In Part 1 of this article series, we told you the first step to getting triple the value (or more) for your online video ad media spend was to buy completed views instead CPMs.
Buying completed views provides exceptional value because you only pay when people watch your full commercial.
It’s even more valuable when viewers choose to watch your full ad vs. being forced to watch it, like with YouTube's TrueView video ads, which are skippable after five seconds. Viewers who choose to watch your ad are 75% more engaged with your message than when they're forced to watch. And that translates into taking more action—searching, following, and ultimately, buying.
Generate off-the-charts added value with high volume partial views
Here’s more good news: when you buy completed views vs. CPMs, you also double your ROI or more by capturing the tremendous added value of "partial views."
What's a partial view?
Partial views are those which viewers choose to skip. Remember that with YouTube TrueView ads, for example, you can skip an ad after five seconds. So if your ad is 30 seconds long, partial views include those that viewers watch for as few as five seconds or as many as 29 seconds before skipping.
Together, completed and partial views make up what we traditionally called impressions.
COMPLETED VIEWS + PARTIAL VIEWS = IMPRESSIONS
What used to be just impressions now have measurable value
There are two key ingredients that go into determining partial view value:
- Cost per completed view
- “Quartile data,” i.e., how many people watched up to 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of your ad
Neither ingredient is present when you buy CPMs, so you really don’t know to what degree your commercial is seen.
But when you run a completed view campaign through Sightly, we measure all those partial views, and calculate their added value.
Using the campaign quartile data and the average cost-per-completed-view (CPCV), our system calculates the added value of the partial views using a formula that considers additional factors such the length of the commercial.
In nearly every campaign run on the Sightly platform, the total added value of partial views has exceeded 110%, and has gone as high as 175% of the ad spend.
Completed views are key
To recap, Step 1 to tripling the value of your ad spend in every video ad campaign is to buy completed views, not CPMs. That way you get 100% direct return on your investment, first and foremost.
This compares to 39% return on impression-based campaigns outside YouTube TrueView, according to industry figures for Q4 2014.
Step 2 is to measure and calculate the true value of your remaining impressions, which we now call "partial views." That way, you receive 110% to 175% added value on top of your direct ROAS.
This compares to 61% of your ads never being seen in impression-based campaigns outside YouTube, according to those same industry figures for Q4 2014.
Which would you rather have?
But wait, there’s more!
Total ad watch time drives brand exposure and lift. When we analyze all the data from our campaigns, we also calculate the total time spent watching your messages in any given campaign. By integrating third party brand lift measures, we can show you the positive effect watch time has on your brand recall, preference and other brand lift values.
That’s just the beginning of the extra added value story we’ll discuss next in Part 3 of Triple the Value of Your Media Spend, where we discover another 100% of added value for your online video ad campaigns in something we call the “multiplier effect.” Stay tuned!
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