YouTube reigns supreme
As we head into 2024, YouTube continues to lead the digital video space. With 2.6 billion global users who watch 5 billion videos a day and upload 500 hours of new content every minute, it’s a critical channel for marketers.
Thanks to the scale and diversity of users, their engagement with niche content, and the ability to link ad views to actions, YouTube spend has increased and resulted in a huge $30 billion global ad revenue (up from $15 billion in 2019).
And now, YouTube is set to take over the living room. 44% of total time on YouTube is now spent on the big screen through CTV devices, up from 25% in 2019. And according to eMarketer, YouTube leads the streaming category in time spent and ad revenues. With YouTube’s expansion across devices and viewing environments, brands have a new opportunity to reach target consumers in their most engaged moments on their favorite platform.
Why is this important?
Heightened consumer attention also raises the stakes for brand suitability. Marketers want to ensure their ads are serving next to appropriate and relevant content, while optimizing for scale and performance. But the two goals don’t always go hand in hand. YouTube’s user-generated content attracts lots of engaged users and creates a myriad of opportunities for contextual alignment, but it also raises concerns for marketers about the suitability of that content.
While simplistic measures like inclusion lists can promote brand suitability, they may also limit the scale needed for a campaign. And with world events, content and public opinion of creators constantly in flux, suitability is hard to maintain. Google provides their own suitable inventory but doesn’t take into account brand-specific nuances, instead assuming that contextually aligning with industry is the best approach for all advertisers.
Our newly expanded partnership with Pixability
Because of the complexities of YouTube, MiQ believes there’s no one-size-fits-all approach that every brand should follow. Every marketer needs to weigh reach, branding and performance goals against brand suitability considerations to develop a custom strategy that works for the brand.
That’s why MiQ is on a mission to solve marketer challenges on YouTube, and this is supported through our newly expanded partnership with Pixability. As the only company certified by Google for brand suitability, contextual targeting and content insights, Pixability sources data from YouTube to determine the best channels for a campaign to target. MiQ uses Pixability’s proprietary brand suitability solution bolstered by our own industry-leading data science and trading capabilities to ensure brand-safe and relevant advertising on YouTube.
What makes Pixability data special? They have a 10-year history of working with Google, which means 10 years of historical YouTube performance data. As a certified member of the YouTube Measurement Program (YTMP), Pixability ingests data directly from the YouTube and YouTube TV ecosystems and maintains the largest library of ingested YouTube channels and videos in the industry. They categorize all this content based on GARM’s Brand Suitability Framework and the IAB content taxonomy to give partners like MiQ granular control over brand-suitable ad placement for each campaign.
New capabilities for marketers
We expanded our data partnership with Pixability to complement our TV viewership dataset of 60 million devices and 43 million households, the largest and most diverse in the industry. It also consolidates our connected programmatic offering across Linear TV, OTT and YouTube under one roof.
This expanded partnership also enables more new capabilities for YouTube campaigns activated through MiQ, including more comprehensive omnichannel pre-campaign planning, competitive intelligence and brand suitability that are unmatched by any other YouTube or CTV partner in the industry.
Understanding the value
“It’s not just about quantity today, it’s about quality,” says Mohammad Chughtai, MiQ’s Global head of advanced TV. “The programmatic industry is evolving at a rapid pace, and the necessity for true omnichannel success has never been more critical. By combining our extensive programmatic expertise with Pixability’s leading-edge contextual analytics, we’re continuing to set new industry benchmarks for efficiency, effectiveness, and brand suitability in an area that’s been historically difficult to navigate.”
This partnership is an extension of our initial engagement with Pixability in 2021 which focused on enhancing YouTube performance on DV360 and leveraging Pixability’s BrandShield technology to provide deep brand suitability at the channel and video level. While our original agreement focused on North America, the new partnership includes Europe and APAC, and enables deeper capabilities for campaign planning, brand suitability and targeting.
Grant Stratemeyer, Pixability’s SVP of Business Development added, “Our collaboration with a unique partner like MiQ enables us to unlock unprecedented opportunities for advertisers on YouTube, and by combining our respective strengths, we’re not just solving existing challenges – we’re advancing new ways for brands to thrive in an increasingly fragmented media landscape and giving them the assurance and control they need to make every ad dollar count without jeopardizing brand integrity.”
Set your strategy for 2024
As we kick off the new year, it’s the perfect time to start thinking about optimization. And when it comes to YouTube, there’s always a lot to optimize – for better or worse. Marketers need scale, performance, brand suitability and insight, but there’s no silver bullet for all these needs.
By working with MiQ, marketers get access to the most experienced team with the most sophisticated data to set up, manage and run their YouTube campaigns. Through our in-house capabilities and expanded partnership with Pixability, MiQ empowers marketers with the most comprehensive and holistic approach to the world’s favorite video platform, helping them maximize efficiency and ROAS.
To learn more about our Pixability partnership and YouTube capabilities, please reach out to your MiQ Sales Rep.
