David Dworin, VP Advisory Services, FreeWheel highlights findings from\u00a0a very deep data dive by FreeWheel into the complex subject of creating the optimal video advertising experience for viewers: \u201cWe\u2019re realizing that ad experience is more complicated than just cutting the number of ads.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while there’s plenty of complication, \u201cThere\u2019s actually a lot of other levers that programmers can pull and manipulate in order to deliver a great user experience while also delivering value for their advertisers and making sure they maintain their own businesses,\u201d the head of the premium video company\u2019s advisory practice explains in this interview with Beet.TV.<\/p>\n

FreeWheel\u2019s insights derive from the second installment of its new signature\u00a0insights track<\/a> titled \u201cEngaging the Viewer: Designing a Winning Ad Experience.\u201d It\u2019s based on two types of data, the first being an aggregation of user experience studies for about 12 clients yielding some 100 different scenarios. The second consists of ad completion rates and viewer engagement metrics representing billions of video starts and ad impressions.<\/p>\n

There are many balancing acts, financial and otherwise, at play in the search for an optimal ad experience. Dworin<\/a> says FreeWheel is motivated by the knowledge that a lot of programmers \u201care making decisions often in the dark or based on emotion or assumption rather than based on data.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, FreeWheel<\/a> found that if ad load is cut by 50%, the result is perhaps a 5% to 7% increase in repeat viewership. \u201cBut it\u2019s not enough to make up for the fact that you just cut your inventory by fifty percent, Dworin says. \u201cSo that\u2019s not revenue-neutral for a programmer if you were to continue to price things the same way.<\/p>\n

Moreover, \u201cThe viewer experience bump isn\u2019t as large as everybody\u2019s assuming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creative repetition is a \u201chuge deal for viewers.\u201d If someone sees the same creative \u201cthree, four, five, six times, you\u2019ll see a twenty to sixty percent drop in ad completion rate relative to the first time you saw it,\u201d he says. \u201cThis isn\u2019t people that are leaving the content, this is people that are saying, \u2018this is the fifth time I\u2019m seeing this ad I\u2019m turning this off.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Other highlights of the research:<\/p>\n

Digital platforms have less ad time than linear TV. Cable linear viewers see almost 40% more ads than those watching broadcast programming on digital platforms.<\/p>\n

Shorter ads are not always better. Thirty-second and 15-second, pre-roll ads had very similar ad completion rates across platforms, for both full episodes and clips. Ultra-short (e.g. six seconds) ads often serve a different purpose on premium video than longer commercials.<\/p>\n

Asked about VOD versus linear TV viewing, Dworin says part of the value in VOD is that users are engaged with the content and don\u2019t tend to channel switch, plus there are fewer ads. \u201cSo it\u2019s already a pretty strong viewer experience relative to watching the same content on linear TV, which from a viewer\u2019s perspective is what they would compare it to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Dworin, VP Advisory Services, FreeWheel highlights findings from\u00a0a very deep data dive by FreeWheel into the complex subject of creating the optimal video advertising experience for viewers: \u201cWe\u2019re realizing that ad experience is more complicated than just cutting the number of ads.\u201d But while there’s plenty of complication, \u201cThere\u2019s actually a lot of other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":53316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[5267,7295],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}