Facebook started rolling out 15-second TV-style video ads into users' newsfeed Thursday, adding a new way for marketers to attract large audiences.
Facebook is finally rolling out high-quality premium video ads into users' news feeds as a way for marketers to attract a larger audience. The video ad integration follows months of testing, which was originally started in December. The world's largest social networking site is kicking off the new change with a hand-picked group of advertisers to avoid upsetting the regular users of the service.
Facebook said the Premium Video Ads will be rolled out gradually across members' news feeds on desktops and mobile devices over the course of next few months. The integration of video ads into social networking is a move that supports Facebook's interest in taking a slice of lucrative TV-marketing space.
"Premium Video Ads are bought and measured in a way that's similar to how advertisers already buy and measure ads on TV," Facebook's product marketing manager Susan Buckner said in an online post, Thursday. "The ads are bought based on Targeted Gross Rating Points to reach a specific audience over a short period of time. Delivery is measured by an independent third party, Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR), and advertisers only pay based on what Nielsen OCR measures."
Similarly, Facebook partnered with Ace Metrix to measure creative components of the video ads such as watchability, meaningfulness and emotional resonance, Facebook said. This will help Facebook deliver high-quality ads and also help advertisers to understand if the new method is working for better returns.
Facebook users will see these video ads in their news feeds that will play automatically as users scroll by. But a recent update to a similar auto-play feature enables these videos to first play in mute. If the video ad interests users, they can tap the video to start playing in full-screen with sound or simply scroll by to ignore.
