Connected TV advertising platform Innovid boasted record CTV video impressions through its platform for the second quarter – making up 50% of total impression volume.
The percentage marks a 23% year on year growth for CTV impressions, Innovid says. It also falls in line with Innovid’s recent Global Benchmarks report, which found CTV made up 46% of all video ad impressions in 2021.
Moreover, CTV contributed 47% of Innovid’s total second quarter revenue, which amounted to $33.1 million.
Zvika Netter, co-founder and CEO at Innovid, noted in a statement the CTV growth is indicative of most TV consumption moving to streaming services.
“As seen with our CTV volume growth, that prediction is coming to life – driven by the ongoing migration of TV viewership not just toward CTV, but to ad-supported CTV as well – which is the foundation of our business,” he said.
The bridge between CTV viewership and ad-supported content is expanding. LG Ads and DeepIntent recently found over half (64%) of CTV watchers prefer seeing ads to paying more for a subscription service, especially if the ads were more relevant to their needs.
“We believe a substantial share of streaming’s future will be ad supported,” Netter continued. “As the CTV market matures and more and more TV media platforms are being added to the ecosystem on a regular basis, it reinforces our value proposition.”
Openness towards ads is also present through free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST). Another LG Ads study noted consumers have a more positive reaction to FAST channel ads, as they are generally shorter and of higher quality than traditional TV ads.
Innovid is leveraging the ad-supported streaming trend to boost its ad measurement business. In February it acquired video ad measurement platform TVSquared for $160 million. Innovid later launched a cross-platform measurement product dubbed InnovidXP, which gleans audience insights across all North American DMAs.
TVSquared contributed $6.8 million in Innovid’s Q2 revenue. That figure marked a 31% year on year growth for the TVSquared business.
Speaking on last week’s earnings call, Netter cited three main areas of revenue growth for InnovidXP. The first is TVSquared’s existing client base, consisting of lots of local, direct-to-consumer advertisers.
“Then there is the sell-side, which we're making a lot of progress, deals with publishers, etc.,” he said. “And the third one, which is the most exciting from our perspective, is the upsell to our large ad-serving clients, large CPGs, autos, etc.”
Netter added Innovid is still exploring different ways to monetize InnovidXP but at this time, monetization is more based on media budgets and annual contracts, less so on impression levels.
As CTV video impressions continue to grow, Innovid expects many players to crop up in the CTV market.
“I think that the future of television and the future of connected television is not going to be a winner takes all,” said CTO Tal Chalozin on the call. “There’s not a one massive wall garden, like we’ve seen in search or social. So there will be a lot of different companies.”