Digital Trends Achieves 99% Video View Rate with Brightcove and SSAI

Since 2006, Digital Trends has been helping everyday people understand the intricacies of consumer technology. The company publishes Digital Trends, Digital Trends Español, and The Manual, which feature product reviews, news updates, how-to guides, and men’s lifestyle tips for the practical-minded. Cofounders Dan Gaul and Ian Bell began adding videos to the sites as a means of keeping visitors engaged with easily-digestible content. But they soon recognized that with digital media’s ever-evolving landscape, it was becoming more and more difficult to pinpoint the exact kinds of videos that kept users on site and attracted influential advertisers simultaneously. “As technology increases in the video space, so do metrics, which advertisers want more of,” says Gaul. “They want to see that their pre-rolls are effective, and we’re effective at delivering them.”

Both Gaul and Bell realized their sites needed more views to appeal to advertisers and fill Digital Trends’ ad inventory. Those views also had to be tied to metrics in order to show their value. So the two owners decided to partner with Brightcove, using its SSAI solution to help mitigate ad blockers. Additionally, Gaul and Bell integrated Digital Trends’ IAS technology with the Brightcove platform, allowing them to measure and track video data across all three company websites. And by implementing Brightcove’s Dynamic Delivery solution, Gaul and Bell were able to optimize video delivery to all supported devices in the most cost-efficient way possible.

Since rolling out Brightcove’s video platform, Digital Trends has experienced a 24.7% lift in overall video views. The company has also seen an increase in pre-roll ad impressions by as much as 70,000 per day, and videos currently achieve a 99 percent view rate. “What that’s done is open up new inventory for us on the non-ad block side to programmatic,” says Gaul. “And that allows us to make more money. It’s a win-win for us.”