It might be easy to assume that the shorter the video ad, the better the completion rate. But maybe things change when it’s on a social platform. According to Q2 data, video ads that were between 30 and 60 seconds long fared better than those of less than 30 seconds on Facebook.
US Facebook Video Ad Benchmarks: Completion Rate, by Ad Length, Q3 2015-Q2 2016 (% of total impressions analyzed by Kinetic Social)
During Q2 2016, Kinetic Social tracked data based on 2 billion social ad impressions, including ad spending for all ad types on Facebook, across both desktop and mobile channels. Kinetic Social is a programmatic social media platform that delivers paid social ads, and more than 90% of its clients are US-based.
According to the data, almost half (or 44%) of 30- to 60-second video ads on Facebook were viewed to completion. Meanwhile, those that ran 30 seconds or less saw a 26% completion rate. Interestingly, 2-minute or longer video ads had the second-best completion rate of 31%.
In a separate survey from Animoto, within the next 12 months, 70.8% of respondents said they plan to invest in social video ads overall, including ads to boost content. And Facebook is most likely to benefit from this intent; 65.8% of those who planned to do social video advertising planned to use it.
US Marketers Who Plan to Use Social Video Ads, by Platform, May 2016 (% of respondents)
And don’t forget what’s lurking on the side lines: live streaming video. Trust Media Brands, previously The Readers’ Digest Association, reported in August that 7% of agency and 19% of in-house marketers definitely plan on allocating budget to live stream video ads in the second half of this year. Facebook Live rolled out in April, and is anticipated to be a new and interesting revenue stream for the social media giant.