Publishers expect mobile and video ad revenue to jump by a quarter over next year, new research claims

European publishers predict advertising revenue from video and mobile will grow by more than a quarter next year, according to new research.

A further 60 per cent said video, mobile and sponsored (aka native) content ad formats were key to the success of their businesses.

The research by Oath and the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe also found that publishers were keen to find ways of selling ads on “multi-user living room experiences”, such as smart speakers and streaming services.

The 2018 Digital News Report found that 56 per cent of people in the UK accessed news on mobile, while 43 per cent of smart speaker users accessed news through their devices.

Oath’s head of European supply platforms, Henk Van Niekerk, said: “Programmatic [ad] trading continues to offer clear opportunities and growth for publishers across Europe, but many challenges still remain.

“Maximising revenue is still top of mind for most publishers even as GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] and managing consent drops down their list of concerns.”

A total of 171 IAB members in the publishing sector were surveyed for the research project. UK members include publishers News UK, the Telegraph, Hearst UK and Buzzfeed UK.

Just over 70 per cent of UK publishers surveyed said video content should be a top priority for their business over the next year, compared to 55 per cent of French publishers and two-thirds of German publishers.

British publishers surveyed believed that revenue from mobile and video would grow by almost 30 per cent, the report said.

But almost 40 per cent of European publishers said they were concerned about how they would monetise audience growth, with lack of control over where content is shown a particular worry.

A further two-thirds said “giving value to each impression” was their biggest challenge for the future.

Higher quality advertising and “better monetisation” were found to be key targets for publishers looking to capitalise on online audience growth.

Programmatic ad buying – the practice of snapping up online ads through automated software – was considered to be “extremely important” to the future of publishing by a large majority of those surveyed.

Around 60 per cent of UK publishers felt automated ad buys gave them a competitive advantage and 61 per cent said the software was “extremely important” compared 83 per cent of their European peers.

Previous IAB Europe research found that advertisers spent €12bn on programmatic advertising, with a third of that spent going on video and just under 60 per cent on mobile.