New research from video ad tech provider VideoAmp reveals that advertisers and agencies are bullish on planning and buying ads across linear TV, VOD and online video, but that challenges remain. Fully 85% of buyers believe that TV and online video ads are either somewhat or extremely complementary, something I’ve long-believed.  

66% of buyers said they are already leveraging digital data in their linear TV buys, while 57% said that they are targeting TV viewers across digital screens and devices. Meanwhile 74% cited accuracy in planning and execution across TV and video as benefiting from holistic buying.

Despite this optimism, VideoAmp found that just 16% of current TV and online video ad budgets are spent in an integrated way. Respondents were also asked about their use of Cross-Screen Platforms, “CSPs” which are buy-side technologies that aggregate digital and TV audience data for holistic planning, buying and measurement of TV/video ad campaigns. Just 14% of brand buyers and 32% of agency buyers have yet to use a CSP underscoring the inertia around siloed buying approaches.

But the research found that half of buyers intend to use a CSP in the next 6 months, with 25% planning to do so immediately. 19% of overall budgets are planned to go to CSPs in 2018. Buyers said they’re motivated by fear of missing out on better targeting (41%), falling behind the competition (32%) and falling behind the industry as a whole (25%).

Overall, brand buyers were more optimistic about holistic buying than agency buyers. But agencies appear to be more aggressively embracing CSPs, with 67% planning to increase usage vs. 48% of brands. 71% of agency buyers said they expect to increase spending on CSPs over the next 12 months vs. 55% of brands. Challenges to adoption include cost, lack of holistic audience data and specifically credibility of third-party data, coordination among various teams, reliable attribution methods and measurement.

Respondents included 200 ad buyers split evenly between brands and agencies. The research was conducted by Industry Index and was fielded in October, 2017.

The full research can be downloaded here.

(For more insights on cross-screen video advertising, we recently interviewed VideoAmp’s CEO Ross McCray on the VideoNuze-nScreenMedia podcast.)