As viewers increasingly replace their cable and satellite TV subscriptions with OTT, or over-the-top, streaming devices, advertisers risk missing out if they continue to focus on traditional linear tv. Without the interference of the traditional middlemen, OTT offers content owners and advertisers alike the opportunity to connect better with audiences and ultimately drive more revenue.

Historically, advertising has been a key component for content owner's profitability. Now, as more content owners make the switch to OTT, they fear advertising will cost them viewers and rely heavily on subscription revenue instead. If they don’t incorporate advertising into their monetization strategy, it's likely content owners will end up leaving a significant revenue stream on the table. In fact, many video businesses find the most success strategically combining advertising, subscription and, transactions, or a hybrid model to monetize their content.

Compared to traditional television, OTT is much more capable of delivering a highly engaged and targeted audience for advertisers. It’s become increasingly challenging to advertise effectively on traditional TV, yet advertisers continue to spend significantly more on traditional TV (around 70 billion), compared to digital video (around 13 billion).

People’s tolerance for advertisements is at an all time low and thanks to the DVR, viewers take every opportunity to fast-forward through advertisements. Cable networks continue to saturate their programming with longer and more frequent advertising. As a result, viewers are becoming increasingly fed up paying a premium to be bombarded with an excess of untargeted advertisements.

It’s difficult for traditional TV to deliver relevant ads to users. In order to appeal to the broad audience of traditional tv, the message must have mass-appeal and advertisers lose the opportunity to target specific audiences. This may work for massive consumer brands like Budweiser or Honda, but isn’t realistic for smaller, more specialized brands and products.

Today’s audiences demand control over their advertising experience and OTT platforms give users that control by offering the choice to either skip over advertisements or pay for an ad-free experience. People’s frustration with cable’s increasing advertisements has peaked. Viewers have realized OTT is more cost-effective, with similar content offerings, and offers control over advertising. In fact, “too many commercials” is one of the top reasons people cut the cord and cancel their cable subscription.

It isn’t just viewers that find OTT an appealing alternative, it gives advertisers the best of both worlds—the viewability and engagement of traditional TV advertising with the precision and direct targeting of digital web advertising. OTT delivers a highly desirable and engaged audience. According to Nielsen research, the average OTT viewers are younger and more affluent compared to traditional tv viewers. They’re also highly engaged, completing 98% of all video ads.

OTT provides more visibility into what’s being watched, who’s watching and on what device. This gives advertisers the ability to create highly personalized and interactive advertising experiences. Not only are the ads more relevant for users, behavioral and purchase data targets audiences who are most likely to make a purchase.

OTT’s precise targeting is an advantage for content owners serving the ads as well. Viewers are much more receptive to advertisements when they are relevant and given the opportunity to choose their experience. Video platforms like Zype make it easy for content owners to start making money with advertising and other video monetization models, without demanding a slice of the pie.

OTT offers a unique opportunity for content owners and advertisers alike. If content owners have a large enough audience, they have the opportunity to make more money by incorporating advertising into their subscription video business. Advertisers have the opportunity to deliver precisely targeted ads to a pre-qualified and engaged audience. Viewers are thrilled they’re served relevant ads and have the choice to opt out. Advertising with OTT is a win, win for everyone.

The Advertising Advantage of OTT - A Win, Win for Content Owners, Advertisers, and Viewers

In order for your video business to be successful, it’s important to track how your audience is engaging with your content. Video engagement data gives you powerful insight into what videos perform the best, what devices your audience use and what type of content appeals most to your audience most.

The Zype dashboard makes it easy to track video engagement with the analytics dashboard. The Zype analytics dashboard offers over 20 different metrics, so which help you learn how your audience is engaging with your video?

Impression analytics gives you visibility into your overall content performance. The insights you gain include your total number of video player impressions, your audience’s geographic location, and which videos are the most watched and requested. Impression analytics not only give you a baseline for how your content is performing, but also indicates which individual videos are your top performers.

Get a detailed view into the profitability of your video business with revenue analytics. The data reports how much money your content is generating, in addition to offering other important insights for understanding your audience.

