That’s according to a study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of outstream video ad provider Teads.

In a survey of more than 500 global decision makers representing advertisers, agencies and publishers, Forrester confirmed that industry participants are confident video ad spend will continue to grow over the next two years.

However it also found that advertisers are struggling to find the inventory they need, while publishers are challenged to produce more inventory profitably.

40% of agency respondents and 27% of advertisers indicated that there isn’t enough premium video ad inventory. Even larger percentages complained about viewability and lack of standards and best practices. 

On the other side of the equation, 44% of publishers revealed that their ROI from producing video “is not as high as we would like due to costs of producing video content to host the ads.” For 37% of them, that contributed to an inability to produce enough video ad inventory.

The result: over half of agencies and advertisers have resorted to buying inventory manually or through private marketplaces, and more than a third have curtailed their pursuit of video campaigns. 

What is premium?

One of the biggest challenges in finding ways to increase the supply of premium video ad inventory is defining what constitutes ‘premium’ in the first place.

Editorial quality weighs heavily for both agencies and advertisers, as does quality of the media brand. Data for targeting is also a top factor but unfortunately publishers are not as keen on this, ranking this as only their sixth most important consideration.

In terms of producing and finding video ad inventory that meets the criteria, Forrester Consulting suggests that advertisers and publishers may have to look at alternate sources.

“To help drive the digital video opportunity, many buy and sell-side firms are opening themselves to additional sources of premium video inventory, including outstream advertising, which places video ads in the heart of written editorial content, rather than depending on native video content to host the ad” it explained.

While some of these ad formats may not seem as appealing as the pre-roll format, ultimately, advertisers and publishers are looking for ROI and if other kinds of video inventory can deliver in important areas like viewability and targeting capabilities, it could go a long way to ensuring that advertisers are able to direct as much to video ads as they say they’re planning to.