Twitter Promises 100 percent Viewability Standards For New Autoplay Videos

In a move that comes as no surprise, Twitter announced that it will now start serving autoplay videos to its users. Considering the massive success that Facebook has experienced with autoplay, now reaching 4 billion views per day, Twitter’s introduction of this service is a clear attempt to entice more people to watch videos on its platform.

By launching autoplay videos, Twitter joins the ranks of Facebook and Instagram. Now, native videos, Vines, and even GIFs will begin playback automatically as you scroll past, so you can “keep up with the action without missing a tweet,” wrote Baljeet Singh, product director of Twitter media, in a blog post.

The social media company says that it has taken a hard stance on viewability standards, which may give it an edge over its rivals in social video. Twitter promises to only charge on video ads that have been seen 100 percent in full view of the user for at least three seconds. Dealerships and marketers will certainly find this claim noteworthy and will appreciate how it sets Twitter’s initiative apart from its competitors.

“We’re putting the standard of 100 percent viewability in place because we think it’s simply the right thing to do,” wrote David Regan, senior product manager at Twitter, in a blog post. “If a video is not 100 percent in view, we don’t think an advertiser should be charged.”

Surely, dealerships will agree with this sentiment, and Twitter’s focus on viewability standards may indeed make its ad product more enticing to advertisers.

“During the autoplay tests we ran, we saw people engaging with videos in this new format at a much higher rate, and our brand and publishing partners saw improved view rates,” stated Regan. “All of this resulted in lower cost-per-views for marketers and increased video recall by consumers.”

Just like on Facebook, autoplay videos on Twitter will be muted in the timeline, and the user can tap them to turn on the sound and see a full screen view. On a smartphone, users can turn their handset sideways into landscape mode to automatically launch those features. The settings page allows users to revert to the previous click-to-play mode if they choose, and also allows them to save data by setting videos to autoplay only when they’re connected to Wi-Fi. For those users who have low bandwidth, there is a setting to opt out entirely.

In Twitter’s tests regarding autoplay video, the company found that:

• Users were 2.5 times more likely to prefer autoplay over click-to-view or thumbnail previews on videos.
• Ad recall was 14 percent higher on autoplay-promoted videos versus other formats.
• Completion rates were 7 times greater on autoplay compared to other formats.

Will Twitter experience success with autoplay videos? Facebook’s ability to make autoplay videos popular with advertisers on its platform has been extraordinary, and while it will be hard for Twitter to come close to that level of success, its addition of autoplay videos is likely to create some new interest from advertisers and users.

Twitter’s new functionality is rolling out now to all users running iOS or twitter.com, with an Android version coming soon. Dealerships who are interested in running autoplay promotional videos can access additional information online.