Examining trends and results from more than 50 digital media brands and TV networks, the report looks at where the ad dollars are being spent, reasons behind those choices and who is making those decisions. We’ve had a look at the report and pulled out some key highlights we think are taking note of:

How
The way that brands buy video advertising is changing all the time and the report discovered some very interesting trends:

1. Perhaps not surprisingly, there is a general flow of advertising dollars to digital from print, cable and broadcast. But the scale of this is interesting - for instance broadcast has seen an 11 per cent decrease in spending since 2013, while display advertising has seen an 8 per cent drop in that time.
2. There is a steady shift from direct to programmatic buying - with over half of all digital video buying transacted in part or in whole by programmatic platforms like Salesforce Advertising Studio
3. Increasingly, brands are merging the teams that buy digital and TV advertising. Many have already merged their buying teams into one, and as many again are planning to do so. (Only 11 per cent of digital marketing teams and 9 per cent of TV teams have no plans to merge).

Where
The report unveils important data about the platforms where advertisers choose to have their video ads hosted

1. Four-in-ten digital advertisers turn to social media channels first when planning video campaigns.
2. Mobile video is still growing. The trend is slowing, but is far from plateauing.
3. Google (YouTube) and Facebook are overwhelmingly dominating the video advertising marketplace - at 72 per cent and 46 per cent respectively.

Why
You can learn a lot about how to plan your own inbound marketing strategy from the factors that drive and influence decisions around video advertisers:

1. In planning digital video strategies, respondents found demographic data far more useful - at 42 per cent - than behavioural (33 per cent) or site navigation data (16 per cent).
2. When selecting video advertising partners, brands are far more interested in site quality 37 per cent) over other factors, such as the extent of “control over ad content” (21 per cent) or “only charging for completed ads” (20 per cent).
3. Finally, ROI (Return on Investment), conversion rates and sales impact are the overriding indicators of success for video campaigns.

The profile of the 300 respondents are split fairly evenly - 57 per cent agency and 43 per cent marketer. However the Digital versus TV split is far more dramatic reflecting the nature of the modern environment - at 70 per cent and 30 per cent respectively. The brands represented in the report range from CNN, MSNBC and Bloomberg to AOL, Hulu and Twitter.