The investment gap in online video spending between lagging UK advertisers and their US counterparts highlights the importance of research to the industry.  As a relatively new channel in theUK, online video must prove its worth to advertisers as an effective and engaging format that can demonstrate how it drives success for campaigns.

Here Dan Ruch, VP Europe at Tremor Media, contributes his five key points on how research can inspire UK advertisers to follow the American example.

1. Effectively engage customers: The key to the success of online video advertising is that it offers levels of engagement that extend, enforce and enhance the effect of TV campaigns. Interactive formats bring the brand experience to the viewer rather than sending them to an external site. Tremor Media’s campaign research and data encompasses every element of the ad – through engagement, awareness and intent metrics, which provide data points on each individual feature of a brand’s campaign, giving information back to the advertiser that extends beyond a CTR or a completion rate.

2. Complement with confidence: The mass reach of TV is still so alluring toUK advertisers that they often overlook the additional gains to be found online – often because they haven’t seen the data from online video. Meanwhile, theirUS counterparts spent $1.4 billion on online video advertising in 2010.UK advertisers need to look at integrating their offline campaigns with online video ads, to deliver engaging and effective brand experiences that remain cost efficient.

 3. Take the leap: Recent IAB research shows total UK online advertising spend in 2010 surpassed £4 billion with more than two-thirds of marketers saying they plan to increase their online video ad spend in 2011. Advertisers have begun to realise how much online video has to offer in terms of brand engagement, and performance metrics enable marketers to invest with confidence in this young, rapidly growing industry.

 4. Measure campaign success: Understanding how and why an ad is working is vital to measuring campaign success. Relying on simple click through rates is insufficient and inaccurate. Online video research enables advertisers to measure their campaigns to evaluate not only incremental reach in conjunction with a TV campaign, but which forms of engagement and interaction are working for them – such as short and longer form videos, online games, product demos or social media interactivity.

 5. Optimise and plan campaigns: Research provides the tools that advertisers need to use to optimise current campaigns and plan successful future campaigns. Using the collected data advertisers can maximise those elements generating the greatest consumer response by tailoring their ads accordingly, ensuring that their campaign is both effective and engaging.

In the video below my colleague Ryan Van Fleet, Director of Insights and Analytics at Tremor Media, explains the importance of using the right metrics when assessing the effectiveness of online video advertising.