Why is video the future for publishers? An interview with JW Player

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JW Player is a video player provider we work with to bring AdThrive publishers video monetization solutions. Fun fact: JW Player is named after founder Jeroen Wijering (J.W.), who built the original video player framework for YouTube! They’re a fellow Google Certified Publishing Partner, which means that like AdThrive, they’re Google-vetted experts in the ad industry.

Our embedded video player, desktop and mobile collapsible video players, and many of the video reports in the AdThrive publisher dashboard are all powered by JW Player’s sophisticated technology!

We asked the JW Player team to tap into their years of industry experience and share some details on the current state and the future of video content and video advertising and why publishers should be investing in creating video content today.

Can you tell us a little about JW Player?

JW Player started as one of the first open-source video players, and over the last decade has developed into a leading video technology company. Digital media companies around the world rely on JW Player’s flexible platform of video services to deliver and monetize their content across all devices.

Our massive global footprint of over one billion unique devices creates a powerful data graph of unique consumer insights and generates billions of incremental video views.

Why do you recommend publishers invest in video content?

It’s a common refrain that over the past few years, consumer attention — already a scarce resource in the internet age — has dwindled further. In sharp contrast to the broadcast-dominated media landscape of only a generation ago — where consumers were captive to a limited number of print and TV media channels — there’s more competition for attention than ever before.

The good news is that video remains a deeply compelling format and as new generations are growing up without cable TV, there’s a tremendous opportunity for publishers to reach and engage them with digital video.

We are already seeing entire new classes of publishers that offer sports, shows, or educational content that would never have made its way onto linear TV but still drive large, loyal audiences with rich monetization opportunities. Digital video is the biggest growth story in media today and it’s far from its peak.

Video remains a deeply compelling format and as new generations are growing up without cable TV, there’s a tremendous opportunity for publishers to reach and engage them with digital video.

JW Player

How do advertisers view video ads?

Ad spend continues to grow above market rates with 20% year-on-year growth. With just 17% of digital ad spend being on video, despite over 80% of internet traffic and cord-cutting accelerating, there’s a looming tsunami of ad spend that video-focused publishers are set to ride.

Advertisers view ads favorably because they’re able to create a similar experience to what they’re familiar with in TV, the original video ad platform, and at the same time reach a highly targeted audience. However, to be successful in video advertising it’s not enough to just drive video views. We support best-in-class viewability standards along with support for GDPR and ads.txt.

With just 17% of digital ad spend being on video, despite over 80% of internet traffic and cord-cutting accelerating, there’s a looming tsunami of ad spend that video-focused publishers are set to ride.

JW Player

What are some recent trends you’ve seen with video and what trends will we see over the next few years?

Obviously, the smartphone has changed the world, including video consumption. We continue to see pretty astounding growth in mobile video, especially as many populations around the world effectively leapfrog computers and televisions to go mobile-only for their information and entertainment. 

We also believe mobile devices will in the longer term be powering TV experiences, at the expense of smart TVs or set-top boxes. Casting technology removes barriers to entry for smaller brands in a similar way to how HTML5 and Flash have enabled them to effectively start publishing video 10 years ago. 

What are some trends you’ve observed from content creators that led to better video performance?

We’ve noticed a few different trends from content creators that have led to better video performance.

First, consider the length of your video content. Consumer attention span has dwindled, with the average being only 8 seconds, according to Microsoft. So, captivate viewers early on and consider shorter content, especially if your top-performing videos are on the shorter side.

Second, develop a style that your audience can familiarize themselves with and own it across all content.

Finally, production quality matters from lighting, editing, audio, framing, etc, to give audiences the best viewing experience.  

How do you think video can impact publishers’ SEO traffic? What are some best practices?

The foundation of any site’s SEO should be based upon web development best practices. Beyond that, Google search is all about content, of which video is important and relevant. Adding video to a text-only page enriches the page and provides more information that Google can use.

It’s important that your pages are built with semantically structured and valid markup, including all the metadata Google requires. You can include video-specific metadata on the page that Google can pick up on, resulting in your videos being indexed on the Video tab in results. For more details on what to include and best practices, check out Google’s guide here.

What’s one piece of advice you have for video content creators as you look at the landscape today?

Content is still king, but data is queen. Leverage the data available to you to drive your content development.

For instance, content creators can leverage the insights they receive around revenue generated within “Video Earnings” and the “Top Videos” reports in the AdThrive dashboard to draw parallels that can reveal what content resonates the most with their audience. If you’re new to video, then analyze what’s working for your audience from your written content and use that moving forward to create a video experience based on that.

Content is still king, but data is queen. Leverage the data available to you to drive your content development.

JW Player

There has never been a better time to make video content work for your business! We have an entire section of the AdThrive Help Center devoted to maximizing video revenue, and if you’d like to chat with our team about getting started with monetizing your videos, reach out anytime right here.