Sometimes the obvious news is the most important. eMarketer pulled some data from Limelight Networks and Freewheel, that reveals an inverse relationship between video editing, length and watchability. In other words, just as a video production company, we know people are more likely to watch a shorter ad to completion than a longer ad.
Now, the first part is common sense: of course people are more likely to complete a 15 second ad than they are a 30 second ad… it’s only half as long. Here’s the graph with the actual numbers:
That’s about a 20% difference. Which might on the surface, encourage companies to start shortening their online video editing ads. But that would be a mistake, because this study showed that this data is likely to change when you consider the length of the video the ad is placed on.
Viewers Complete More Ads When Root Video Is Longer
Turns out, we don’t just favor shorter ads period. We favor them in general. But when the video we came to see is longer, we become much more willing to tolerate longer ads. Here’s eMarketer’s chart, using Freewheel’s data, showing how ad completion rates change between 15 and 30 second ad lengths when the root content is longer:
There’s almost no change in our completion rates between 15 and 30 second commercials when the root video production is long. Which leads me to believe that when viewers sit down to watch a piece of online video editing they know from the start is longer than usual, we end up more willing (probably subconsciously) to accept more advertising with it.
That’s kind of interesting, actually, if you really examine the chart. Because Freewheel’s data seems to suggest that 30 second ads are more watched than 15 second ads across long, medium, and short content… which kind of directly impacts the Limelight Networks data above saying the exact opposite.
Regardless, it’s clear that longer video content encourages more ad completion by viewers.
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