The in-app model dominates the mobile video ad space, with three in-app ads running for every mobile Web-based ad, according to the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA). The MMA gathered data from six mobile publishers to provide a month's worth of advertising data to create video ad performance benchmarks.
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More than 75 percent of all advertising occurred in-app, the majority (46 percent) on phones.
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Tablets were a close second, accounting for 30 percent of video ad activity.
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iOS activity accounted for more than 80 percent of ad volume.
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More than half of ads were 15 seconds or less.
- About one-third of the video ads were "skippable," meaning users could bypass them.
"Ad skipping is a process that unfolds in stages of time," the report said. "More than half of skippers stick around until 25 percent of the video has played. Around 30 percent remain through a video ad's halfway mark."
The whole issue of ad-skipping is relevant not only for marketers who want to ensure the advertising creative they run across a platform is being consumed, but for developers too. Although the promise of monetization through mobile advertising is no doubt appealing, some developers may be wary of video ads because they might be seen as interrupting the experience they're trying to provide through their app or mobile game.
The MMA benchmarks suggest that if consumers are given the option to skip the ad, they may still get enough of it to be valuable to an advertiser. That could mean the industry will see more skippable in-app video ads in the future, offering a compromise of sorts for developers who don't want to delve into native advertising formats.
For more:
- get the MMA Mobile Video Benchmark Study here
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