Facebook revealed on its “Advertiser Help Center” that its definition of a video view was 3 seconds or more; meaning the average time a video ad was viewed for has been overestimated by the company for about two years now. Facebook has also announced it will be reassessing the metric to resolve the issue.
WSJ reports, “Ad buying agency Publicis Media was told by Facebook that the earlier counting method likely overestimated average time spent watching videos by between 60% and 80%, according to a late August letter Publicis Media sent to clients that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.”
In 2015, Publicis reportedly purchased around $77 billion in ads on behalf of marketers around the world according to research firm Recma.
The data overlooked by Facebook becomes a major mishap for marketers and an embarrassment to the largest online social network when you consider this: Facebook calculated average time a video is watched by taking into account only the videos views that lasted 3 seconds than longer. This means they hadn’t added the number of views which lasted less than 3 seconds to counting average view time of videos on its platform, thereby inflating the average time a video is viewed.
Moreover this means for all those big companies and small startups spending on money on marketing on Facebook may have been paying for videos viewing durations that aren’t at all accurate. Moreover, with online marketing channels like YouTube, Twitter also competing for marketing budgets, this means Facebook may have been overly invested in by marketers. It becomes an even bigger problem for those bootstrapping startups like the many in India who use Facebook extensively to get their word out, as was evident by the novice entrepreneurs saying so at the eTailing India Conference held in Delhi this September, 2016.
BW Reporters
Regina is a reporter for BW Businessworld. In her previous assignments, she has worked with Independent television Network as a news anchor and reporter in Sri Lanka
