Canadian RTB pre-roll video inventory grew 10% by volume between last year’s third and fourth fiscal quarters – even as total RTB volume fell 11% in the same period.
That’s according to TubeMogul‘s Q4 trading report on programmatic video, released late last week. TubeMogul reports tier one publishers in particular – a category that includes high-quality inventory sources such as major broadcasters, cable networks and sports channels – grew 65% during the holiday season.
Mobile video inventory skyrocketed 185%, from 6.2 million impressions at auction at the beginning of October to 17.8 million at the end of December.
“Pre-roll inventory is highly sought-after, more so in December,” said TubeMogul’s Canadian president, Grant Le Riche, pointing to big end-of-year Christmas campaigns. “If [premium publishers] are not selling inventory, this is a good way to get premium brands to buy their inventory programmatically, where they don’t have to depend on a sales team to sell it.”
But while publishers may be expanding programmatic pre-roll to meet demand for the holiday season, in display they’re adopting the opposite tactic: holding back more inventory for direct sales, and reducing the remnant inventory available on exchanges.
The opposing trends show a deepening differentiation between premium video and display, likely because publishers can get better value for premium video impressions in a real-time bidding environment than they can for less competitive display impressions.
Le Riche said the trend in video is largely driven by advertisers that aren’t turning to programmatic video for low-CPM remnant inventory the way they are in display. Big brands are willing to pay top dollar for tier one video placements, and are likely going programmatic to improve the targeting and impact of their ads, rather than looking for cost efficiency. “Brand advertisers that know and understand video and optimize based on things that matter—Was my message seen and heard? Did I persuade someone?—they understand that this happens on the best-quality sites,” he said.
Advertiser demand for programmatic video remains strong, with pre-roll CPMs rising dramatically throughout the quarter and ending at 21% above end-of-September levels. Growth in mobile CPMs was particularly pronounced, up 42% over Q3. CPM growth is unusual given the general rule that when volume rises, CPMs decline, as the marketplace gets more competitive. Growing volume combined with high CPMs suggest that advertiser demand for pre-roll is much stronger than the current supply can support, and therefore volume is expected to continue to grow in 2014.
BY THE NUMBERS
Quarterly growth (Q4 2013 over Q3 2013)
• Total pre-roll volume: +10%
• Average pre-roll CPM: +21%
• Mobile pre-roll volume: +185%
• Average mobile pre-roll CPM: +42%
Source: TubeMogul Quarterly Update, Q4 2013
