Online video advertising appears to have crossed a significant threshold: It's now common and routine for Americans to watch more than 10 billion video ads per month, according to comScore.
Reach, however, is a different issue. That appears to be stuck at just over 50% of the online population — meaning that only half of everyone online in any given month sees a video ad.
That implies some users are increasing the amount of video advertising they're willing to sit through, while the other half declines to watch or isn't being targeted yet.
The number of video ads streamed at users has gone up a lot in the last 12 months. Between February 2012 and February 2013, video ad impressions rose 32 percent to just under 10 million.
The 10 million views per month threshold was crossed in June 2012, and has been routinely crossed ever since.
Google Sites (i.e. YouTubeet al.) served the most, with its all-time high of 2.2 billion ads in February, comScore says. BrightRoll Video Network came in second with 1.6 billion, followed by Hulu with 1.4 billion.
If you think you're seeing too many video ads, think again: The level of "clutter" — crowdedness, in adbiz lingo — is relatively low for video ads. Only 2 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online were with video ads.
Users spent on average 24 seconds looking at any given ad, about the same as a 30-second TV commercial.
Here's the chart:
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