Digital video ad spend to ramp up 22%

Survey finds that marketers and advertisers plan to boost their DVA spending by 22% over next year

A new study released Monday by IAB (the Interactive Advertising Bureau) found that advertisers and marketers plan to ramp up their digital video advertising (DVA) efforts over the next 12 months. The survey questioned 148 marketers and 352 agencies and the vast majority reported that they have plans to increase their DVA spending over the next year by an average of 22% across the board. 

The survey was conducted by Advertising Perceptions between November and December 2010, with a focus on digital and/or television media decision makers who plan to spend over $1 million or more in the next 12 months. Of the 500 total respondents surveyed, 69% of marketers and 55% of advertisers have plans to increase their DVA spending, and those surveyed said they have plans to spend an average of 17% of their total online display advertising budget on DVA. 

An overall increase of 22% is pretty substantial--so why the big leap in spending? Some of the survey's key findings indicate that not only is DVA more cost effective, it's also more effective at engaging audiences as consumers tend to spend more time with online video than anything else. Additionally, digital video advertising is easier to track and comes with better ROI measurement. 

The looming shadow of cord-cutters is also on the minds of advertisers and marketers, so many have plans to re-allocate money from TV ad spend over to digital video to keep up with the growing movement of advertisers' and marketers' target audiences to digital. 

“There was strong consensus that demand for digital video advertising was strengthening,” according to Randy Cohen, President of Advertiser Perceptions, in a prepared statement. “It was described best by a senior agency buyer who stated that ‘Digital video is becoming an ever-more common way that our target is consuming what was traditionally broadcast content – and our target is spending more time online, and video is another way to reach and engage the target.”

Of the individual respondents polled, 44% held higher level titles, 62% were involved in television decision making, and 85% were involved in digital decision making.