Video Marketing Chart: How much different age groups trust pre-roll ads

In an October 2016 survey, we asked consumers about which advertising channels they trusted most: “In general which type of advertising channels do you trust more when you want to make a purchase decision? Please sort the options into ‘Ads I trust’ and ‘Ads I don't trust that much’ categories.’”

The below chart takes a deeper dive into the “Video ads that appear prior to an online video” category to see how the response varied among different age groups.

To see 35 more charts from the study, download the free report.

Millennials more trusting of online pre-roll video ads than social media advertising

Millennials were most trusting of online pre-roll video ads, with 57% saying that they trusted these ads when considering a purchase decision.

It probably doesn’t surprise you that millennials were the most trusting generation of this type of advertising. However, this latest data piece raised my eyebrow. Millennials were actually more trusting of online pre-roll video ads than social media advertising (54%).

These numbers are very close, of course. However, the conventional wisdom is that online video ads are seen as an annoying disruption by consumers while social media ads are seen as a more trusted source.

Disrupt with caution

This isn’t to suggest brands have a blank check to disrupt the customer experience with pre-roll ads — or anything else for that matter.

But it does suggest that even though the experience is disruptive, there is a large segment of younger consumers who do see value in these messages and trust them. This could be due to the innate engaging nature of the video medium for younger consumers.

As you can see in the chart, that trust does precipitously drop off among older Americans.

“This data proves that it’s incredibly important to consider your customer first when crafting a marketing message and choosing a channel to deliver that marketing message. For us, it’s unsurprising that a millennial audience would be more receptive to video content,” said Colby Cavanaugh, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Emma.

“[For example], one of our clients, the University of Minnesota, markets almost entirely to college students and recent alumni, and they’ve seen as much as a 40% increase in clickthrough rates when they include a video in their email newsletters,” Cavanaugh said.

Segment your messaging

As mentioned above, video can be a compelling medium. And in that case, online video advertising isn’t the only game in town — TV advertising has been around for many decades.

While TV has been taking steps to catch up with online video ads, online video still offers a superior ability to get a relevant message in front of a specific audience. And, as you know, relevance is critical.

“Digital media has reached a critical point of saturation: Years ago, consumers encountered about 300 ads a day, but now they’re seeing 4,000-5,000 ads on any given day. Because of that, regardless of which type of ad is trusted the most by which audience, it’s critical that marketers harness the power of segmentation to reach their key audience and cut through the noise,” said Cavanaugh.

“By utilizing audience data to address the right people with the right message, marketers will witness a significant boost in results. On average, marketers see an increase of 20% in sales when delivering personalized experiences (according to Monetate),” he said.

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