Things Will Change The Way You Approach Video Advertising For Publishers

As display ad prices continue steadily to sink,video advertising for publishers are embracing video to grab the slack, even within articles.

Publishers like Slate and Reuters are stuffing video ads inside articles. The units, dubbed Teads inRead, are tied to scroll behavior, activating only once readers scroll past them. Quite simply, the ads give publishers all the benefits of video CPMs minus the pressure to create actual video inventory. They're also inherently viewable, which also provides publishers using them an edge as buyers demand more viewable ads.

“Like other premium publishers, we're often sold out of pre-roll and we spend plenty of time thinking about additional approaches to activate through video,” said Slate associate publisher Anthony DeMaio.

A normal video ad comes with a CPM that hovers around $20, much more than rates for display ads. And there's demand on the buy side as well, as big brands are increasingly trying to find premium video inventory to advertise against.

Jeff Perkins, account director at Reuters stated that running the ads helped broaden the sites advertising mix, letting it start talks with the types of travel, auto and luxury retailers which they won't have been in a position to communicate with otherwise.

But while autoplay video ads sound right on the revenue side, the jury's still out how good they're for the reading experience. Autoplay ads, particularly the ones that include sound, are notorious for annoying users, which can only mean bad things for both brands and video advertising publishers using them.