Facebook-Nielsen Study Shows That Even Short Video Views Drive Brand Lift

Although Facebook’s video presence has grown exponentially in recent times, many marketers question how they can effectively measure the true reach of their video campaigns on the platform because of the autoplay feature. When a user pauses on a video for at least three seconds, Facebook considers it a view, and there is great uncertainty about whether or not a marketing message is actually getting through in such a short period of time.

According to a Facebook-commissioned study by Nielsen, marketers should rest assured that even for people who see a video before it starts playing but don’t actually watch any of it, there is a lift in ad recall, brand awareness and purchase consideration. This comes as big news for marketers, as Facebook now says that its videos get more than 3 billion views per day.

For its study, Nielsen analyzed data from 173 of their BrandEffect studies that included video ads on Facebook, including only campaigns with positive lift. The study used a test-and-control design and the research company divided viewers in the test groups by total length of video view, starting at zero seconds, as the initial static frame of a video counts as an impression.

“Results show that from the moment a video ad was viewed (even before one second), lift happened across ad recall, brand awareness, and purchase consideration,” said Facebook. “That means even people who never watched the video, but did see the impression, were still impacted by the ad. And, as expected, lift increased the longer people watch the ad.” Facebook explained that the striped area on the following graph represents lift at a 95 percent confidence interval.

For users who viewed the ads for three seconds or less, the study found lift of 47 percent for ad recall, 32 percent for brand awareness and 44 percent for purchase intent. Not surprisingly, lift was significantly higher for those who watched a video for a longer period of time, as the following chart illustrates:

This data clearly shows that although lift increases when viewers watch a video for longer, even a brief view can be effective in building awareness and driving purchase intent.

How can marketers use this data to improve their Facebook video campaigns?

“As people consume digital content differently, it’s clear that video view counts alone don’t tell advertisers enough about the value driven from digital video ads,” explained Facebook. “Marketers should experiment with shorter ad creative to drive value for their brand, keeping in mind that value increases the longer people watch. And, as always, advertisers should continue optimizing ads for campaign goals, but going forward, they also need to look deeper than view counts to measure total campaign value. Every part of a video view – from the initial impression to a complete video view and everything in between – drives value. Understanding this helps advertisers build content and evaluate success.”