For most of the internet's history, digital publishers viewed video as a nice add-on—great to have, but not a requirement. The hope, back then, was that a selection of on-site video content might compel users to come back more often and to spend more time with what they perceived as the main course: conventional articles.
Accordingly, publishers didn't ask much from their video partners: it was enough for their online video platforms (OVPs) to capably display the limited video content they had available. OVPs of this era—say, pre-2020—were, at best, a kind of tool: bringing video to audiences with as few technical glitches as possible.
Articles still matter tremendously to publishers' bottom lines, of course. But in almost every respect, things have changed drastically in the last few years. After a rocky start a decade ago, digital video has fully come into its own, with TikTok ascending to social dominance and virtually every other platform remaking itself in TikTok's image. Audience appetite for video appears to be expanding at a rate that has surprised even video's most vocal boosters, with the average internet user now consuming 17 hours of digital video content per week.
In this video-first environment, the things that publishers look for from their video partners has necessarily changed. It is no longer enough simply to function—OVPs need to be actively driving engagement and revenue. Not every OVP does—which is why it's so important to come prepared with the right questions when deciding who to partner with. Questions like:
1) What AI technology do you offer to improve video performance and monetization
The rise of online video has neatly paralleled the rise of business-ready AI—and as it happens, they have much to offer each other.
One longtime deterrent to the spread of publisher video has been the impossibility of embedding a relevant video on each page (achieving 100% video coverage)—or at least, doing so without making two or three full-time hires. AI, with its ability to instantly take in the substance of a given article, can automatically recommend the right video to the right page based on context, and in doing so can substantially increase user engagement. The term of art here is scalability: instead of a few pages being optimized for video (and monetization), every page is optimized, both new pages and ones in your archive.
2) How does your technology enhance user experience without compromising revenue?
We have all had the unpleasant experience of desperately trying to close out a video player that pops up on the page—a video player that refuses to be closed. All monetization efforts, of course, require a balance to be struck—between the user experience on the one hand and profit-generating initiatives on the other—but tip too far in the wrong direction and your users won't stick around for long.
To that end, you should be looking for a video partner that has thought these things through—that knows what a user will tolerate and what they won't, and that has used those insights to guide their video player's development. In this arena, things like seamless playback, fast-loading players, customized players, non-intrusive ad formats, and personalized ads can mean the difference between a user doubling or even tripling their time on-site or closing out the page without a second thought–and never returning.
3) How do you support scalability and adaptability for future needs
As we’ve seen, publisher video strategies have evolved rapidly in just the last few years. Accordingly, there is no reason to think they'll stay static for long: the field is constantly in flux and the tempo of new changes is constantly getting faster.
Take something like vertical video. Despite being the sine qua non of youth-oriented video—synonymous with TikTok and Instagram Reels, which young people are spending more and more of their time watching—many publishers have yet to invest substantially in this format.
This makes a degree of sense: advertising demand for this format has not yet come to fruition . But take one look at how news publishers are pushing the vertical video format and you can be absolutely sure that vertical will have a massive role to play for all publishers in the coming years—not to mention other video formats that no one is even thinking about yet. Upshot being: adaptability is key. For publishers, having a video technology partner with one eye on what's next is essential.
And we should restate, here, the complementary importance of scalability—deep archives, video content libraries, and the ability to integrate your YouTube videos for syndication purposes, for instance, can help plug gaps for publishers and keep users engaged.
4) What reporting and analytics tools are included
Dinosaur OVPs were famously limited in the kinds of data they offered publishers. This isn't a surprise: after all, these platforms rarely had monetization as a focus. But monetization is a focus now, and OVPs can't get away with skimpy analytics: publishers need to know exactly how their content is resonating if they're going to increase engagement.
To that end, it's important to ask if a given OVP is tracking KPIs that actually matter to you—or if, instead, you'll have to spend time building custom reports. You'll also want to know how deep that data goes—can you see ad viewability? RPMs? Is log-level reporting an option? What about player performance? And how about data overall—is it robust, or will you need to layer on costly third-party analytics? Can you customize reports?
Answering these questions in advance can spare publishers many headaches down the line—and ensure the kinds of consistent revenue growth they need to stay competitive.
5) How do you ensure brand safety and compliance with privacy regulations?
For better or for worse, publishers are held to a higher standard than the big social platforms. A major brand might accept a certain degree of chaos from UGC-focused platforms like X.com or Meta, but—especially in our polarized era—they remain hyper-cautious around news content. For publishers whose entire focus is news content—and even for those covering topics like sports or entertainment—this is a pressing concern.
And in the world of programmatic advertising–where ads are bought and sold automatically–it can be difficult to predict exactly where an ad will appear. Without real safety measures in play like suitability tools and content exclusion lists, conundrums like these can put publishers at risk for upsetting a brand or agency.
All of which is to say: it is absolutely imperative that a video partner has robust (and transparent) brand safety functionality. And at a time when cyber-regulations are proliferating across the globe, it is equally crucial that any video partner demonstrates an active approach towards privacy compliance. In today's highly-charged environment, these things are non-negotiable.
Back when digital video was a curiosity—and not the norm—questions like these may not even have occurred to publishers. But publishers simply can't afford not to ask them now. In the video-first era, OVPs are partners in the fullest sense—meaningful drivers of engagement and revenue. Selecting the right one is a major decision—one that publishers can't afford to take lightly.
Check out our industry guide: “Choosing the Right Online Video Platform” for more questions you should ask a potential video partner, or speak directly to our video experts by submitting a form below.