Key Takeaways

• To make money with video advertisements, having video files is not a requirement as the outstream technology allows marketers to put video ads directly into the text of the articles.
• There are three options for generating revenue with videos and for most small publishers available only one of them is suitable. Outstream technology, authorized video content providers and real owned videos represent the increasing order of complexity and profits.
• Instream earns more than outstream and outstream acquires more revenues than display ad units. According to different sources, the benchmarking information varies significantly in a peculiar way so that it is important to regard data from vendors as approximate.
• Geographic location is the factor determining the efficiency of outstream advertising. There are many needs for video advertisements in tier 1 localities while tier 2 and even tier 3 sites may not fill requests from advertisers.
• The rate of filling is more important than the CPM value. A high CPM in case of little filling of ads is worth less than a low CPM but high filling rate.
• The positioning of the outstream ad affects its viewability rates and viewability decides the price asked for it.

Video advertisement brings in higher CPMs compared to the display advertising, yet most publishers don’t take advantage of it, because they think that video revenue means having to produce videos, and in order to produce videos, you need a budget, a camera and an editor that many sites do not have. And they are wrong and several websites lose the biggest type of revenue that is available to them. There is a way to run video ads on any site that has never published a single video. This guide explains how text publishers can start earning revenue from videos, which option of the three is better to choose, and what determines if videos will work and bring money or just sit there waiting to be used. Newor Media handles the player and demand integration for publishers from 5,000 monthly visitors, so the technical half of this is not something you need to build.

Why Video Ad Monetization Pays More Than Display

Brand advertisers invest heavily in video due to its sound, motion, and trackable completion rates near television media options. While display advertising is about costs and reach, video advertising is more closely related to capturing attention – in other words, creating the right value for advertisers in their offers.

However, it is important to be careful with statistics as presented in various articles. Most of the time, video advertising CPMs, mentioned in various publications, come from ad tech companies concerned about the statistics. Therefore, all possible ranges are often provided without agreement within one publication. That is to say that instream video is normally priced higher than outstream, while outstream video is more expensive than display advertising. Our yield optimisation guide for publishers covers how to run that comparison properly.

The Three Routes to Video Revenue

Outstream units (start here)

Outstream video ads live outside a video player. They appear inside your article body, in a feed, or as a sticky unit, expanding and playing when they enter the viewport and collapsing when they leave. Outstream exists precisely for publishers with no video content, which is why it is the correct starting point for almost every text-first site. There is nothing to produce, nothing to license, and no player to maintain as a content surface. The trade-off is that outstream has to capture attention mid-scroll rather than inheriting it from content the reader already chose to watch, and buyers price that uncertainty in.

Licensed or syndicated content players

You make a significant effort with a decent yield. In this case, you place an actual video player on your site but fill it with licensed or syndicated video clips that fit your category instead of your own clips. Since the ads become instream, they can command instream rates. The crucial factor here is having a good match: a player full of video clips that are not related to the content of the article generally leads to low completion rates and lousy reader experience, thus tainting the premium that was meant to be obtained with this method.

Genuine owned video

The highest ceiling and the highest cost. Video you produce yourself earns the best instream rates, holds completion rates licensed content cannot match, and builds an asset that belongs to you. It also requires sustained production capacity, which is why it suits publishers with an existing video operation rather than those trying to start one for ad revenue alone. Our explainer on what in-stream video ads are covers how the formats differ once you have a player running.

Video Ad Monetization Without Producing Video: What to Check First

Check your audience’s demographics before moving forward with outstream. The reason is that video consumption is closely related to tier one markets (i.e., the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia, and Western Europe). Thus, a website aimed largely at tier two and tier three audience will find that a huge portion of its outstream requests go ignored or poorly executed, making the use of the method inefficient in the end. For this reason, the majority of unsatisfactory outstream tests can be explained by this very factor.

Next, analyze placement. The performance of outstream is mainly determined by its placement, and any ad located above the fold is likely to perform much better than one located further down the page with very little chance of being spotted. Moreover, putting an ad on a page that has already got a lot of display ads may lead to less than optimal results, since revenue can be lost from the ads on the page instead of increasing revenues.

The Player and the Technical Layer

Video ads are delivered through the VAST standard, the IAB Tech Lab specification that defines how a player requests an ad and reports back what happened. In practice this means your player has to be correctly wired to your demand sources, report events accurately, and load without damaging page speed. Most publishers should not build this themselves. A managed partner supplies the player, maintains the VAST integrations, and connects video demand alongside your display stack, which is the part Newor Media’s managed header bidding handles on a publisher’s behalf. For a broader view of publisher video formats and tactics, Epom’s guide to video ads for publishers covers the format landscape in more detail. Still deciding which video format fits your site? Read Newor Media’s guide to instream vs outstream video ads.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I run video ads without having any video content?

Certainly, employing outstream formats is among the tactics for fulfilling content needs. The term outstream refers to displaying video advertisements that are inserted within the text of an article or a feed or being displayed in a fixed position instead of a video player. As soon as the outstream appears in sight, it plays automatically.

The primary features of outstream video advertising are as follows:

• It does not need any production or licensing processes and requires no additional maintenance of a video player.
• Outstream does not make as much money as instream as the interruption of a viewer in the middle of scrolling reduces its effectiveness.

How much more does video pay than display?

In terms of direction, the instream pricing is above outstream prices while outstream pricing is above display prices. Price multiples provided industry-wide are questionable as almost all the video CPM numbers published are from vendors who would have a vested interest in their data and each other’s prices. So rather than using a published number for planning purposes, conduct a small test using your own inventory, and compare eCPM and fill rate to the display performance on the same positions.

• Compare total page RPM before and after, since a video unit may eat into existing display revenues.
• Treat any single published CPM benchmark as directional and not as a proper forecast for your site.

Why is my outstream fill rate so low?

Audience geography is often used as an explanation because there are huge concentrations of video responses in tier one cities. That means that for a site with mainly tier two or tier three traffic, a huge proportion of requests for outstream will remain unfilled no matter how effective the unit is. The next point is placement: an ad sitting below the fold will get requests from users who will not scroll enough down the page to see the impression (thus, leading to low fill and price).

• Before deciding that the format does not suit your site, check out your traffic by country.
• A low CPM that fills regularly brings in more money than a high CPM that fills very rarely.

Is a licensed video content player worth adding?

One can do so, if the licensed content indeed corresponds to the focus of the editorial. By implementing a real player, you get to convert your video inventory from outstream to instream, thus achieving a price level associated with instream. The type of failure here is lack of relevance: unrelated clips of generic nature yield low completion rates and leave a reader with an experience that spoils the premium you added the player to earn money from. Don’t forget to check your content library before making a commitment, not after.

• Completion rate is the metric that determines if a licensed player enables you to hold your pricing edge.
• A player running irrelevant clips can cost you more in terms of reader experience than it makes you in revenues.

Do I need to build my own video player?

It’s doubtful. Video ads run on the VAST standard, which means the player needs to be set up correctly for the demand sources, able to send reports accurately, and able to load without affecting the page speed. This is a job for ad operations, instead of editorial work.

A managed monetisation vendor will provide the player, keep it integrated, and match video ads with your display inventory so that publishers are not burdened by the technology issues at all.

• Don’t forget to ask all potential vendors if video advertising is included or billed separately from display.
• Don’t dismiss the importance of checking the effect page speed would have, as a heavy player can cost more when it comes to ranks than make in revenues.