In response to the recent innovations in advertising and marketing through videos by video technology companies like Google (through YouTube), Facebook has made two major additions to its current technology for uploaded videos. Although the company had previously made its Live Video available to the public and added video to its ad carousel on Instagram; the recent additions offer two new video formats through Facebook’s “Audience Network”, through which it sells mobile ads.
The first addition is that, marketers/ advertisers will now be able to pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll video ads located contained in other video content, on mobile and desktop browsers. Videos on Facebook will thus no longer stand alone but will be part of a different publisher’s content. According to Facebook, “We’re extending Audience Network to include videos from advertisers looking to drive brand outcomes. Now, in addition to watching these videos on Facebook and Instagram, people will view them on the other apps and sites where they spend their time,”
The second addition relates to ads that will appear inside articles either through Facebook’s Audience Network or in direct deals with publishers. Publishers were previously only allowed to sell video ads directly within articles themselves, but this addition offers support through the Audience Network.
Facebook stated in its blog post that “In–article video ads will appear on mobile pages of publishers [such as Daily Mail] between paragraphs of text that play automatically when at least half the pixels are viewable. In this format, the viewer must opt-in for sound.” The new additions were already tested by USA Today and the Daily Mail as partners.
Further, “With more places to deliver content, we can better maximize value for advertisers who want more brand exposure through video. Globally, advertisers that opt-in to the Audience Network can generate approximately 10% more incremental reach than using mobile News Feed alone. Plus, we increase our ability to show the most relevant ads to each viewer. If your targeted audience spends more time in a particular app than on Facebook or Instagram, your video will be shown in that app more often.”
Facebook had introduced its Audience Network innovation for apps alone since its F8 conference in April 2014, which it extended to the mobile web in January 2016. According to Brett Vogel, Product Marketing Manager at Facebook, although direct-response ads have previously been the focus of the Audience Network, the new format is unique in that it now allows ads run in-stream i.e. in the video slots before, during or after the content plays, and only runs in other ad slots on a site or app. He also emphasised that these additions help meet the needs of advertisers and marketers to drive brand objectives and build brand awareness. “We’re very focused on ad formats that fit the setting. The way we tend to think about that is with longer form video content, which is in-stream; these kinds of ads make a ton of sense. The experience is very much like TV.”
These changes will definitely be favourable for content creators, advertisers and publishers as it is bound to increase visibility of their content through the ads which will promote more publicity.
In its blog post, Facebook stated “With more places to deliver content, we can better maximize value for advertisers who want more brand exposure through video…Globally; advertisers that opt-in to the Audience Network can generate approximately 10% more incremental reach than using mobile News Feed alone. [Facebook internal data, May 2016]. Plus, we increase our ability to show the most relevant ads to each viewer. If your targeted audience spends more time in a particular app than on Facebook or Instagram, your video will be shown in that app more often.”
Apart from the publishers and content creators, Facebook also stands in an advantageous position and will undoubtedly gain more from the advertisements placed by participating brands. This also strengthens the position of the company in relation to its competitors especially Google, which has hitherto dominated the digital marketing market. Return on investment will also undoubtedly increase. In the first quarter alone, Facebook ad revenue increased to $5.20 billion, which is up 56.8% over the same period in the previous year; with a mobile ad revenue of 82% of its total ad revenue, 9% higher than the previous year. These additions are set to increase this even more.
