New Autoplay Twitter Video Ads Come with a 100% Viewability Promise
Social Media
Twitter officially jumped into the video advertising market today by introducing autoplay videos with a special guarantee to advertisers: Unless the promoted video is 100% viewable (not half seen or scrolled by) and has been watched for at least 3 seconds, Twitter will not charge advertisers for the view.
How Will Autoplay Twitter Video Ads Work?
This is how Twitter’s version of autoplay videos will work. Much like Facebook’s autoplay ads, when a Twitter user scrolls through his or her timeline and sees a video, the video content will automatically play without sound. When a user clicks on the video, the user will be brought to a full-screen viewer and the sound will continue playing. At any point during the video, users may Retweet, favorite, or comment on the post. To keep the Twitter experience consistent, this format will also apply to GIFs and Vines shared on Twitter as well.
Expect More Media Centric Format
According to Twitter’s official blog post announcement, “videos will appear in a larger, more media-centric format in timelines. During the autoplay tests we (Twitter) ran, we saw people engaging with videos in this new format at a much higher rate, and our brand and publishing partners saw improved view rates.” The new and improved format is looking to produce better results for marketers with a lower cost-per-view and increased recall by consumers.
Twitter’s Viewability Standard
Finally, Twitter was proud to announce their viewability guarantee for advertisers. To ensure that Twitter continues to “deliver high impact, high engagement, and meaningful views for advertising partners” Twitter mentioned a new standard, guaranteeing that an advertiser will not be charged for a video view unless that video is 100% in view on a user’s device and has been watched for at least 3 seconds.
Twitter says that it’s continuing to test “new ways to deliver a better experience for consumers, brands, and publishers on Twitter.” According to “extensive tests of autoplay,” Twitter found that:
- People were 2.5X more likely to prefer autoplay videos over other viewing methods (including click to play and video preview thumbnails).
- They have better video recall with autoplay; Twitter saw a significant 14% lift in video recall over other video formats.
- For brands, during autoplay tests Twitter saw a 7x increase in completions of promoted videos.