Facebook has been experimenting with new video features for some time now, and they’ve paid off quite well, resulting in three billion daily views by the start of 2015 alone. But the real surprise is how quickly companies are turning to the social giant for advertising, using its video system to get the message across.
A new report from Mixpo, titled State of Digital Advertising Report, reveals how popular Facebook’s video has gotten. The report shows that 50 percent of companies have launched some form of video campaign on the site, a huge jump compared to the 31 percent on YouTube, and even bigger than Twitter (17 percent), Instagram (13 percent) and Snapchat (two percent).
New video advertising campaigns are also on the way. The report points out that 36 percent of companies intend to utilize Facebook video ads sometime in the year ahead, based on findings from more than 250 digital publishers across the US.
“Facebook is the most effective way to reach a large digital audience,” the report noted.
The report also shows that digital video advertising will see a $10 billion spend this year—a 28 percent increase over 2015. Video is also seeing dominance in the mobile field, as the market for those devices will see a 47 percent growth year-over-year as well.
Part of that success comes from accessibility, according to Mixpo. “Today’s digital publisher can turn a single video into a scalable marketing asset that serves across TV and various owned and unowned digital channels.”
While Facebook video has most of the attention, Mixpo also noted the success of programmatic video spending. “By both feeding and benefiting from programmatic buying, publishers have helped US programmatic display ad spending grow into a $22 billion business.”
While not every company is involved in programmatic advertising, 59 percent currently have some involvement for audience extension, and 17 percent of those polled intend to look into it in 2017.
Mixpo’s report also discusses mobile, as 48 percent of companies have some concerns regarding the increase in mobile consumption. They’re worried that there may be less traffic and inventory, and less revenue as a result. However, the company remained optimistic. “By pairing premium content with impactful mobile ad opportunities, publishers can play the supply/demand curve to their favor.”
Finally, the report discusses the digital ad formats with the highest ROI, with pre-rolls being the most effective, followed by rich media, display and social. Digital publishers are also working more to push their video tools beyond their own sites for other businesses and partners to use, with 61 percent successfully selling “audience extension packages.”
Publishers aren’t slowing down on ideas either, as more opportunities are likely to open up in the next year. “This means making video an option within every ad format, from interactive VPAID and VPAID 2.0 ads to in-banner video executions,” the report notes.
The report has quite a bit of eye-opening information for those looking to expand their video-based advertising on social media, especially on Facebook.
A secondary study, titled “Animoto’s Social Video Forecast 2016” says that 63 percent of marketers and small business owners are looking to invest more in video over the next year, while 60 percent of marketers polled stated that video marketing is a “must-have” in the market.
There’s no specific format that these videos need to follow. A report from Adweek pointed out that marketers are looking more into a square-shaped video format, making for a friendlier, TV-style ratio compared to the usual 16:9.
Data provided by digital shop Laundry Service points out that videos shot in this format have a 54 percent higher popularity than 16:9 clips, while 67 percent of audiences are more likely to watch a square-shaped video, rather than the usual format.