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Facebook’s Groundbreaking Idea To Only Charge For Viewed Video Ads

By   /  July 8, 2015  /  No Comments

On the heels of Facebook’s annoucement that they will now offer improved video tracking data, the Wall Street Journal reports that the site will also offer a new video ad payment option that only charges advertisers when videos are viewed for at least 10 seconds.

Pay for only videos that are watched

We’ve written before about how incredibly loose Facebook’s definition of what a viewed video is. Essentially, if a video shows up on any part of the screen for a second, it’s been watched.1 Surprisingly, advertisers were not entirely enthused with paying for these types of “viewings.”

As a result, Facebook has decided to start offering to let advertisers pay only for videos that are actually, you know, seen. In an effort to milk as much revenue from this as possible, Facebook is creating an ad auction, similar I would guess to AdWords’, that would have video ad creators competing for ad space. To my amusement, the article says that:

The social network’s change shows the company is adapting to the wishes of Madison Avenue as it ramps up its video advertising business.

Ugh, Madison Avenue, and their crazy, ridiculous demands to pay for things that people actually see and don’t blow by as they scrolling through their News Feed. Facebook is still digging in their heels at allowing 3rd party measurement systems to collect video data, although how long that will last after this capitulation to reality is anyone’s guess.

According to Facebook, the reasons for not allowing 3rd parties is that the “solutions on the market aren’t sufficient,” but my guess is that they’re not sufficiently nuanced to not make it look like buying video ads on the site look on par with burning $100 bills in the winter to stay warm.

Improved video data and tracking

The new tracking system basically allows video ad creators to get a better idea of how their videos are doing and how different types of videos are measuring up against each other. Along with being able to see which videos were viewed for at least 30 seconds, new tracking data also allows people to compare organic versus paid videos and videos that require a click to start and those that auto-play.

videos-tab-in-page-insights-views-graph

Video creators can also check to see how their videos are doing when they are shared on different pages and see which videos are the most popular. This data can measure popularity based on reach, views and the amount of video viewed.

top-videos-final-update

[1] For auto-play videos, it’s three seconds on any part of the screen.

About the author

I'm an avid reader of stuff and devour information of all kind. For the past four years, I've been pursuing my passion for writing. When I'm not reading or writing, you'll find me knitting. Follow me on twitter: @MarilynMaupinTS

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