This article was originally posted on VideoInk. 

Why Getting TV Dollars to Go Online Is Easier Than You Think

If we can all agree that advertisers need to shift their budgets from TV to online – because that’s where their audiences have gone to engage – what’s the hold up?

Until today, there were two main options for online video ads. Both have limitations. The first option is pre-roll, which must be placed on pre-existing video content and which inventory is limited. The other option available to advertisers is the oft-maligned in-banner video ad, which is often pushed into display inventory slots.

Pre-roll requires placement on pre-existing video content that also suffers from the same limited supply challenge in comparison to overall demand. Plus, viewers have essentially been trained to countdown a few seconds and then skip the ad (with some people telling me “these are the longest 15 seconds of my morning”).

While in-banner video ads may have a legitimate role to play in the market if categorized correctly, they typically provide a poor user experience. These ads often slow down a web page delivering what the industry refers to as ‘jank,’ or a stuttering and halting experience that annoys and disengages viewers from the page content and the ad. To make matters worst, it does not provide a good value for advertisers, adding injury to insult. The experience they provide is also driving both brands and users away.

Combine poor viewer experience and inventory limitations of the current options with three key metrics hurdles, which include viewability, target audience reach, as well as performance tracking and measurement, and it’s no wonder that TV dollars are slow to move online.

However, this year at the NewFronts 37 digital players, from the debut of Playboy and WebMD, to veterans Buzzfeed and Refinery29, will be making presentations to woo marketers for their fair share of the $3 billion digital-video online advertising pie. Those marketers will undoubtedly need motivation to move more of their ad dollars from TV to online video properties. Doing so will increase the demand for what has been a fixed supply limiting overall growth.

So what’s the answer to creating high-impact video ad formats that gives TV advertisers something to get excited about? Facebook has spent hundreds of R&D hours developing a very interesting solution of embedding video experiences in feed, not to mention the video advertising technology and capabilities they acquired when they scooped up LiveRail. All of that combined has allowed them to tackle the viewability conundrum and develop a respectable solution. However, most publishers do not have access to engineering teams that can compete with Facebook. So while video advertising is the fastest growing market, not all publishers are poised to take advantage of the growth in the way that Facebook has.

One way publishers are finding success in scaling their video ad inventory is with outstream technology that delivers breakthrough video content independent of available ad real estate. Outstream is enabling them to gain the control they need to implement highly viewable quality video with audience reach as well as the ability to track and measure performance.

Another advantage that publishers find with outstream that also helps scale inventory for TV ad dollars comes from its ability to play independently of publisher content, creating extensive inventory and revenue opportunities that can be priced according to degree of impact.

Outstream, however, is not a solution for all situations and must be used wisely to engage, and not enrage, users.  For example, if a user is shown a premium-sized interstitial, then it would be a best practice to refrain from other intrusive ad experiences on the same page, or even during the same session.

As digital content creators vie for advertiser attention during the NewFronts, the in-stream (pre-roll) inventory remains limited. If the NewFronts are successful, and I hope they are, it means that even less in-stream inventory will be available on the open market. Fortunately, outstream solves the video inventory shortage at scale with a viewable, quality experience that TV advertisers have come to know and value.