more important in the future. Video in display banner advertising can be behaviourally targeted. Behavioural targeting places people anonymously into large groups that have shown an interest in a certain subject based on the websites they have visited. It is often shown to deliver higher clickthrough or engagement because it increases relevancy.

• Social media targeting: this is often known as “word-of-mouth” or “viral” advertising and is an area of marketing over which you have less control but you don’t relinquish all of it. You can create the right conditions for social media by making your video content available easily for people to add to their profiles and share with friends in social networks like Bebo, MySpace and Facebook. This effectively creates targeting through peer-to-peer sharing and can be incredibly successful. A classic example of this is the Vodafone dance advert which started on TV but became a huge internet phenomenon because it was entertaining and people could share the video easily online.

Next page