• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, February 11, 2014

With mobile video consumption on the rise, the Interactive Advertising Bureau on Tuesday released a set of practical guidelines to help marketers and media buyers capitalize on the growth of the emerging media category.
 
The “Mobile Video Buyer’s Guide: Practical Advice for Video Advertising on Smartphones and Tablets” addresses a range of topics, including video in apps versus mobile-optimized sites, pre-roll versus banner ads, inline compared to native media players, third-party tags and advanced interactive capabilities.
 
In addition to the technical aspects of mobile video, like encoding and delivery options, the document issued at the IAB’s annual leadership meeting covers creative decisions related to duration, interactive elements and companion banners, and key metrics such as impressions, completed views and time spent viewing.
 
“The mobile video advertising arena is relatively new and oft-times perplexing, so while mobile video viewing is growing by leaps and bounds, creatives and media planners are just now learning to maneuver successfully in the space,” said Anna Bager, vice president and general manager of the IAB’s Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence. “This guide is meant to deliver the kinds of insights and intelligence that will allow them to truly take advantage of this trend.”
 
According to a study released Monday by ABI Research, mobile video views (on smartphones and tablets) worldwide will make up a quarter of total online views, with that proportion expected to double by 2019. In the U.S., 50.5 million people watched an average of 5 hours, 45 minutes of video on mobile phones a month through the first half of 2013, per Nielsen.
 
When it comes to mobile video advertising, an eMarketer report last year suggested this is a fast-growing but still small market. The research firm projected that U.S. mobile video advertising overall will grow almost 80% to $924 million this year, and reach $2.7 billion by 2017. But even by then it will still make up less than 10% of all mobile ad spending.
 
The IAB’s mobile video guidelines provide marketers with a checklist of items to consider before making a mobile video buy -- including the build time for re-encoding and optimizing video ad creative; making sure a landing page is mobile-friendly as well as ad creative; keeping creative short and punchy; and choosing the right metrics for a given campaign.
 
Underscoring mobile video ad demand, mobile ad network InMobi on Monday announced the launch of a new video ad platform. The company’s CEO Naveen Tewari predicts that a quarter of its revenue could come from video in the next year. Last week, mobile video ad firm Vungle raised $17 million, with plans to build an exchange for in-app mobile video ads.