Facebook & Social Media Video – What Counts as A View?
25/09/2019 3:56 PM
By Tim Hinton
As you will know part of our crusade into the quality of digital delivery for advertisers has been focused on social media platforms over the past six months and especially Facebook as a growing % of revenue is being diverted into Facebook, Instagram and YouTube by agencies.
What is a Video View?
Our first question was what is a video view? Is it the same across all platforms?
As it transpires a YouTube view is 10 times higher than that of Facebook or Instagram.
Our second question was what was being deemed as success for brands; a three second view? 100% completed view and what was the true CPM cost? Could the marketing and procurement teams quantify a ROI via their digital spend and what metrics should they use?
We surveyed all the major social video platforms to see what counts as a view.
Download the metrics to view the results.
For Facebook and Instagram, viewing only 3 seconds of a video of any length is considered a view. For YouTube, it’s 30 seconds. In all those cases, the overall length of a video isn’t factored in.
As a brand you must decide what you require from using videos on social media platforms. We would advise that advertisers are made aware of the metrics by their media agencies and this is signed off at plan.
We have worked with numerous brands in 2019 to ensure the KPI’s and metrics are aligned so that a more transparent and workable CPM level are delivered.
Efficiency levels in terms of quality covering viewing levels, placement and platform have seen an uplift of +100% in efficiency levels and, with wastage being removed from the plans, a cash saving of up to 10% has been achieved to re-invest back into the right platforms.
What Should You Be Demanding?
Advertisers can demand viewable only impressions rather than following the industry standard:
The Media Rating Council and IAB define a video ad as viewable “when at least 50 percent of the ad’s pixels are visible on a screen for at least two consecutive seconds.”
Our opinion is that if your 15/20 or 30 second video is being seen for 3 seconds only. This is a waste of time – you may be receiving a low CPM via your agency post campaign analysis reports but the media quality and ability for the branding to work will be severely impeded.
Advertisers also need to be aware that the majority of social media platforms play videos automatically without audio.
Want to know more? Ask us what else you should be demanding from your digital advertising.