You’ll have the ability to easily track your subscriber growth and gauge which video sales, rentals, and monthly subscriptions are generating the most revenue. Use these insights to help you grow and retain subscribers, increase views and drive new revenue.

Video analytics gives a general overview of your video engagement—see the total hours for watched video, as well as the total videos played. Dig into these reports to determine your video’s average play time, which will tell you the average number of video plays (in minutes per stream) over the past 30 days.

The Zype analytics dashboard is an easy way to track your video engagement and performance and it’s important to let the insights you gain drive your content strategy. We also recommend you do a deeper dive and look at your consumer-based analytics.

How to Track Video Engagement

Streaming TV is officially the new norm and so are viewer’s expectations to consume content seamlessly across all their devices. Connected TV devices like Roku, ChromeCast, and Apple TV are now the fourth most popular method of streaming TV after smartphones, tablets and Smart TVs.

The popularity of connected TV devices continues to grow with a total of 168 million users in the U.S. alone (up 10% from last year). The question remains, which devices are winning?

Smart TVs currently lead the pack, accounting for about half of the total connected TV users. That’s not to say the third-party OTT streaming devices by Roku, Amazon, Apple and Google are too far behind. Roku, is the most popular connected TV device, followed closely by Google’s ChromeCast and Amazon’s FireTV.  AppleTV comes in last, which isn’t surprising considering it is by far the most expensive connected TV device and isn’t focused on original content.

One thing is clear, if content owners don’t have an app in at least one of these marketplaces, they risk missing out on a major portion of today's OTT market share.

Zype makes it easy to build and publish your own custom OTT app for Roku and AmazonFire TV, learn more by requesting a demo today!

The Landscape of Today's OTT Device Marketplace

One of the biggest underlying trends in the digital era is the demand for personalization and curation. Thousands of traditional cable subscribers have migrated to OTT platforms like HBO Go and Netflix, purely because of the curation component.

Curation gives content owners the ability to pick and choose their best pieces of content and distribute them through channels of interested and engaged viewers. In turn, viewers love that curation allows them to find the content they are interested in, without much thought or effort.

OTT platforms such as HBO and Netflix have capitalized on viewer’s appetite for curation. They use their user’s viewing data to serve viewers customized playlists and content they are more likely to enjoy. Although not all of the content on HBO and Netflix is original, their strategy enables them to be selective and showcase their premium content in an intuitive and curated format.

Using smart playlists is an easy way for content owners to start curating their content library. You determine the parameters for your playlist, the most important thing is to keep your viewer engaged and scrolling through your content until they land on what they’re looking for.

People don’t want to search for their content and in most cases, they don’t even know what they want to watch. It’s up to the content owner to create content their viewers actually want to watch AND deliver it at the right time and place. Curation not only makes it easier for content owners to organize their library, it is also a vehicle for efficiently delivering engaging content to viewers.

Building a curation feature into your OTT platform requires a delicate balance between creating new content, and reusing and repackaging old content. Use your video platform’s analytics and audience insights to inform your content. When you know how your viewers are engaging with content, it’s easy to serve them what they want, when they want it.

One of the major draws of an OTT platform is the curated content, something that traditional linear tv options lack. Not only do OTT leaders like Netflix curate their content, they also make relevant suggestions for new content based on the viewer’s behavior. Many people rely on their OTT platforms to discover new shows and movies that they would have otherwise never seen.

Viewers want niche, curated content. For example, Twitch, an OTT platform that lets viewers watch other people play video games and it has a huge market with over 45 million viewers. OTT gave Twitch the opportunity to access and cater to a mass audience with a specific unique interest.

As curation and customization have become the viewer’s expectation, it is increasingly important for content owners to smartly curate their content to specific segments of their audience.

As you continue to gather more data from your viewers and sharpen your insights, you’ll have the ability to create better audience segments and provide your viewers with even more curated content.

Zype’s analytics platform and other features like smart sorting playlists and customized apps make it possible for content owners to offer the same curation and customization that made industry leaders such as Netflix, HBO Go and Hulu so successful.

