Despite Soaring Digital Video Ad Spend, Advertisers Lack Measurement Tools [Study]

Digital video advertising is expected grow 41 percent to top $4 billion this year, according to eMarketer. That’s double what advertisers spent on digital video ads just two years ago, and spend is projected to more than double again by 2017, topping $9 billion. However, according to a new report by BrandAds, measurement tools for video advertising campaigns are not keeping pace with the needs of advertisers.

In a survey of 106 brand and agency marketers, nearly 60% of digital video advertisers said that beyond basic delivery metrics, they do not have the tools they need to adequately measure the effectiveness of their campaigns on consumers.

For those who are currently using tools to measure the impact of their digital video advertising campaigns, over half said the tools are too expensive or create too much operational overhead.

Another complaint is that it takes too long to get campaign data. Eighty-one percent of video advertisers have to wait at least 24 hours to get campaign data. Only 12.5 percent of surveyed advertisers are getting data in real time.

Currently the majority of digital video advertisers are relying on impression and click data –traditional display metrics — to measure the impact of their campaigns, with 86.5 percent using impression data and 82.7 percent using click data from third party vendors. Less than three quarters (71 percent) are using a third-party vendor to measure completion rates.

There is a disconnect between what marketers want to measure and what they actually are measuring with third-party data. While an average of just 37 percent of those surveyed are currently measuring viewability and brand lift impact of their digital video ad campaigns, 75.5 percent said they would like to measure viewability and 74.5 percent would like to measure brand lift.

Avi Brown, co-founder and CEO at BrandAds.  “These findings tell us, as an industry, that only trustworthy and accurate measurement of digital video ads across connected devices will unlock the true power of digital video advertising.”

As digital video and TV advertising continue to blur, and digital media companies such as Yahoo, Google, AOL and others make the case for brands to embrace digital video campaigns, marketers’ will undoubtedly demand better measurement tools. On the ratings side, Nielsen, announced it will add digital video consumption to its traditional TV ratings, in addition to measuring native digital video content, starting with the 2014 fall television season.