After a year or so that required marketers to adapt their strategies to fit digitally-enabled devices at home and shift away from traditional channels, Innovid set out to quantify pandemic-induced omnichannel marketing trends by analyzing billions of global impressions from 2020 across more than 550 advertisers.

Its 2021 global omnichannel benchmarks report, “The Year Streaming Went Supernova” unpacks three key marketing takeaways, including the explosive growth of connected TV (CTV), the importance of programmatic advertising for video and how dynamic creative is serving as a win-win for remaining nimble and driving impressions. 

#1: Make CTV The Center Of Your Omnichannel Strategy

Last year, CTV accounted for 40 percent of all video impressions—up from 31 percent in 2019. eMarketer anticipates this trend will continue this year, when over 25 percent of all US households will cut the cord.

Innovid found that global CTV video impressions saw a 60 percent year-over-year (YoY) increase. CTV ad spending is growing the fastest in APAC, but North America has the largest share of CTV impressions. Outside of North American, LATAM has the second biggest share of CTV impressions and the largest growth in share going to CTV, according to Innovid.

In 2020, mobile captured 43 percent of global video impressions and 68 percent of global display impressions. Meanwhile, global PC impressions in both display and video are still on a downward momentum. 

In 2020, PC’s share of global display impressions was 32 percent, while video impressions dropped to 16 percent—a 23 percent YoY decline. Nevertheless, in 2020, internet time spent on PCs rose 7.5 percent, signaling its importance in the omnichannel marketing mix.

#2: Give Your Campaigns A Programmatic Boost

Pointing to Statista data, Innovid reports that global programmatic ad spend will reach $147 billion this year, up 41 percent since 2019. Brands are increasingly leveraging programmatic for video, as evidenced by the 54 percent YoY increase in video impressions served programmatically. At 54 percent, digital native tied with programmatic as the fastest growing publisher type.

CTV represents one of the largest growing areas for programmatic advertising—in the US alone, it’s expected to hit $6.73 billion, up 54 percent from 2020, as per eMarketer data.

Additionally, Innovid found that programmatic CTV impressions surged by 207 percent YoY, second to CTV impressions served via digital native publishers.

As for share of programmatic CTV impressions by vertical, consumer electronics led the way with 56 percent, followed by auto at 46 percent and gaming at 33 percent.

#3: Leverage Advanced Creative For Agility, Engagement And Brand Loyalty

From the first half last year to the second, Innovid observed a 37 percent increase in the number of advertisers running dynamic creative video and a whopping 100 percent rise in the number of dynamic creative video impressions.

Compared to standard pre-roll, advanced creative ad formats generated a 309 percent lift in engagement and an average of 34 additional seconds earned.

What’s more, interactive CTV produced an additional 63 seconds earned and CTV ads averaged a video-completion rate of over 85 percent.

Brands in verticals that have traditionally led with linear advertising adopted these advanced creative solutions to pivot during the pandemic. Auto brands, for example, utilized geotargeting to alert customers about operating hours and services offered at dealerships. And in response to supply chain issues, CPG brands leaned on dynamic creative to update messaging in real time based on product inventory and availability.

Innovid’s analysis shows that the sweet spot for video ads is between 15 and 30 seconds when optimizing for click-throughs and video completions. Yet it’s worth noting that they saw a 104 percent YoY growth in 60-second ads in 2020, particularly around Q3 and Q4.

Yet another reason to embrace dynamic creative is that within display, it led to a 37 percent lift in CTR over standard display on PCs. On mobile devices, that lift surged to 82 percent.