• by Tobi Elkin , Staff Writer @tobielkin, February 8, 2017

A new report signals that native video is a fast-growing segment of the native advertising picture and one that advertisers need to pay close attention to.

Bidtellect, a paid content distribution platform for marketers to implement native campaigns across formats and devices, on Wednesday issued the findings of its Q4 Native Report -- a high-level overview of the native advertising ecosystem meant to provide marketers  with a deeper understanding of their content distribution strategies. For this report, the company added video content performance, since marketers have increased spend on video-based content distribution.

Among the report’s findings:

--Between October 2016 and December 2016, the use of native video grew 3.75x, according to Bidtellect's video run-rate on its platform.

--Native in-feed video tracked as the most engaging native video product, with the highest completion rates and most clicks to a landing page. This isn’t all that surprising at this point. Publishers know that in-feed video is where the best ad inventory should go—at least at this point.

--Marketers are consolidating their strategies. For example, the report found that from July 2016, the number of brands doing both native video and display grew nearly 3x by the end of 2016. The average split for marketers is 80% standard native, and 20% native video.

--Click-through rates for standard native (in-feed, in-ad, and recommendation widgets) are higher on mobile than desktop, but consumers are still engaging more deeply on desktop. This is a surprising finding, though perhaps the mobile in-feed experience needs improvement.

--The categories of news and law, government and politics were two of the most engaging publisher categories in Q4 2016.

Digging deeper, the report suggests that native in-feed video offers the most qualified, engaged format for marketers. The user-initiated video is consumer- friendly, non-intrusive and a solid vehicle for finding qualified users. In-feed can be most useful when targeting consumers that are lower in the funnel and for campaigns with conversion objectives.

The report outlined three formats that marketers find useful:

Native Autoplay Preview: This format allows users to preview short-form content before deciding to engage with the video. They must click to expand the video, enabling marketers to identify audiences who actually wanted to watch it.

Native In-Feed Video: This user-initiated format is ideal for marketers that want to distribute long-form content (90 seconds or longer) across the Web. The click-to-play format is user-initiated and pre-qualifies consumer interest in the content.

Outstream Autoplay Video: This auto-play format positions video assets within sections of a Web page where consumers are actively consuming content, enabling marketers to align their message with consumer interest.

Bidtellect said its platform processes more than five billion native auctions daily across 6.5 million distinctly targetable placements.

Overall, the report’s findings suggest that marketers may need more understanding of how their video content is performing, so they can create relevant original content for each destination.