News

Facebook Video Ads Are At An All-Time Low

e-payment licence

Facebook ads, in particular video, are at an all-time low, but is anyone shocked?

After several complaints from ad buyers throughout the year about different faulty measurements, Facebook have now decided to start to let third-party auditors verify its numbers, and the findings have been very discouraging for them as a result.

Some agencies have discovered that view-ability rates on their Facebook video campaigns are as low as 20-30%, which is far below the average view-ability rating for video ads on websites. This has come to a surprise as Facebook is such a huge global social network.

According to The Media Rating Council, the industry standard for video view-ability requires a minimum of 50% of a video ad’s pixels to be in view for two continuous seconds.

This can only point out to the drastic inconsistency in Facebook’s ad performance, and there is currently no apparent pattern for under or over-reporting, which sometimes Facebook’s numbers are substantially higher than the normal standard.

Facebook does score 99 percent of the score to whether the ad is seen by a human. However the percentage of the video played in each view is where the trouble lies: one agency reported only 22 percent of its video were, in fact, played in each view.

However, this hasn’t been a new problem for the social network. Facebook’s ad view-ability in general has been a topic of concern since last December at a Nomura conference, when Drew Huening from “Omnicom” stated that their own tests revealed that their display ads had not reached the minimum industry standard of 50 percent visibility in a browser window, for one whole second.

More than two-third of marketers in the U.S. currently run Facebook video ads, but due to these rising concerns regarding the amount of views they are receiving, advertisers are uncertain whether they should be investing as much marketing spend in Facebook.

Agency executives think that in order to challenge Facebook on these subpar metrics, advertisers must band together to push for enforcement of third-party verification.

But is it really such a big deal?

Others do not tend to view the numbers as particularly troubling, arguing that how Facebook tend to demonstrate is how they function as a platform. The social network is most effective for reaching large audiences with their relevant content, but not video ads. They do not receive the same coverage, it appears.

 

 

Facebook ads, and social media ads in general, are fleeting by nature–they rely upon platforms designed for instant gratification and constant optimisation. Therefore, many people argue that that doesn’t mean that they aren’t worth the time to invest in.

It now just means that marketers have a tougher time to consider how much to invest in Facebook ads relative to other mediums. It can also be considered to advertisers that appearing in a prospect’s news feed is a lot better than not appearing at all, even if it is for a second!

Chloe Gay

Chloe is a reporter at Global Dating Insights. Originally from Bracknell, she is studying Communication & Media at Bournemouth University. She enjoys writing, travelling and socialising with her friends and family.

Global Dating Insights is part of the Industry Insights Group. Registered in the UK. Company No: 14395769