Why did Video become the most significant revenue stream for digital publishers?

Video revenue officially crossed the 50+ billion USD mark in 2021 and is slowly but steadily catching up with search and display advertising. Publishers that used to mainly monetize their content with standard display banners suddenly developed a hunger for embedding more video content and ads over the last two years. But it didn’t just happen overnight. A few factors have led up to this ……

With video becoming a more powerful medium for knowledge sharing and broadcasting, it has effectively helped publishers diversify distribution channels, improve engagement with their assets, rank better on search engines, and, most importantly, monetize their content. So what’s changed?

Resources and technology

Before video exploded as a popular medium, awareness was relatively low. There was no actual ability (or desire) to integrate and operate video tools in digital assets. The technology aspect and talent required were

scarce and often expensive. Today, publishers are not only able to employ the correct type of people to manage their video operations, but they can also choose from an array of video tech providers.

Video content creation

Once upon a time, video content was pretty hard to come by. The hardware for capturing video was quite expensive, and creativity was pretty low, making the generation of quality content difficult. Today, end-to-end video platforms like Vidazoo cater to the entire spectrum of the video segment, supporting publishers with quality video content and the ability to monetize it with a proprietary player, ad server, and yield optimization platform.

Ad Budgets

The modern-day popularity of video content ensures that advertising budgets keep diverting towards this segment. High viewability and better engagement, coupled with fewer ads, translates to a much higher CPM (as much as 9X display CPM).

COVID Implications

The recent COVID crisis also played a significant role in boosting the presence of video and giving it the positioning it deserves as a reliable revenue generation method. During the crisis, display positions took a substantial hit, and video became a suitable alternative, giving publishers the ability to sustain the difficult period, upscale their video operations and grow their revenues.

Higher Ranking, Better Engagement

Lastly, analytical data shows that article pages embedded with video perform better than their counterparts, with better UX metrics such as more extended time on site and lower bounce rates, ultimately supporting SEO efforts. As a result, this area has grown extremely important for publishers over the last couple of years.

So there we have it!

It is evident that video is an absolute part and parcel of a successful publisher operation and should be considered a strong contender for revenue diversification.

From all of us at Vidazoo, we wish you all the best in embracing more video this year and making it one of the most profitable revenue sources for your operation.