In terms of video advertising the year 2020, which was a strange one in so many ways, was paradoxically successful for Seznam: the increase in video space, the launch of new Sklik features and an increase in ad spend. But what are we planning for this year?
Of course, Covid also played a certain role in the video advertising segment last year. During the coronavirus pandemic, traffic to our content websites and the Televizeseznam.cz video platform increased. For example, in December, the Seznam homepage views grew by 40% year-on-year and video views of the video platform by as much as 50%. Along with the expansion of advertising space into the feed on the Seznam homepage, the total space for video advertising increased by almost 30% in 2020.
Last year, despite the pandemic, our clients spent 27% more on video advertising. This confirmed that video advertising plays a key role in the media mix for clients and copied the growing international curve observable, for example, in Britain, where video advertising has kept total spend in digital advertising in the black. A similar situation can be found in Canada where, for the first time, video advertising spend outpaced the spend in traditional display formats.
Advertisers opted for video advertising on Seznam mainly in the FMCG, E-commerce, retail and financial services segments.
Our Sklik advertising platform was even more popular with our advertisers: the total number of advertisers in video advertising increased by 35% year-on-year. In 2020, more than 500 of our clients used video advertising in Sklik. Among other things, advertisers appreciated the opportunity to buy the Outstream format, which represented a half of Sklik’s advertisers’ ad spend. Thanks to this innovation, the amount of spend on Sklik video advertising increased by a respectable 246%.
No place for complacency in 2021
Last year was strong in terms of business, but we also introduced important product innovations which simplified the process of video advertising buying or expanded advertising space; at the beginning of the year it was the launch of Outstream in Sklik; we prepared 2 new video products for direct sell and also expanded the instream video ad format to appear on the main Seznam.cz page. For the outstream format, we allowed advertisers to purchase 100% of the views in Seznam True View.
This year will be no different. This and more is in our pipeline for 2021:
- further expansion of the video advertising space to the websites of our external partners. We currently publish Seznam video ads from Seznam on the websites Toprecepty.cz, ČSFD.cz and Extra.cz
- acquisition of new partners for the video platform Televizeseznam.cz. New content to appear on the website includes funny campsite testers Kempiči, cooking show Rád jím, nerad vařím, videos from Red Bull creators, thesatirical show Šteindler & Tarantino – Milan Šteindler and popular interviews in Face to Face. Today, the video platform offers content from nearly two hundred external partners
- adding native video to the article feed on the Seznam.cz homepage as well as on our other content websites.
We hope that these innovations will help our clients to include video advertising in their marketing campaigns more effectively!
