Report: 18-Fold Increase in Global OTT Video Ad Spend in 2017

The RTL Group-owned video ad serving platform SpotX has released a new set of figures illustrating “explosive growth” in global OTT video advertising spend across its platform.

SpotX’s data revealed that the portion of overall ad budgets spent with OTT inventory owners increased from 8 percent in October 2016 to more than 26 percent of total spend for October 2017. This equates to nearly 18-times growth in advertiser dollars spent on OTT inventory owners year-over-year in October. As the holiday ad spend push continues, OTT is expected to account for around 30 percent of video ad spend by the end of 2017.

“We’ve seen DSP partners increasing their focus on OTT in response to a shift in consumption habits,” said Kelly McMahon, the VP of global demand operations at SpotX. “By making addressable OTT inventory available to buyers through their platforms, they’re placing themselves ahead of the curve in terms of innovation and enabling advertisers to reach audiences across multiple screens at scale.”

“The key to buying across video channels, including OTT audiences, is taking a holistic view of the data that can be made available; specifically: linking consumption behavior, or what people watch, to digital activities, or what they do online, along with ad exposure data,” added Jay Prasad, the chief strategy officer for VideoAmp. “As a purpose-built platform for the converging linear and digital worlds, we are enabling these data assets to work in concert to deliver better scale and efficiency for advertisers.”