Customization and Curation: The Key to a Personalized Viewing Experience

When it comes to choosing the right monetization model for your video business, there isn’t always a clear cut answer. In fact, you probably won’t maximize your potential revenue if you only use one of the primary video monetization models we covered in part one of this series —Advertising (AVOD), Subscriptions (SVOD), and Transactions (TVOD).

That’s why many successful video businesses are turning to a hybrid model. This way, they can maximize revenue with a combination of two or more monetization models.

There are challenges with all of the primary models that make it difficult for content owners to rely on a single monetization model and make a sustainable amount of money. Advertising (AVOD) is only successful with a large audience that generates enough views to be profitable. There will always be viewers that unsubscribe with SVOD and it takes significant marketing efforts to continually add more subscribers. Finally, there is no guarantee of future revenue with the one-time transactions of TVOD.

With a hybrid model, these challenges are diluted with additional avenues for making money. The combinations of monetization models are endless and require some trial and error to find out what works best for your business. Here are a few examples:

If you primarily have a subscription video business, you can add TVOD to the mix and offer the option to rent or own content of your choosing. This way, viewers can get a taste for your content before committing to a subscription.

Consider adding AVOD into the mix as well, and have limited advertising on top of your subscription content. This enables you to monetize while letting viewers preview some of your content for free.

Maybe you primarily have subscription video business and use TVOD to make money on your live streams. There is no reason why you can’t have advertising or even brand sponsorships incorporated into your transactional live streams.

Think outside the box and consider all your options to make additional revenue. For example, brand sponsorships are a popular form of advertising for many podcasts and can easily be incorporated into your live stream. If your content is educational, why not take a note from PBS’ book and ask for donations—apps like Patreon can help you out with this . If you don’t have merchandise for you fans to purchase, it’s an easy way to make more money that your fans will surely appreciate.

In order for a video business to be successful, it’s important to have your content available on the all the platforms and apps your fans use. If you only stream your content on YouTube using advertising to make money, you are missing out on revenue. It’s wise to avoid relying on a single distribution channel, just like it’s wise to use multiple monetization models. Have incentives for your audience to consume your content across all your channels including your website, your OTT platforms and YouTube.

Hybrid monetization is how most large entertainment brands make the most of their content including Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV. However you don’t have the numbers of these three brands- hybrid models are just as applicable for smaller entertainment brands with more niche content.

For example, StarTalk Radio offers science-based content and they use a hybrid model to make money. They leverage all the models— AVOD, SVOD, TVOD and donation on a variety of different channels including their website, YouTube, iTunes and more. Not only are they making money on their content, they also sell branded merchandise for fans.

The hybrid model is one of the most effective ways for video businesses to maximize their revenue. Start thinking creatively about additional ways to monetize your content to help your video business grow!

Hybrid - How to Choose the Monetization Model That’s Right for Your Business: Part 2

Embedding videos is a great way to showcase your content. After you choose a way to monetize (cough cough video paywalls), it's incredibly simple to embed videos on your Squarespace website!

First, head over to your Zype video library and choose the video you want to embed on your Squarespace website. Then, select the “Embed Code” option from the top menu bar. Finally, simply click to copy the embed code link to your clipboard.

 Step 2: Paste the Embed Video in Squarespace 

Once you have copied the embed code, head over to your website hosted by Squarespace. Open the post editor, and decide where on the page you want the video to live. Using the video block editor, click the “code icon” to paste the embed code. Squarespace also lets you easily add a custom thumbnail and video description. Don’t forget to save, and publish your settings.

Just like WordPress and Wix, the process is as simple as copying and pasting a Zype embed code!

Tweet us to share how you use Zype’s embed codes and showcase your awesome websites!

Have any questions about this process? Feel free to send them my way at aanchal@zype.com

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The Advertising Advantage of OTT - A Win, Win for Content Owners, Advertisers, and Viewers

How to Track Video Engagement

The Landscape of Today's OTT Device Marketplace

Customization and Curation: The Key to a Personalized Viewing Experience

Hybrid - How to Choose the Monetization Model That’s Right for Your Business: Part 2

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