• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 11, 2013

Video content remains one of the most important media for online advertisers and publishers, as more are striving to add value to products or services by demonstrating how to fix a leaky faucet, what to wear with the trendy black boots, or how to groom a Wheaten Terrier. The ads appear across publisher sites and video sites like YouTube.

Two studies released Wednesday demonstrate the increase.

Today, Google takes about 35% of gross ad spending on the platform, with the rest going back to content creators and ad partners, said Clark Fredricksen, eMarketer vice president. Next year, however, Google should gain a more favorable split for itself, closer to 45%.

Google's YouTube has become the big winner this year for video ads, according to eMarketer's first report on the site. YouTube will generate about $5.6 billion in gross ad revenue this year, per eMarketer. The analyst firm crunched hundreds of data points and studies about YouTube revenue, ad impressions, rates, usage and other factors collected from research firms, investment banks, company reports and interviews with industry executives to develop the figures.

Of the billions, eMarketer estimates YouTube's net revenue this year will reach $1.96 billion for ads worldwide -- up 65.5% compared with 2012. The company will take 1.7% share of all global digital ad revenue -- higher than market shares of Twitter, AOL, Amazon.com, Pandora, LinkedIn, Millennial Media and other major players.

Fredricksen said the industry continues to place a greater focus on YouTube to serve video ads in-stream across devices to capitalize on growing mobile views. "That's something they can't necessarily do as well with other display ads types they sell for desktop," he said. "The company is also expected to increase its share of revenue shared with partners during the next year or so."

YouTube will net $1.08 billion in ad revenue this year just in the U.S. -- equivalent to 6.3% of all of Google's net U.S. ad revenue for the year, and a year-over-year increase of 51.7%, per eMarketer.

Brands are estimated to spend $3.6 billion on video ads in the United States and €1.2 billion in Europe this year, per a Forrester Research report released Wednesday. The latest data from a Forrester Research, based on a survey of more than 33,000 U.S. and 15,000 European online adults shows consumers are watching more video online and using more devices to access content.

Some 68% of online adults in the U.S. watched some form of online video in the past month, while in Europe video is the most popular form of entertainment, with 71% having viewed at least one video in the past month.