The path of a video ad from the advertiser to a viewer is long and winding. There are many parties in the supply chain, and each plays a role in ensuring that the right ad is delivered to a certain viewer at a certain time on his/her particular device -- and quickly, since s/he is eager to get (or return) to the content. More often than we’d all like, there are issues along the way. Demand providers may not be able to find buyers for the inventory, a web page may have too many scripts running, an ad blocker may be installed, etc., leading to latency, abandonment and fewer monetized opportunities. Publishers, including our customers, are left wondering:
- Why is my ad fill rate lower than I expect?
- Why do video plays not match my ad server-reported impressions?
- Am I charging the right CPM for the quality of my inventory?
- Who are the high performing demand providers?
Today, I’m delighted to announce our partnership with video intelligence company, Watching That. Watching That’s platform aggregates and analyzes a wealth of disparate and often hard to correlate video and ad data and reports in real time on video ad performance. Its integration with the Brightcove Player has empowered our joint customers to use these insights to tackle questions like those above and find solutions to maximize the value of their video content.
Watching That’s Founder and CEO, Cameron Church, explained, “Watching That is able to provide a holistic view of video ad performance, and we’ve built an easy-to-use reporting dashboard so that publishers can drill down into specific issue areas. We’re excited to make Watching That’s platform available to Brightcove customers so that they can more easily diagnose ad-related issues and identify new opportunities that, when addressed, can improve user experience and revenue.”
Alan Whiteley, CTO of Brightcove customer Express Newspapers, can attest to the value of Watching That’s platform. He shared, “The error analytics are incredibly useful and have helped us go beyond general fill problems to the root causes of genuine issues that have plagued performance.” He added, “Watching That has allowed us to dig into the details of our video ad activity like never before. Certain metrics, like geography, domain and device, have really helped us understand our overall performance. We have been able to identify new low-hanging fruit, which we are monetizing, increasing overall revenue with little extra effort.”
By taking action to address ad-related issues and capitalize on potential new opportunities exposed by Watching That’s platform, Watching That’s customers overall have seen a 50%+ lift in their ad fill rate across their key markets and devices, and customers typically see a 30%+ lift in the first 30 days.
To learn more about Watching That’s platform and integration with the Brightcove Player, check out the video below. Better yet, see a live demo next month by registering for Brightcove PLAY where Watching That is an exhibiting sponsor. Plus, you can hear from Alan Whiteley and Cameron Church in a session on AVOD strategies, and engage with Brightcove’s ad tech manager, Ilya Degtev, as he and Cameron host a workshop on video advertising.
We are very excited to welcome Watching That to our partner ecosystem, and we hope that more customers will see meaningful results using the integration to diagnose ad issues and uncover ad opportunities. To gain access to Watching That’s Brightcove Player plugin, which is for client-side ads and to be implemented alongside Brightcove’s Google IMA plugin, customers should navigate to the plugin setup details in Watching That’s dashboard here or reach out to their Watching That account manager.