Video advertising in Australia is continuing to surge with 27.5 per cent of all online advertising investment now allocated to video. According to IAB Australia’s 2025 Video Advertising State of the Nation Report this is despite marketers flagging macro-economic conditions, cross channel media measurement and AI as key challenges to advertising and marketing investment in 2025. Understanding how consumer viewing is evolving was also noted as a concern.
The Video Advertising State of the Nation Report, which is now in its fifth year, offers insights on video advertising investment, assessment and plans from media agencies across all forms of video advertising.
The Report found that while nine in ten agencies now have a unified strategy for planning and buying across screens including TV, mobile, computer, retail and outdoor or cinema, 31 per cent rarely or never unify effectiveness measurement across screens.
Gai Le Roy, CEO of IAB Australia commented: “Digital video advertising ad spend has seen extraordinary growth with a CAGR of 21.8 per cent over the last six years, double the rate of the overall digital ad market in Australia. However, with this increased investment, as well as diversification of environments and formats, new challenges continue to arise.
“Foremost of these is cross-channel measurement, which is now the number one focus area in both Australia and in the US. In Australia, marketers are also particularly focused on improving data signals and quality for marketing mix modelling,” said Le Roy.
Respondents are enthusiastic about the continued growth and evolution of the video streaming ecosystem across CTV, online video and social video, with 66 per cent of agencies seeing streaming’s future tied to offering better cross platform measurement, 61 per cent believing improved targeting and personalisation will drive growth, while 53 per cent state that innovative ad format opportunities excite them the most.
However, when asked about their greatest concerns for the ecosystem, 51 per cent of respondents flagged a lack of unified TV and video currency as their top concern. They also identified ecosystem complexity (41 per cent), challenges in managing frequency (43 per cent) and in managing buys across various self-service platforms (46 per cent) as the greatest threats.
Marketing and advertising ROI was identified by 57 per cent of respondents as the most important metric to demonstrate the contribution of advertising investment to overall business outcomes, however just 38 per cent of agency respondents reported measuring ROI or revenue contribution, and 37 per cent measured sales lift. The Report notes the most important measurement tools for agencies are online conversion tracking, Market Mix Modelling and brand lift studies.
Additional data points from the Report include:
- 26 per cent of agencies identified optimising campaigns across channels as the greatest opportunity for incorporating AI into video planning, activation. The next four opportunities flagged included identifying and segmenting audiences (24 per cent), tracking and optimising ad delivery or conversions (24 per cent), attributing campaign incremental lift (24 per cent), and analysing and reporting performance data against campaign goals (24 per cent).
- A diverse range of data signals are being used by agencies to inform targeting and creative for digital advertising. Demographics (age and gender) remain the most common signal used at 74 per cent, while contextual at page or video level content is second at 67 per cent, along with location data (also 67 per cent).
- Reach and frequency remains the most used performance indicator to assess campaign delivery and effectiveness, used by 63 per cent of respondents, followed very closely by brand lift metrics (60 per cent). The Report notes that as agencies explore full funnel video advertising strategies, using reach as the primary metric for video campaign impact on outcomes has limitations.
- Brand building remains the dominant objective for digital video; however, it is increasingly being used for lower funnel objectives including to increase sales or conversions, increase purchase or action intent.
- 84 per cent of agency respondents identified video and social media influencers as having community building talents well suited to drive influence in the creator economy, while 87 per cent of Audio State of the Nation survey respondents previously indicated podcasts also offered the same opportunity.
The IAB Australia Video Advertising State of the Nation Report fieldwork was conducted in May 2025 with 76 independent and major holding group agency decision makers completing the survey. The survey gathered industry information on video advertising that appears on connected devices such as connected TV, computers (desktop/laptop), smartphone or tablets, and included video advertising in all varieties of long-form and short-form digital content and social platforms.
The 2025 results in this report were compared to results from the four previous waves of the IAB Australia Video State of The Nation Video survey (2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024).
