Audience engagement rules in the digital age. Due to the rapid growth of video consumption, video engagement plays a crucial role for digital publishers. Video player features and implementation are key factors. Here we look at how two digital media properties increased their audience engagement metrics through video.
This Thought Leadership article is presented by Digo Hispanic Media.
The Digo Video Player is offered to Digo Hispanic Media partner publishers in order to help them increase video impressions and to monetize them better. The Digo Video Player has multiple customizable features such as: Player Ratio, Player Settings, Floating Player and Floating Position. “We provide several formats such as the Fixed Player and in-Read Player but our most successful format is the “In-Slider”, says Augusto Romano, CEO of Digo Hispanic Media. “We call it this way because it combines features from the in-stream and video slider formats. This allows us to monetize the content with pre-rolls CPMs, which are premium placements and are 50 to 100% higher than video slider CPMs. When it comes to customizing ads you can choose among different settings. For example, you can choose an ad to be pre, mid or post roll; you can select a frequency cap, time between ads, among others; and for the ad to be skippable or not,” Romano adds.
Audience Engagement Increases Through Video Player Introduction
Digo’s Video Player was integrated in two digital publications El Vocero and El Colombiano. How do executives at these two publications describe the level of engagement and/or time spent of their audience as a result of the implementation of the video player? “Once we integrated the video player we have noticed not only a better response from visitors, but also an interesting increase in time spent on our page. The use of video news along with the advertising is a powerful tool to increase traffic and engagement, ” says Salvador Hasbún, President of El Vocero.
“Since we implemented the video player strategy, the average time on screen increased to almost one minute for the Hispanic audience in the U.S. The engagement with our pages has increased gradually and enhanced page views per session. We believe in the power of video and its monetization, because it can engage the user in a shorter way than reading the content increasing the consumption of content on our site,” Laura Katerine Valdés, Digital Leader at El Colombiano, notes.
The Digo Hispanic media team works with publishers in order to better fulfill advertisers KPI’s. CEO Augusto Romano explains two initiatives in this regard. One is the “Digo: Better KPIs” initiative, where “our operations team collaborates with the publisher through an assessment that identifies opportunities in viewability, load times, ad-formats and guides them in the implementation of the solution approaches.” The other initiative is the “Digo: Play it More” initiative, which identifies opportunities to create more and better video inventory. “Here we work along two axes, player position, and content strategy, achieving excellent results,” Romano adds.
Audience Engagement: For Video Advertisers to Take into Account
“Advertisers should take into account that by nature visitors will try as much as possible to avoid advertising, therefore video ads must be short, attractive and with a powerful message grabbing the attention from the first couple of seconds,” Salvador Hasbún, President of El Vocero notes. “Advertisers should consider that video is a good way to increase the engagement in websites, because the content can be consumed in a shorter time, providing the user the option to see more videos and read more articles,” El Colombiano’s Valdés notes.
To improve audience engagement, publishers and advertisers should continue improving the user experience and engagement, particularly around video content when it comes to connect with the Hispanic consumer. El Vocero’s Hasbún notes that “the most important factor is to keep supporting sites that are really relevant to the US Hispanic population. Hispanics are tied to their roots and content relevant to them generates an immediate bond.”
“We think that Hispanics will always be connected with what is happening in their countries, and that they are constantly looking for relevant and trustworthy content about it. We have the commitment to continue informing our Hispanic audience,” asserts El Colombiano’s Valdés.
Advertiser Demand for Safe Editorial Environments
“We are spearheading an initiative to present advertisers and agencies in the U.S. the benefits of each property we represent to make sure they understand the weight and value that each contributes to the communities they serve,” says Romano. “Although there are several solution approaches and initiatives in order to solve the uncertainties of the cookieless future, there is a large amount of advertisers who demand safe editorial environments and contexts. Publishers must be prepared to meet this challenge so that advertisers benefit from opportunities ahead.”
