• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, September 11, 2013

Size matters, mobile video drives more interaction, and we spend more time on our handheld devices than on computers.

Those are among the findings in a handful of recent research reports on digital video. Here’s a recap of some of the most insightful datapoints from various studies.

For starters, large video players generate the most completed views for ads. While they comprise about one-quarter of all video ad impressions, they draw the best results. Ads in larger players are viewed to completion 90% of the time, said video ad management platform Vindico in its analysis of player size. Larger players are often used in video-centric sites and user-initiated environments.

Medium-sized players account for about 47% of video ad impressions, but the completion rate drops to about 76% for this size. Smaller players, since they’re not as visible, generate the weakest performance - ads are viewed to completion 68% of the time. Major media sites tend to rely primarily on large players, and those players deliver a 95% ad completion rate in that environment, the highest of any segment, Vindico said. Smaller players are more likely to be found via ad networks and exchanges.

The major media sites are the ones with the TV content and they need to have ads against that TV-like content. They want to give a TV show to their online viewers and that’s usually in a nice big player,“ said Roxanne Geyer, director of marketing for Vindico.

These findings are a valuable reminder to marketers and agencies that in addition to content proximity, brand safety, and other metrics like views and impressions, they should consider player size as an important factor in a video ad campaign.

In other news, click-through rates on mobile video pre-roll ads were 4.9%, which is eight times higher than the average rate on non-mobile devices, according to online video marketing company TubeMogul’s quarterly report. That’s a useful insight for marketers planning cross-screen campaigns, especially if they’re aiming to layer in mobile video for its higher engagement and interaction. Mobile video viewing rises late in the week and half of mobile video ads are seen between Thursday and Saturday. Weekends also boast the highest completion rates, TubeMogul said.

The company’s research confirmed that tablet viewing shoots up in the evening, and a full quarter of tablet video views occur during prime-time hours. That jibes with other research, including a recent eMarketer study showing the average adult will spend two hours and 21 minutes per day on mobile Internet usage on phones and tablets, which is more than they’ll spend on desktop or laptops, eMarketer said.

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