With Facebook becoming a Top Five video site, with a monthly audience of 41.3 million, Web video analytics firm TubeMogul looked at how video advertising performs on the social network. The company
took a sample of 25 major video advertising campaigns that ran identical videos within five types of ad units on Facebook: in-application display units; sponsored video ads that appear on the home
page; interstitials in games and apps; and videos users watch in games in exchange for earning virtual currency; and promo videos uploaded to Facebook fan pages.
User data across those types
of Facebook ads was then compared to comparable click-to-play video ad units on publisher sites (i.e. standalone 300x250 ad units), comparing on resulting cost, viewing-time and other metrics.
Among the highlights: -Facebook ad units have 5.40% to 9.43% higher completion rates than identical videos run in display units on publisher sites. -Three quarters of Facebook ad units sampled
(including Facebook's official Sponsored Video spot) had a lower cost per view than comparable off-site display ads. -Within Facebook, people spent the most time watching the video ads to earn
virtual currency, at 54.7 seconds, and the least on the autoplay interstitials, at 11.2 seconds.
Brands featured in the study included Symantec, Microsoft, Hyundai and 20th-Century Fox.