The Year Streaming Went Supernova: A Global Omni-Channel Benchmarks Report

2020 was a year marked by lockdowns and isolation, a shift from the physical world to a digital one. Between working from home, an endless breaking news cycle, and streaming services continuously churning out content, it’s unsurprising that many of us were glued to our screens for much of the year. The way we engage with content has been thoroughly upended, and brands have had to adjust accordingly.

As consumers flocked to their biggest (and smallest) screens, marketers followed suit and adapted their strategies to center around the home. Omni-channel solutions became the most important focus for brands, especially those which had lost so many of the traditional channels they relied on — point of sale, organic word-of-mouth, live events. Brands needed integrated solutions designed with TV at the center to personalize, deliver, and measure ads across every screen and device.

To uncover how advertising trends have shifted in such an unprecedented year, we sifted through hundreds of billions of global video and display ad impressions from 2020 across more than 550 advertisers and compiled our findings in our annual Global Omni-Channel Benchmarks Report. Take a look at the key findings below and download the full report here.

Insights at a Glance:

• As consumers increasingly made the switch to streaming and advertisers continued to shift budget from linear to connected TV, global CTV impressions increased 60% year over year. Outside of North America, LATAM was the leader in CTV impression share growth.
• Mobile hung on to its top position, with 43% of global video impressions and 68% of global display impressions, while PC impressions continued to dip, resulting in just a 16% share of global video impressions and a 32% share of global display impressions.
• More and more, brands are leveraging programmatic advertising for video. Across all video impressions, those served programmatically grew 54% year over year, and programmatic impressions served to CTV increased by over 200% year over year.
• Advanced creative solutions, including interactive and dynamic, generate higher engagement rates, click-through rates, and time earned. In fact, advanced creative video formats generated a 309% lift in engagement.

The effects of 2020 on digital consumer behavior likely won’t wear off anytime soon. Download our Global Omni-Channel Benchmarks Report for more insights to help guide your marketing strategy throughout year two of our new reality.