Digital Video Ad Completion Rates Continue Rising Amid Higher Loads

Digital video ad views continued to grow at a faster pace than video ad views in Q2 (68% vs. 10% year-over-year), per a FreeWheel study released in August 2012. And despite the number of ads per long-form video reaching 7.96 for the quarter, up from 6.29 the previous quarter, video ad completion rates for long-form content also grew to 91%, from 85% in Q1.

Video ad load increases are particularly evident for long-form content, which served just 3.1 ads per video in Q2 2011, compared to this past quarter’s 7.96. Despite this massive growth in ad loads, completion rates have also improved, from 81% a year ago to 91%, indicating that consumers are becoming more comfortable watching ads in exchange for professionally-produced content (the data in the report represents only video that is rights-managed: aggregate monetization data for professional content from FreeWheel’s customers, and does not reflect trends for user-generated content.)

These findings align with a recent comScore report indicating that online video ad views continue to reach new heights, with Americans viewing more than 11 billion video ads in June, representing a 9.2% increase from May’s previous high of roughly 10.1 billion views.

Completion Rates Also Rise For Mid- and Short-Form Content

Data from FreeWheel’s Q2 “Video Monetization Report” reveals that ad completion rates have also hit their highest rates in 2 years for mid- and short-form content. (Mid-form content refers to content 5-20 minutes in length, while short-form content lasts less than 5 minutes). The ad completion rate for mid-form content increased to 80% in Q2, up from 76% in Q1, and 71% in Q2 2011. For short-form content, the ad completion rate was a relatively lower 69%, though that was also up from 64% in Q1 and 59% in Q2 2011.

While ad loads have not grown as quickly for these videos, they have also reached 2-year highs. In Q2, mid-form content averaged 1.32 ads per video, up from 1.2 the previous quarter, and 0.85 in Q2 2011. For short-form content, there was an average of 0.56 ads per video in Q2, up from 0.53 in Q1 and 0.43 in Q2 2011.

Post-rolls accounted for only a fraction of the total video ads served during the quarter, but grew at a 265% year-over-year rate, compared to a 159% increase for mid-rolls, and a 49% increase for pre-rolls (which accounted for the largest share of ad views).

Non-PC/Mac Viewing Doubles

The report also finds that non-PC/Mac viewing continues to soar. Last quarter, non-PC/Mac viewing held 4.1% share of all professional digital video views, which in itself was a dramatic rise from just 1% a year earlier (see link above). In Q2, though, non-PC/Mac viewing doubled, accounting for 8.2% share of total video views, comprising more than 1 billion video views for the quarter.

About the Data: FreeWheel served over 10.1 billion video ads (pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll) in Q2 2012 and made ad decisions for almost 12.5 billion video views. The report data is primarily on behalf of US-based content producers, however viewing occurs at a global scale.-MarketingCharts

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