Tumblr Leaps Into Native Video With Auto-Play Ads
As Tumblr continues to grow its audience, the blogging site also hopes to grow its advertising revenue by rolling out auto-playing video content to users' dashboards.
As Tumblr continues to grow its audience, the blogging site also hopes to grow its advertising revenue by rolling out auto-playing video content to users' dashboards.
Yahoo-owned microblogging platform Tumblr is following Facebook’s lead into native advertising by piloting auto-playing ads from well-known brands like Lexus, JCPenny, and Hulu to appear in users’ dashboards.
The ads will be muted by default, like Facebook’s video ad offerings, and users will have to click a speaker button to activate sound. The ads will also offer a pop-out feature that allows users to keep scrolling as the ad plays.
Tumblr’s jump into auto-play video ads is evidence of a further push from pre-roll video as an industry standard for video advertising, according to Mike Owen, chief revenue officer at AdColony. “This is a great move by Tumblr,” he says. “Native video requires a different approach, given how consumers are absorbing content inside these environments. While the pre-roll unit remains an important one, the growth ahead for native video placements is enormous, and we are already seeing major marketers capitalize on this by re-thinking their creative approach.”
Tumblr’s audience has increased 40 percent in the last 15 months, according to Yahoo chief executive (CEO) Marissa Mayer, who recently announced that she expects the company to generate 100 million in revenue in 2015, mostly through ads. The native video ads mark the company’s first big move into courting major brands and more advertising dollars.
Advertisers can use the new video ad player to embed Vine and Instagram videos — enabling them to run campaigns across multiple platforms — and the videos can loop indefinitely. Tumblr is only charging for ads that have been played for two seconds and won’t charge for any looping views, sharing, or reblogging of the ads.
However, recycling old Vine videos may not be the best approach for advertisers hoping to get Tumblr users to unmute ads.
Owen says videos will need to be engaging to get past that two-second mark. “Marketers have to lead with high-impact creative in order to get the user’s attention,” says Owen. “When given the opportunity to engage the consumer in a feed-based environment like Tumblr, the ad creative needs to make an immediate impact — if it’s not interesting or impactful within two seconds or less, you lose the opportunity to engage.”
Image via Shutterstock.
Lucy helps organizations leverage knowledge for in... View Tech Talk
TVSquared is the global leader in cross-platform T... View Tech Talk
Grata is a B2B search engine for discovering small... View Tech Talk
Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing ... Download Now
Data is the lifeblood of so many companies today. ... Download Now
This report documents the findings of a Fireside c... Download Now
Customers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touc... Download Now
Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing habits. Streaming video, however, still comes with a variety of pesky frustrations that viewers are ...
View resourceData is the lifeblood of so many companies today. You need more of it, all of which at higher quality, and all the meanwhile being compliant with data...
View resourceThis report documents the findings of a Fireside chat held by ClickZ in the first quarter of 2022. It provides expert insight on how companies can ret...
View resourceCustomers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touchpoints – globally! Make sure your brand shines in those critical moments. Read More...
View resourceIn the dynamic landscape of digital marketing, Snapchat's innovative 7/0 optimisation window is redefining the game, but how does this impact you as a...
View articleWhen you imagine the sort of companies who are successfully taking to TikTok, one that sits in a 600-year-old industry such as publishing might not sp...
View articleBuilding trust in your brand is hard enough. Now take a situation where your audience is so cynical of your product offering some of them even call fo...
View articleAgile research technology helped Ad Council adjust their mask messaging in real-time, reach 70% of Americans, and raise over $400 million in donated m...
View articleAI has extended its sphere of influence to many aspects of marketing, but one area where it’s only just realizing its full potential is that of media ...
View articleBynder’s Maarten Boon suggests using these video marketing strategies to meet content demands and avoid creative burnout. Read More...
View articleRayhan Perera, CEO & Founder of OneDash, on how computer vision brings shoppable video ads to life, and how this kind of interactive technology is tra...
View articleWave.video's CMO Daniel Glickman shows how marketers must adapt their video content strategy to fit the 'new normal' post COVID-19. Read More...
View article