When people are given a choice in the ads they see, it provides incentives to advertisers and publishers to create a better user experience. The rising popularity of skippable video ads is one example of how choice is propelling video advertising to a whole new level. As more brands and publishers grow their video advertising investments and increase programmatic video budgets, we're seeing first-hand how giving viewers choice drives better results for everyone.

 To bring together how choice benefits publishers, advertisers and viewers, we analyzed skippable video ads on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and revisited some previous studies on the skippable video ad format TrueView in-stream in our research “Video Advertising Momentum”.
  • Publishers get a more attentive audience: Skippable ads reduce audience abandonment rates by 50% compared to standard in-stream ads. That means more people are continuing to watch video, swelling your audience numbers and deepening their engagement with your content. Selling skippable ads through DoubleClick for Publishers or through AdX increases monetization without sacrificing viewer experience.
  • Advertisers get a more engaged audience: Viewers are 75% more engaged when watching a skippable ad compared to a standard pre-roll, and this engagement has positive knock-on effects on brand favorability and purchase intent. And once you've identified viewers who choose to watch your ad, you can extend your campaign through remarketing or storyboarding a continued message.
  • Viewers get a better experience: 4 out of 5 viewers prefer skippable ads to non-skippable ads. Cultivating a viewer-friendly advertising experience is proving more effective for advertisers and enables publishers to earn revenue without impacting viewers.

Digital video opens up new ways to engage viewers, and skippable ads are just one way of doing this. But if these findings are anything to go by, there are strong reasons for advertisers and publishers to incorporate skippable video ads in their advertising strategy.

Posted by Mel Ann Chan, Product Marketing