5 Takeaways From Google's State of Play Programmatic Video Report

Google has released the 2016 version of its State of Play report, highlighting growth in the global programmatic video market. The report also covers topics like viewability and spam rates, giving an overview of an industry in flux. Here are five key takeaways from the report:

Programmatic Is Taking Off: The shift to programmatic buying is more rapid than many predicted. Google says that advertisers, agencies, broadcasters, and media companies are all moving in that direction. The report notes that 85 of the Ad Age Top 100 advertisers have moved to programmatic video on Google's DoubleClick Bid Manager.

Buyers Are Chasing Viewers to Mobile: Audiences are increasingly watching their favorite content on multiple screens, and advertisers are following. On the DoubleClick Bid Manager, video impressions for mobile devices grew 30x in 2015.

Programmatic Video Advertisers Love Larger Screens: Viewers may be enamored with small screens, but advertisers are living large. That's because larger screens correlate with better measures on metrics such as brand lift, viewability, and engagement. Google notes that in Q1 2016, the growth in ad spend for large players on its DoubleClick Bid Manager outpaced all other player sizes combined by 17 percent.

Viewability Is Improving: While we've seen plenty of data to the contrary, Google finds that video ad viewability is rising, with 66 percent of all video ads on browsers and apps viewable. The number was 54 percent in 2015. Viewability rates are highest on tablets.

Video Spam Rates Vary Greatly: Among the top ad exchanges, the amount of video ad spam varies tremendously, ranging from 1 to 29 percent in the exchanges Google studied. Google and DoubleClick disabled over 780 million ads in 2015 because of policy violations. Broadcasters and advertisers should evaluate spam rates when choosing an exchange, the report advises.

The full report, Global State of Play, is available for free download (no registration required).

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net