When asked to name the biggest trend in digital, publishers responded with one word: video. According to The State of Digital Advertising for Publishers, a new report from Mixpo, this clearly presents both challenges and opportunities. The gap between advertiser demand for video ads and publisher supply of video inventory is notable. This seller’s market has made video a valuable ad product for publishers, but it has also created pressure to find new ways to deliver video and take full advantage of 2016’s video boom.

In April of 2016, Mixpo surveyed over 250 digital advertising professionals employed by U.S. publishers, and conducted personal interviews with 30 digital advertising executives in a variety of functions from eight of America’s leading media companies. The State of Digital Advertising for Publishers highlights the top ten trends that emerged from Mixpo’s research along with insights on how publishers can think about, and tackle, the most pressing issues in digital advertising.

While video is front of mind for respondents, Mixpo also found that programmatic has evolved from threat to revenue opportunity. In fact, for the majority of publishers interviewed, programmatically-powered audience extension is their fastest growing revenue source.

Attribution and measurement, along with viewability, top the list of publisher concerns followed by ad fraud and bots, the increase of mobile consumption and ad blocking.

Other key findings of their research include:

• More than a third (36%) of publishers use or plan on using Facebook video ads, with 13.6% using or planning to use Instant Articles.
• Publishers ranked pre-roll, interactive pre-roll and in-banner video as the digital ad formats with the highest perceived ROI.
• Facebook Dominates: 50.2% of those surveyed have run video ad campaigns on Facebook, compared to only 31.1% on YouTube, 17% on Twitter, 13.2% on Instagram, and 1.7% on Snapchat.
• Video Growing Beyond O&Os: In the past year, 61% of publishers have sold video ads as a part of their audience extension packages.
• Mobile is still a challenge, but for new reasons: 48% of publishers are ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned with the increase in mobile consumption, while device fragmentation was among the least disconcerting issues.
• Ad blocking is a threat, but publishers are unsure of what to do: Nearly half  of publishers (46%) said ad blocking is either “extremely” or “very”concerning, but on the long list of publisher concerns, ad blocking isn’t at the top.
• In the age of rich data, publishers stick to basic metrics: Nearly 54% of publishers surveyed work with at least four ad tech vendors, and 5% work with more than 16, making consolidated metrics difficult.