There are plenty research results to date about video advertising (including mobile ads). But for those already familiar with the topics mentioned above, I’d like to introduce native video advertising.
Outline
Today, the effectiveness and popularity of native videos are well studied in social networks. User interaction, total users reached, touch frequency, Return on Investment (ROI) – each of these metrics looks like a promise of a bright future for ad campaigns. But there is still little information about the performance and efficiency of native videos on mobile. In particular on premium publishers’ websites where the inline video advertising is increasingly popular and in demand.
Recently, automatic advertising procurement service The Drum published its research – the result of analyzing more than 30 million online videos that went through their platform in 4 months: from January to April 2018. According to the researchers, what they got, as a result, surprised them. Native video advertising works.
The research revealed that mobile users tend to spend time watching commercials on public websites. And a lot more than standard 6 (six) seconds of attention span. 72% of users who watched the video within 6 seconds will continue to do so until about 22 seconds. A 15-to-22-second live video media yields better engagement rates than the same format on desktop.
Increased efficiency is the result of mobile devices progress
Perhaps the fact of growing attention to native video advertising can be explained by the fact that mobile devices are just getting better (and an Internet connection too).
For example in 2010 a study was carried out on text content consumption on smartphones. The results then were not in favor of mobile – attention to content on small screens turned out to be much less than on desktops. The same research performed in 2016 showed different data. The understanding of text content on mobile devices was 3% higher than on a computer. For a test case, researchers tested a copy of just over 400 words. So, what can explain such evolution?
It is likely that in the period from 2010 to 2016 smartphones have turned from new, incomprehensible devices – into indispensable ones. And one can assume that the downsides that seemed critical six years ago are no longer the case for users today (or at least perceived different). We adapted to life via small screens.
Similarly, the reaction of users to native video content seems to be changing.
What should marketers do?
Since users can keep their attention on long videos, marketers should reconsider their tactics. In particular, the development of native videos we talked about – consider how to improve their effectiveness in time when users’ attention starts falling off.
For mobile videos, we recommend to “pack” the main advantage your add delivering in the first 6 seconds to grab his or her attention and encourage to watch the video further.
Recent studies show that the optimal length for native video advertising is 15-22 seconds. Over 22 seconds, interest and focus are fading away.