Informative

The Value of Video Ads on Facebook

Sanne Kruis

The Marketing Manager of The Next Ad.

Apr 24, 2015

The Value of Video ads on facebook

How to deliver video ads value for brands? Nielsen analyzed this question and came up with the following conclusions for the value of video-ads. Check them out and, while you’re at it, take a look at our five tips to create great video content for Facebook.

The value of a video for brands on Facebook is high and an effective marketing tool. Research by Nielsen presents that videos deliver good performance for brands by measuring Brand awareness, Ad Recall and Purchase Intent.

Due to the high value of video ads, Facebook is in competition with television as a visual medium. Unlike on television, you’ll (almost) always see the first seconds of the video ad when you scroll through your timeline. A video is already effective in a short time. What is apparent, is that after 3 seconds of seeing an increase in purchase intent of 34% was reflected. This percentage rises with the number of seconds that the viewer is exposed to the ad. Still, the first three seconds are the most important seconds of the ad. The main impacts are herein shown and this is the trigger for wanting to know more about the product, or the conversion or click.

Cumulative Impact on…

To underpin the above story, let’s look at a quote from the results of the research from Nielsen: “That data shows that people who watched under three seconds of the video ad created up to 47 percent of the total campaign value, and people who watched for fewer than 10 seconds created up to 74 percent, depending on the metric. That means that while lift continued to increase the longer people watched, people didn’t have to watch a whole video to be affected by the ad. Even video views under 10 seconds effectively build awareness and drive purchase intent.”

Besides the three important seconds at the beginning of the video, there are also a couple of unwritten limits for video ads in Facebook. “We see reflected in the results, 1 to 2-minute videos on Facebook is too long for some brands” said Marcel of A Friend of Mine. He continues: “Just to take an example from the network Instagram to which the 15 second rule is applied.”

Finally, a glimpse of an effective video ad is that some results show that less perfectly formed videos get the most engagement. Handmade videos, without immediately visible editing on the video, that are placed directly on Facebook shows good results.

5 Tips to create great video ads on Facebook

The customer comes first

Facebook allows targeting based on real people, allowing for more accurate control of reach and frequency across devices. It also allows to better appeal to potential customers and tailoring content aimed at specific segments of the market.

Attention in the first three seconds

Each video ad starts autoplaying on the Facebook feed and stops as soon as people scroll past it. So, catch a person’s attention almost immediately — in the first three seconds. The first three seconds are the most important thing in the video ad.

Engaging silently as well

As a person scrolls down in their News Feed, each video starts playing without sound. Ensure that the content is engaging silently as well. It is essential that your audience get the message with visually content in the first three seconds.

Flexible

Digital videos don’t require ad spends of upwards of millions of dollars, and Facebook has tools that let you target specific segments of your audience initially to see what resonates the most. So brands must be nimble and flexible when it comes to these different options.

Make it authentic

The videos that tend to resonate the most do not ape the broadcast format. Instead, they prioritize the story and user engagement over explicitly selling their products. The Facebook mindset really means abandoning everything that brands and marketers know all about broadcast.