• by Ben Frederick , Staff Writer @mp_benfred, February 11, 2016

After we all got used to auto-play video ads giffing quietly in our feeds, Facebook is offering a way for advertisers to connect better without sound: automatic captions.

With the use of captioned videos, video view time increased by 12% on average, according to internal tests conducted by Facebook. A recent study by Fors Marsh shows that users can recall what they’ve seen in a news feed even if they were only exposed to it for a quarter of a second.

Though digital and TV ads with sound are more effective than those without, Facebook says the nature of engagement with mobile is different than desktop or video viewing.

It’s true, advertisers are still getting used to mobile video. Users reject formats similar to what they expect on desktop. Pre-roll is largely a thing of the past on in-feed videos, and so is sound in the initial moments. Any edge an ad can get in capturing attention needs to be capitalized on and played to the hilt.

As Nielsen discovered, the first three seconds of any ad is one of the most crucial times for both awareness and conversions.

If Facebook gets it right, the payoff can be enormous.

Some analysts have noted how Facebook’s year-end financial report revealed that engagement and revenue per user is trending higher despite the fact that the company’s user base is rapidly switching to mobile. Mobile revenue now accounts for 80% of Facebook’s overall ad revenue.