How Video Publishers Are Generating 25% More Revenue through On-Stream

Until now there’s only been one scalable way to monetize video content with advertising and that is with traditional video ads like pre-roll and mid-roll. While lucrative they have their limitations for publishers, advertisers, and audiences alike.

We are excited to announce our inclusion to the Brightcove Marketplace, where we’ve been bringing video publishers 25% more incremental revenue using on-stream video ads, which is a less interruptive way for advertisers to reach audiences through our AI that matches their messages to moments in your content.

What are the limitations CatapultX and Brightcove aim to solve?


The average US adult spends 40 minutes a day watching mobile video, with 20% watching more than an hour a day. Over 80% of total web traffic is  video content, but on average video ads only make up 28.61% of total display advertising spend.

So while publishers will need to create more and more video content to entertain and educate their audiences, with the high costs of video creation there aren’t enough potential advertisers with video assets to fill all of your opportunities.


To make up for this we find publishers are putting as many as 5 pre-roll ads in front of content that ranges from :30 to 2 minutes. Meaning the ads are as long or longer than the content itself.

How much patience will your audience show to get to your amazing content?

With 84% likely to leave as soon as pre-roll starts, 65% skipping and 25% blocking altogether, statistically speaking, their patience is diminishing. This is shown most prominently in video advertising completion rates, which dropped 8% from 2019 to 2020.


Video monetization, including pre-roll and mid-roll is likely not going anywhere soon. Video advertising is already a staple in all advertising strategies. In fact, a total of 95% of marketers say they will be increasing their spending on video in the coming years which means plenty of ad inventory that will need to be placed within your videos. Increase your ad to video ration without alienating your viewers by adding On-Stream to their monetization strategy.

The power of On-Stream for publishers.

The video publisher of the future will require a diversity of revenue streams. Through the CatapultX extension with Brightcove you can generate 25% more incremental revenue. Here’s how:

By overlaying ads on top of your video content, you can diversify your revenue stream without causing viewers to exit out of your content before they even finish the pre-rolls.


In a 6 month study with one of our partners across 300 of their sites, we observed the average watch time was virtually unchanged working with us as opposed to before.

And, since it uses advertisers' existing creative assets, fill rates are 3X higher than traditional video ads and can appear more frequently throughout the video.

But, Will Advertisers Want to Place On-Stream Ads?

Thankfully, native, On-Stream technology is affordable ; a brand only needs a logo and a few lines of copy to get started. These ad formats also have a clear call-to-action in the form of a button that many pre-roll ads lack, unless the user watches the ad all the way through. 

Also, by using AI to serve contextual video ads or native video ads, a brand may have a better chance of reaching the right audience at the right time based on the content that the video is served within. 

For example, with demographic or behavioral targeting, a user could have browsed suitcases two days ago and already purchased one. Sure, they were in the market for travel and suitcases a few days ago, but they aren’t today. So, if you’re Samsonite, the largest suitcase retailer, you would be wasting ad dollars serving ads to these users. By using contextual, video ad overlays Samsonite could advertise their suitcases during a piece of online content discussing travel, during an emotional airport goodbye scene or a ‘How to pack” video. Plus, this way of serving is third-party cookie free, not skippable and preferred by audiences 9:1.

How easy is it to get started with Brightcove?


Answer: Extremely easy. Our no-code integration can be done by anyone in your organization within minutes. Just navigate to the Plugin section, Click the “Add a Plugin” button  and select “Custom Plugin”. We’ll provide you the Pub ID to input and you’re done.


Click here to get in touch and let's start bringing on-stream to Brightcove players everywhere!