VideoInk: What are you doing at your company, if anything, to prepare for the merging of traditional and digital means of advertising?

Tony Chen: As budgets continues to merge and consolidate under the ‘video’ umbrella, agency media buyers are increasingly adopting hybrid roles buying between traditional and digital. At Channel Factory, we built an intuitive experience with our data and ad-tech software, IQ, similar to the way TV advertisers are accustomed to purchasing media in a streamlined solution to research, plan, buy, optimize and analyze campaigns.

For instance, a core focus of our platform is providing solutions for purchasing and measuring YouTube. We provide media buyers with comprehensive analytic profiles for each YouTube creator channel similar to what a cable or TV network provides for media planning. This allows for informed video campaign planning, using whitelist targeting on a channel to video level, and execution ease within one platform. Additionally, IQ’s sophisticated machine learning is an added benefit, strategically mapped towards optimizing against campaign performance KPIs. This means our reporting tracks and analyzes performance on a video and channel level to provide actionable data. Buyers accessing this reporting intel can then strategically implement a deeper and meaningful brand integration with the YouTube channel.

Video marketing strategies are constantly changing. What are three things every video marketing strategy should include?

The following are three strategies we believe are staples that should be present for all video marketing strategies:

1. Message relevancy and frequency: having your video creative in front of the right audience is just as important as making sure to remind the individual who just saw your commercial during prime-time programming. Through re-targeting you further drive consumer intent and future consideration.
2. Audience targeting makes up only a fraction of the strategy in a successful campaign. The content/context in which you appear against must be relevant to your audience or creative messaging to make for optimal performance.
3. Testing creative receptiveness is best through leveraging digital video. The viral nature of digital media provides real-time feedback and invaluable performance insights and complements measurable awareness lift to your traditional buys.

In what ways do you think AI integrations will impact digital marketing performance?

AI integrations will be an important factor for agencies and clients to help eliminate ad waste by optimizing against ROI. For example, Channel Factory is in the process of integrating 3rd party tracking with ROI measurement systems to identify which channels and videos perform best for our respective campaigns, maximizing efficiency and performance. The days of low cost per view media hype will be transformed by AI toward informed performance based targeting.

What are two trends you’re seeing emerge among the advertising industry?

Previously advertisers only focused on contextual targeting or audience targeting. Rarely were they dual considerations in any one campaign. Advertisers are beginning to combine these two tactics while still needing to account for cost efficiency. Through big data and platform AI, Channel Factory is solving this conundrum.

Additionally, advertisers are no longer focused solely on price; brand safety and content quality have also become important campaign priorities. This is to ensure their ads run against the right audience, within the right context, at the right time.

How have advertisers changed their online strategy after YouTube’s Adpocalypse?

We have seen a paradigm shift in advertiser thinking, with regards to the following three areas:

1. Advertisers are adamant on implementing channel whitelists that allows them to vet with precision and control where their ads will run.
2. Advertisers are strategically utilizing their influencer integrations synergy with ad buys to achieve greater performance and reach.
3. Advertisers are no longer just thinking about cost efficiency but about content alignment and really focusing on where about where their ads are being placed.