 has revealed the extent to which CTV advertising has grown over the past 12 months.){kind=link}
The FreeWheel Video Marketplace Report (VMR), released today, has revealed the extent to which connected TV (CTV) advertising has grown over the past 12 months.
FreeWheel’s annual video marketplace update is based on aggregated data collected from FreeWheel, the global technology platform for the premium video advertising industry, and highlights the changing dynamics of how enterprise-class content owners and distributors are monetising premium digital video content.
The dataset included in this report is one of the largest available on the usage and monetisation of professional, rights-managed, ad-supported video content across the two regions.
This edition of the VMR analyses video advertising trends for the second half of 2024 (H2 2024) in selected European countries and the US, building on the insights unveiled in the previous VMR (1H 2024) in the same regions.
FreeWheel VMR
In the second half of 2024, Europe and the US sustained strong year-over-year growth in overall ad viewership, +24% and +10%, respectively, as audiences continue to embrace streaming platforms.
In the US, ad views were fairly distributed across live (57%) and VOD (43%), while Europe saw a higher proportion of ad views on ad-supported VOD content (76%).
However, the share of live ad views is growing in European countries thanks to the launch of new streaming services and FAST channels, with viewers increasingly choosing CTV devices to watch live streaming.
As such, in Europe, the large CTV screen has grown to capture the majority (66%) of total ad views, with CTV devices commanding a large portion (77%) of ad views for live programming.
In the US, CTV continues its ascent, now representing 85% of total ad views, an increase from the same period in 2023.
Across regions, the popularity of the large screen and the dynamic ad delivery offered by streaming have led to an increase in the use of new, innovative ad formats – such as QR codes, clickable ads, and trivia ads – as well as the adoption of contextual targeting.
The report highlights interactivity as one of the key growth areas for the success of ad-supported streaming across Europe and the United States.
In this context, user interactions and preferences provide valuable insight for effective ad strategies.
As a result, ad views delivered through audience targeting – both behavioural and demographic – continued to increase in the US (+39%) and Europe (+12%) in H2 2024.
Both regions recorded strong year-on-year growth in programmatic ad views, +40% in Europe and +37% in the US.
Regional variations are highlighted, with ads viewed as a result of programmatic transactions on live programming representing 16% in Europe compared to 30% in the US.
Meanwhile, CTV was responsible for 32% of programmatic ad views in Europe compared to 88% in the US.
There’s potential for live ad viewership to grow in Europe as publisher investments in programmatic should facilitate access to live inventory to a broader pool of buyers.