Five simple ways to make more money from video advertising

Video can be a great source of revenue for publishers who get it right. Jana Eisenstein, UK managing director of Videology, outlines five ways to get more revenue from your video inventory.

The bottom line here is that the amount publishers earn from video depends on how much they invest in technology and expertise. Only you will know what time, staffing or investment your business can currently afford so in this guide I’ve included a mix of simple low-cost measures as well as some complex ones.

Ultimately all publishers will have to start to understand and exploit the power of data and audience if they want to enhance returns from video inventory. But making the business case for this investment will be easier if you’ve already taken advantage of some of the simpler ways of maximising monetisation.

1. Put a video header in your navigation bar

All video strategy starts with growing your audience base and this is the most simple and effective method of driving users to videos. One publisher increased video views by more than 600 percent in just three months simply via the use of clearer navigation.

2. Optimise video inventory against search newsfeeds

An upmarket site realised that putting relevant videos at the top of the pages that users landed on through Google Loading... companies google newsfeeds significantly increased the chances they would view the content.

The business ensured that the most highly trafficked pages included video content and as a result consumption went up by around 500 percent in six months.

3. Research third-party content providers

If you can’t create your own video content yet – or only have the editorial resource to do a little – then investigate other content offerings. This will grow your video views (potentially quickly) and in a cost effective manner. Providers such as Muzu, Perform, MyMovies, ReelKandi, Rightster, Channel Flip, Zoom.in and Diagonal View can supply content in most subject areas.

They operate in all manner of set-ups from bespoke solutions and content through to off-the-shelf packages that include everything from ad-serving, trafficking and monetisation. It’s up to you what level of involvement you want.

Such deals provide a great way to learn about what video can do for your business, allowing you to get more involved only as and when you are ready to take more of the management in-house.

4. Know Your Audience

A recent survey found that 90% of agency trading desks thought audience targeting is more important than targeting by content and 70 percent of advertisers agreed. Although these figures come from North America, the numbers would be pretty similar in the UK.

Too many publishers still cannot deliver audience targeting – nearly 50 percent have had to turn down potential advertising in North America – and that means they are losing revenue. To do this, publishers need technology to forecast and target specific audience segments and provide robust end of campaign reporting. This requires technology solutions that can forecast audiences, target campaigns in real time against audience segments and can offer reporting insights and transparency during and post campaign.

5. Retrain your staff

Building the audience and then employing the right technology to target that audience is only half the battle; the ad team has to be empowered and enabled to sell it.

A survey by the Sales Executives Council in the US found that when it comes to complex products (and ad technology definitely counts as complex for many buyers and sellers), buyers perceive little difference in brand, product and price and the prime differentiator is sales experience.

Re-educating sales can be tough when teams are more used to selling the value of your brand or home page takeovers. Audience selling requires a new approach, using new planning and reporting tools and metrics.

If the talent and training of your sales team doesn’t matches the sophistication of the technology employed then any investment in audience targeting technology will be wasted.