Millions of consumers whose first experience of digital video was on a desktop computer are carrying over those viewing habits to connected TVs. That means YouTube, the video-sharing site owned by Google, has a strong presence on the biggest screen in most households.
“As we anticipated, more eyeballs have shifted to TV screens watching YouTube,” Jackie Paulino, chief product officer at video ad-tech startup Pixability, said in this interview with Beet.TV. “A lot of people don’t know that TV screens make up a large portion of impressions served on YouTube — we’ve seen as high as 35% — and that YouTube is a major player in the connected TV space.”
Pixability has migrated into the CTV arena as consumers spend more time with streaming video, including premium offerings on a growing variety of services.
“Pixability has always been about premium video first, because we feel like for advertisers and consumers that YouTube is really a good place to watch video,” Paulino said. “It’s a ‘lean-back’ type of experience — you’re not necessarily just scrolling through a news feed. The transition to television screens was definitely a natural for Pixability as well as it was for YouTube.”
YouTube also is a flexible advertising platform, giving viewers a chance to skip ads after a few seconds or watch the entire spot — and even respond to a call-to-action. Pixability is focused on the YouTube app, which is available in the app stores for a variety of CTV platforms, and not YouTube TV, which is its streaming bundle.
Optimizing CTV Campaigns
YouTube’s strength comes from its massive reach of more than 2 billion users worldwide, though advertisers can target highly specific audience segments. The platform also has shoppable ad formats for marketers that seek to drive a direct response in the lower part of the purchase funnel.
“We really make sure we’re showing the right ad to the right person at the right time, and that the ad is very targeted to the individual as well as the content,” Paulino said. “We can look at where you’re running your ads, and say the types of content you would want, depending on who your audience is. There’re lots of different targeting types, lots of different ways to optimize you ads, and we have technology that helps do that as well.”
Pixabilty also provides ad placements on other CTV platforms including Amazon’s Fire TV and Roku, which have gained popularity as people seek a bigger variety of programming to watch on connected devices.
Source: eMarketer
“Each of the platforms has pluses and minuses when it comes to things you can target,” Paulino said. “What we want to focus on is helping advertisers look at all these different premium video places, and understand where’s the best place for you to run your ad.”
Pixability provides planning, optimization and reporting services that include data about ad engagement. That information ranges from skipped ads on YouTube to data about sales activity on Amazon.
Paulino expects measurement tools to evolve, helping advertisers evaluate the effects of their campaigns on store visits and sales.
“Where I’d like to see things moving at Pixability and other partners…is really more focused around conversions and lower-funnel measurement,” Paulino said. “There’s just so much available data that it’s important for us to focus on the right things — are we helping advertisers sell their products?”
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