GLASGOW: Advertisers used advanced audience targeting methods for almost half (42%) of all the UK video ads that ran on the Videology advertising platform in the last quarter of 2013.

In findings for The Drum ahead of its Digital Convergence conference in March, Videology's study of the 673.4m UK video ad impressions that ran between October and December 2013 also revealed that mobile video advertising grew 33% over the quarter.

This represented 8% of all video impressions and was slightly down from Videology's last quarterly report in November when it found mobile video ad impressions had risen 42% over Q3 2013.

The latest data found advanced targeting, which involves both behavioural targeting and daypart targeting (the scheduling of ads at pre-determined times of the day to particular audiences), was used in 42% of all video ads while demographic targeting accounted for 56% and 2% used both techniques.

Significantly, FMCG video ads have now slipped behind entertainment ads as the top sector for video adspend on the platform, ending FMCG's dominance over successive quarters after entertainment logged a 57% increase over the quarter.

Jana Eisenstein, the senior vice president of global accounts at Videology and who will be a keynote speaker at the forthcoming digital conference, said the findings showed two underlying themes are beginning to emerge.

"One is about convergence and consumer usage and the other is about programmatic trading," she said. "We are seeing consumers now consuming content across multiple devices, and you see that a lot in the consumption of video-on-demand specifically."

She went on to recommend programmatic targeting as a useful tool for brands that want to follow their audiences across all platforms.

"Programmatic has already gained good traction which will continue as planners look at diversifying across all the platforms – and this is a great way to find their audience," she concluded.

Data sourced from The Drum; additional content by Warc staff