FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New York, NY, January 10, 2023: 2022 was a strong year for online video with almost 93% of global internet users consuming digital video weekly (Source: Oberlo) and 50% of U.S. internet users watching online videos daily. (Source: TechJury) Looking forward, eMarketer projects that 2023 will have slower overall ad spending, but they forecast double-digit growth for short-form video advertising and predict it will be the fastest-growing ad segment in 2023. With the increasing consumption of online video, and online video forecasted to attract even more ad spend than in prior years, 2023 is the year to ensure you have a robust video strategy and the right video partner.
STN Video is expecting a combination of product trends in online video that will focus on making it easier for publishers to bring video to their users while developing increasingly sophisticated ways to improve monetization. We believe that a continued focus on viewable video, additional capabilities for AI content creation, balancing traffic growth for advertising vs subscription conversion, and increased utilization of self-service tools will allow more publishers to take advantage of the powerful storytelling capabilities of video and its associated monetization.
STN Video’s relationship with more than 250 premium content providers and 2000-plus publishing partners provides us with a unique perspective on what’s happening in online video. Our award-winning online video platform had more than four billion content plays in 2022 – generating a ton of insights in how we develop our outlook for the future. So stick with us for a moment, and take a look at what we think is in store for 2023!
Trend 1 – Viewability
Viewability remains one of the most important metrics in digital advertising. In 2023, we expect advertisers and marketers will continue to place scrutiny on viewability by moving more spend to partners who are able to meet their viewability objectives.
With 63% of web traffic coming from mobile, publishers must ensure that viewability on mobile is optimized. To address this, we introduced our STN Optimized Mobile Player (OMP) and a new video player for Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to not only solve for viewability but improve overall page performance and user experience. The improvements in these foundational measurements of ad performance are critical to achieving high advertising performance and premium CPMs.
STN publishers using OMP and AMP have seen dramatic and sustained results, ensuring that they are well-positioned for next year’s focus on viewability.
Our 2022 OMP and AMP results include:
- Up to 91% improvement in video viewability
- 58% improvement in eCPMs
- Less than 2% close-out rates
- 20% increase in mobile revenue
Trend 2 – Balancing Digital Subscription Model with Ad Support Model
For many publishers, the push to digital subscribers is now producing diminishing returns and risks driving away potential audience members while creating a concomitant reduction in advertising/monetization opportunities. We expect to see more publishers creating tiered levels of experience and content for subscribers by moving paying customers towards more premium services while continuing to focus on growing overall traffic for those unwilling to pay for a subscription. This will allow publishers to maintain audience scale for advertising and other pageview-based monetization opportunities. Publishers able to take advantage of digital ad revenue growth (specifically in video) while maintaining this balance will be able to achieve greater sustainability.
Trend 3 – Self-Serve
Video has been notoriously difficult for many publishers to master. The cost of production, the expense of the technology, and the difficulty of achieving scale has meant that many publishers have been left without a true video solution and have had to rely on clumsy integrations of slow-loading social media players, often featuring amateur content. We foresee self-serve capabilities being a top video trend for 2023, giving publishers the ability to customize their content offerings with premium technology while providing access to expert video content at scale.
With a planned release in early 2023, STN Video will address this trend by introducing a self-service product that will allow publishers to utilize our award-winning OVP product while gaining access to premium video content. Self-serve will improve publishers’ storytelling and audience engagement through video without any expense to the publisher.
Trend 4 – Programmatic
Marketers, brands, agency planners, and buyers will continue to increase their programmatic investment with 15.2% growth expected for programmatic for 2023. (Source: InsiderIntelligence) Programmatic video continues to attract budgets because it drives efficiency for advertisers due to its significant available inventory pool and overall ease of campaign planning and management. According to a recent survey by the IAB, many agencies are predicting a bumpy ride with clients in 2023, with shorter planning horizons and shifting budgets favoring the flexibility that programmatic marketplaces are able to provide. With ads.txt as a requirement for the vast majority of programmatic buyers, suppliers will need to ensure their inventory is accessible to these sellers. STN Video is introducing an automated ads.txt file manager to ensure publishers have the latest ads.txt files on their sites and can maximize the revenue they earn from programmatic selling. Stay tuned for more about this in the coming months!
Trend 5 – Shoppable Video
As consumers have increasingly moved to online shopping for everything from cat food to cars, publishers have embraced affiliate commerce as an exciting opportunity to diversify their revenue mix. In 2023, Shoppable video will begin extending that opportunity by creating seamless experiences between what is being viewed and advertised within the video player and the ability to purchase it directly from a publisher or through their affiliate relationships. Being able to shop and purchase directly from the video player seamlessly is a great user experience for site visitors while also being a revenue growth opportunity for publishers. STN Video is excited to support this trend with its planned introduction and release of shoppable video in the first half of 2023.
As we look to 2023, STN Video has already begun putting the pieces in place to address the opportunities presented with each of these trends–whether it’s by placing a continued focus on viewability as we did with the release of our Optimized Mobile Player and enhanced video player for AMP pages, releasing our self-service capabilities to enable more publishers to activate video at scale on their sites, creating automation for maintaining ads.txt files for programmatic, or expanding shoppable video, we deliver products to help publishers, content partners, and advertisers maximize their opportunities in video. To learn more about STN Video’s products and solutions and how to make the most out of video on your site, contact us or get started.
To stay up to date with the latest from STN Video including our upcoming releases in 2023, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
About STN Video:
STN Video is North America’s largest independent online video platform, helping digital publishers, content providers, and advertisers thrive with online video. STN Video delivers brand-safe video from over 250 providers including MLB, Rolling Stone, Variety, Associated Press, the NBA and Bloomberg and in contextually relevant environments across 1,900+ trusted, local publishers including the New York Post, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald and more.
STN Video has a library of 1 million+ videos spanning sports, business, technology, entertainment, lifestyle and more. Using Smart Match® AI-powered technology, publishers simply place an embed code on their website and relevant video content gets matched with their articles. For more information, visit www.stnvideo.com or follow them on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
