In a bid to improve their video advertising model, Facebook have announced an advanced data driven method of measuring video content. By increasing the granularity of the metrics available, Facebook’s video ad platform is now a real competitor to Google.
The image below shows the new video ad dashboard that is being rolled out over the summer. This dashboard will be made available to all paid and organic video uploads to Facebook pages.
How detailed are the new metrics?
Advertisers can now see the number of views a video has gotten from specific demographics. The detailed metrics also enable advertisers to see the number of viewers that reached certain points in a video. The knock-on effect of these stats is that advertisers can now judge what parts of a video are most effective and what parts need to be improved.
Google DoubleClick metrics v Facebook Video Ad metrics
The table below gives a comparison of the data available to advertisers on both Google DoubleClick network and the Facebook video ad network.
| Google DoubleClick Video Ad Metrics | Facebook Video Ad metrics |
| Number of impressions where the video was played. | ✓ |
| Number of times the video played to 25% of its length. | ✓ – a view is recorded once the video passes the 3 second mark |
| Number of times the video reached its midpoint during play. | ✓ |
| Number of times the video played to 75% of its length. | ✓ |
| Number of times the video played to completion. | ✓ |
| Average time users watched the video. | ✓ |
| Percentage of the video watched by users. | ✓ |
| Percentage of times the video played to the end. | ✓ |
| Number of times an error occurred | ✗ |
| Duration of the video creative. | ✓ |
| Number of times user paused ad clip. | Does not specify |
| Number of times the user un-paused the video. | ✓ |
| Number of times a user rewinds the video. | ✓ |
| Number of times video player was in Mute state during play of ad clip. | Does not specify |
| Number of times a user un-mutes the video. | ✓ |
| Number of times a user collapses a video, either to its original size or to a different size. | ✓ |
| Number of times ad clip played in full screen mode. | Does not specify |
| Number of user interactions with a video, on average, such as Pause, Full screen, Mute, etc. | There is no skip button on Facebook video ads |
| Number of times the Skip button appears in the video ad | There is no skip button on Facebook video ads |
| Number of times a user clicked the Skip button in the video ad. | There is no skip button on Facebook video ads |
| Number of times the ad was viewed to completion or for 30 seconds. | ✓ |
| Percentage of skippable ads that had engaged views. (This metric is calculated by dividing engaged views by skips shown.) | There is no skip button on Facebook video ads |
The new Facebook video ad dashboard will be rolled out to all Facebook pages over the coming weeks. Be prepared for this update and create your video ad now on Viddyad.com.
