Engagement & Time Spent With Video Ads On Connected TVs Is On The Rise

Watching programming on tablets, Smartphones and connected TVs is growing quickly, and brands are eager to reach consumers on those devices. The effort is paying off: click-through rates for ads on connected TVs are in the 10 to 17% range to date, a healthy number, according to new data shared by entertainment discovery service and technology provider Rovi. In addition, the number of impressions, as well as ad engagement and time spent with ads on connected TVs is rising each week. For the inside scoop, check out this week's New Media Minute.

Ad Engagement On Connected TVs Rising

Streaming or downloading shows to view on a TV, computer, smartphone, or tablet has grown by 35% this year compared to a year ago for the 13-54 age group, according to Knowledge Networks. What's more, monthly use of any digital service connected to a TV rose by 50% for this age group. So with all of this activity and viewing on connected TVs, we wanted to look into what happens to discovery, advertising, and other issues like that.

So I asked entertainment discovery service, Rovi, some of those questions. Here's Jeff Siegel, SVP of Advertising at Rovi:

"We find that when people are in the guide or trying to find content, they're in a very lean-forward and engaged environment. They're there because they're not sure exactly what they want to watch on TV. And so when you start to serve ads around that experience, and they tend to click through them at a pretty impressive rate, which is helpful.

To date we've seen that 10-17% of the people click through on the ads, so there's a very high click through rate. We see that impressions are growing almost on a weekly basis. So, more and more people are seeing these ads as more televisions ship and also as they're connected at an increasing rate.

The engagement within the ad--the time spent within the ad itself--continues to grow as well because of the functionality of those ads. I can watch video. I can do requests for information. I can get email addresses. I can really provide value around the advertising experience.

Advertising will become important to the TV manufacturers as they launch their new user interfaces. So as I plug the television or Blu-Ray player into the Internet, I now have Internet functionality and metrics over top of video."