However, for many businesses those precious seconds of your time are what they need to increase revenue. But are these types of video ads effective? Ramesh Sitaraman from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, along with his research partner S. Shunmuga Krishnan, sought out the answer to that question by examining how often viewers even finish watching ads.
“Video usage is growing so rapidly,†says Sitaraman, “but making online videos economically sustainable and profitable is a burning question of key importance to the future economics and evolution of the Internet.â€
In what is one of the largest-ever scientific studies, Sitaraman and Krishnan analyzed anonymized viewer data linked to more than 257 million ads, in 367 million videos, from over 3,000 publishers that were viewed by 65 million unique viewers around the world over a 15-day period.
Using Akamai’s media analytics platform to sift through the data, Akamai found some interesting things. Here’s some of what they found:
- Ads that were inserted within videos had an astounding completion rate of 97 percent, as opposed to those added before and after videos which respectively achieved a 74 percent and 45 percent completion rate.
- Viewers who are repeat visitors to a website are much more likely to complete an ad when compared to one-time visitors.
- Ads in long form videos, like movies and TV episodes, were more likely to be completed, while those in shorter news clips were often abandoned.
This gives business a lot to think about. While you may have worked hard on that two minute magnum opus to your business’ ingenuity and work ethic, will viewers actually stay around to check it out while waiting for Cutest Kittens Vol.9 to play? While Sitaraman and Krishnan’s study doesn’t provide specifics about what a business should necessarily do, it’s a safe assumption that brevity does more for your video ad than a large budget, and that it’s better to not overstay your welcome.
