Latest findings highlight decrease in view-to-completion rate across ad unit sizes
Online marketers lean heavily on metrics to justify ad spend and gauge campaign performance, and as more marketers continue to fuel their efforts in online video, engagement metrics such as completion rate become increasingly valuable for measuring advertising impact on viewers.
Yet metrics themselves are meaningless without benchmarks.
Findings from DIGIDAY and Adap.tv illustrate the growing importance of completion rates for calculating online video campaign ROI, specifically among ad agencies in North America.
However, as interest in measuring online video advertising completion rates continues to expand, marketers looking to benchmark themselves on campaign view-to-completion rates for in-banner video ads may need to adjust their current standards, according to the latest 2010 data from ad network PointRoll.
Compared to 2008–2009 findings, video ad completion rates for in-banner ad units have experienced an across-the-board decrease.
In 2010, 45.8% of video ads were viewed to at least 50% completion; that was down from 56.5% in from the 2008–2009 data.
Among fully viewed ads, completion rates were down 9.5 percentage points, or 19.9% lower than 2008–2009. This data includes various ad formats, such as expandable and floating units.
A variety of factors may influence the across-the-board decline in completion rates for in-banner online video ad units.
For example, an increase in average video ad length or changes in overall video creative or content could impact viewer completion rates.
And, as video becomes a more common element of the online experience, viewers are likely becoming more desensitized to the presence of video ads, much like the maturation of display advertising led to a decline in static banner ad CTRs.
Regardless, certain in-banner ad units clearly outperformed others in 2010, providing marketers insight into which in-banner ad units might be worth pursuing or testing further.
Large rectangle units outperformed all other ad unit sizes in views to both 50% and 100% completion.
Skyscraper banners had the second highest view-to-completion rates; 48% for halfway and 40.8% for full video ad completion.
Note that PointRoll defined large rectangles most commonly as a 300x250 ad unit but also ranging from 250x250 to 728x300 ad sizes. Skyscraper banners were most commonly 160x60, but ranged from 120x480 to 336x600.
Online video advertising affords marketers the opportunity to create a rich and engaging experience for viewers, and view-to-completion rate is an important metric for quantifying the meaningfulness of such an experience.
However, as view-to-completion rates dwindle, marketers must continue to monitor video ad consumption patterns and to learn from industry benchmarks to best gauge their online video advertising success.
3 March 2011
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