Commentary
Netflix, YouTube Dominate Traffic; Football Strong for Video Ads
- by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, November 13, 2013
Here’s how.
Netflix and YouTube command half of all peak Internet traffic in North America, according to a new Sandvine study. Netflix is in the lead and comprises 31.6% of all downstream video traffic during peak times, with YouTube at nearly 19%. Other competitors such as Amazon, Facebook, Hulu and iTunes only account for about 7.5% of the combined traffic total, underscoring the dominance of Netflix and YouTube.
Streaming video – specifically, real-time entertainment – is the largest traffic category across every network and should continue to grow into 2014, due in part to the increased use of long-form video on mobile networks, Sandvine said. Overall, streaming video accounts for more than 67% of downstream Web traffic during peak times, compared to 68% in the first half of the year. During peak times, video comprises half the traffic on mobile networks.
Switching gears, football is driving strong engagement with online video advertising, according to a just-released report from video marketplace Adap.tv, studying the impact of college and pro football on digital video.
For starters, football boosted video ad opportunities across devices and screens by 80% for mid-August to late September. Specifically, Adap.TV said smartphone video ad inventory grew 127%, tablets 22%, and desktops 120% thanks to the sport.
“That is a huge opportunity for marketers to help close the loop with audiences who are migrating to digital screens across days and times. In fact, an analysis of device usage by day showed that people have a preferred device for certain game days — tablets on Mondays, desktops on Sundays, and smartphones on Thursdays. Those kinds of engagement patterns show that bringing multi-screen into the advertising mix is vital to being able to build back the scaled TV audiences of yesteryear,” Adap.tv said.
When marketing in football content, geo-targeting can improve the performance. Ads that were aligned with the DMAs of top performing teams generated higher performance metrics.
Guess it’s good to have a winning team.
Re: "tablets on Mondays, desktops on Sundays, and smartphones on Thursdays". Our data doesn't show this type of distinct pattern, except that working days are very different from weekends. People with smartphones for example don't seem to use them only on specific days.