Dive Brief:
- Facebook's latest enhancements for marketers buying video ads include automated captions, new reporting metrics, and a global rollout of the 100% in-view buying option.
- On the metrics front, Facebook’s integration with Moat is also now global. Moat is an ad analytics company that independently measures Facebook video ad performance.
- According to Facebook, its users watch more than 100 million hours of video each day.
Dive Insight:
The news about automated captions for video ads should make life easier for marketers creating ads in the format. Before Facebook offered the automated options, advertisers had to embed captions manually, or upload their own caption files. And captions make a difference in the performance of video ads. According to Facebook research, 80% of users react negatively to auto play ads with the sound on when it was unexpected, and captions increased video view time by 12%.
Facebook’s integration with Moat was first announced in September, and marketers should also be pleased to see that roll out internationally. Adding third party measurement to Facebook campaigns had been an issue for industry insiders.
About the importance of mobile metrics, Graham Mudd, director of ads product marketing at Facebook, told Marketing Land, “There’s a real opportunity for us to determine on the fly which audiences a piece of creative is resonating with and then deliver that to similar audiences. We can improve the outcome in ways that [haven’t] been possible on TV where everybody gets the same message. To not embrace some of digital’s capabilities is a missed opportunit[y].”
Facebook in the last year has zoomed in on their video products, including rolling out a floating video format that allowed viewers to scroll down their feed while simultaneously watching a video. Publishers have seemingly followed the trend Facebook set, introducing "sticky videos" that they say have both improved the user experience as well as improved viewability rates.
