According to the latest numbers from comScore Video Metrix, 181.7 million unique viewers in the U.S. viewed 38.7 billion online videos in December, a stark reminder that marketers should do what they can to get even a small piece of this action.
Top online video content properties
In December, the average online video viewer in the U.S. spent 1,150 minutes, or about 19.2 hours, watching videos in December. This was down from 1,183 minutes per viewer in November. The decline could be attributable the holiday season.
Google Sites (which is mostly YouTube) ranked as the No. 1 online video content property in the U.S. with 153.0 million unique viewers, each spending an average of 388.3 minutes (about 6.5 hours) watching videos on that property.
Facebook ranked No. 2 with 58.8 million unique viewers, followed by VEVO with 51.6 million viewers, NDN (which was No. 2 in November) with 49.9 million viewers, Yahoo Sites with 47.5 million viewers and AOL with 42.4 million viewers.
Viacom Digital (42.3 million), Microsoft Sites (40.6 million), Amazon Sites (38.1 million) and Grab Media (34.9 million) rounded out the list of the top 10 online video content properties in December.
Online video ads
According to comScore, Americans viewed 11.3 billion video ads in December, up 7.6 percent from the 10.5 billion video ads viewed in November. These video ads reached 52.6 percent of the total U.S. population, and each viewer saw an average of 69.9 video ads in December.
Google Sites sat atop the list of the top U.S. online video ad properties with nearly 2.0 billion video ads viewed, followed by BrightRoll Video Network with 1.8 billion, LiveRail.com with 1.8 billion, Adap.TV with 1.5 billion and Hulu with nearly 1.5 billion.
Hulu boasted 64.9 ad per viewer in December, giving it the highest such frequency in December.
According to FreeWheel, ad-supported online video viewership grew 17 percent and online video ad views grew 49 percent in 2012. The company also found that online videos that are 20 minutes or longer show an average of seven ads, and that viewers of these longer videos watch 93 percent of these ads.
FreeWheel notes that non-computer-based (i.e., mobile-based) video viewership accounted for up to 10 percent of all online video views last year.
As online video grows in popularity, especially on mobile devices, marketers have to understand how to use big video platforms like YouTube to generate leads, in addition to how to incorporate online video into their overall content marketing strategies.
By Jason Hahn
Network
