Akamai reveals key findings of Online Video Ads study

Akamai Technologies has announced publication of a new scientific study that leveraged data from hundreds of millions of online videos and advertisements measured using the Akamai Sola Analytics media measurement and analysis product. The research paper, Understanding the Effectiveness of Video Ads: A Measurement Study, co-authored by S. S. Krishnan and R. K. Sitaraman, will be presented at the ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC).
 
The study analyzed in aggregate 367 million videos and 257 million ads from over 3,000 publishers that were viewed by 65 million unique users worldwide.
 
Dr Ramesh K. Sitaraman, Akamai Fellow & Professor, UMass-Amherst, said, This study is unique, in that it goes above and beyond tracking and comparing completion rates, and rather takes an in-depth look at when viewers complete watching video ads and when they abandon them. By using novel scientific techniques for extracting knowledge from huge amounts of anonymized viewer data, we are able to gain a deeper understanding of video ads, which is the key to the monetization economics of online videos.
 
The key findings of this study also includes that the position of an ad has the single largest impact on completion rate, with a mid-roll ad 18.1 per cent more likely to be completed than the same ad as a pre-roll, and pre-rolls 14.3 per cent more likely to be completed than the same ad as a post-roll.

Viewers who must wait 10 seconds for their video to load are three times more likely to abandon than users who spend the same amount time watching a pre-roll ad.