Table Of Contents :

1. What is Video Completion Rate? 
2. What is a good Video Completion Rate? 
3. How to calculate Video Completion Rate? 
4. How to increase the Video Completion Rate? 
5. Conclusion

What is Video Completion Rate?

Video Completion Rate is the metric that reflects the percentage of users who watched the video ad fully. 

You may know that every user who sees the video ad does not watch the video fully. The below possibilities are available when a user sees the video ad, 

1. They may see the video ad and skip the video ad preview
2. They may start to watch the ad and skip after watching 25% of the ad
3. They may skip after watching 50% of the ad
4. They may skip after watching 75% of the ad
5. They may watch the video ad fully without skipping. 

 Every programmatic ad campaign has the ability to measure the above performances. We have highlighted the metric in bold to measure the above scenarios. 

1. They may see the video ad and skip the video ad preview [Impression]
2. They may start to watch the ad and skip after watching 25% of the ad [25% Complete Events]
3. They may skip after watching 50% of the ad [50% Complete Events]
4. They may skip after watching 75% of the ad [75% Complete Events]

They may watch the video ad fully without skipping. [Complete Events]

What is the Video Completion Rate Benchmarks?

Normally, a 70% to 80% Video Completion Rate is good for a video ad campaign. 

In the next section, you will learn how to calculate video completion rate. A higher completion rate means a higher percentage of the users who see the advertisement has watched the video fully. A lower completion rate means most of the users who see the advertisement have not watched the video ad fully.

How to Calculate Video Completion Rate? 

The simple formula to calculate the video completion rate is below, 

Video Completion Rate (%) = (Complete Events/Impressions) * 100

If a video ad campaign served 1000 impressions and 700 times users have watched the ad means, the completion rate will be 70%. 

Video Completion Rate (%) = (700/1000) * 100 = 70%

Video Completion Rate Calculator

Please input the impressions and complete views to calculate the Video Completion Rate [VCR]

How to improve the Video Completion Rate?

In the previous section, you learned how to calculate video completion rate. A higher video completion rate is good for the video ad campaign. But, many key factors should align to get a higher VCR. Here we will provide some suggestions to increase the video completion rate for the video ad campaign. 

1. Video Length 

Video length is the main factor for receiving a higher video completion rate. For the long-duration video ad, it is more difficult to get a higher VCR. Because most of the users do not watch long-duration video ads fully. In this situation, we need to reduce the video ad length to improve the VCR. 20 Seconds or Less than 20 Seconds of video length is good for getting a higher VCR. 

2. Target Specific Audience 

If any content available in the video ad is useful to the user then they watch the video ad fully. For example, if a user is interested in tax saving topics they may watch the clear tax company’s video advertisement fully. Instead, the cricket-interested audience won’t watch this ad fully. So, targeting the right audience is very important for receiving higher VCR for the video ad campaign.

If any of your video ad campaigns are not getting higher VCR then check and find the poor performing targetings. Then, choose the audience from different data providers or Pause the poor performing targetings. 

3. Declare the goal 

Most of the ad platforms have the ability to set the expected VCR goal for the video ad campaign. So, use a dynamic bidding method and declare the expected VCR goal. For example, if you are expecting 65% VCR then set the expected completion rate goal as 65%. Also, choose the correct bid price to achieve the goal. 

4. Conduct A/B TEST

Even though your bid price is high, targeting is very specific, and the content available in the video is very important for encouraging the user to watch the video ad fully. Otherwise, the user skips the video ad after watching it for a few seconds. To find the best video ad, you can test two or more video ads with a small budget and test which video ad is performing well in real-time. Once you identify the best performing video ad, then you can allocate more budget and run the video ad. 

5. Inventory Optimization 

If your video ad campaign is not performing well then run an inventory level report and identify the poor performing inventory source. Once you identify the poor performing inventory then pause those inventory sources from the ad campaign. If you are not interested in pausing any inventory source then run a site or app level report and pause the poor performing sites or apps. 

6. Budget Allocation 

Budget allocation is also a very important step for receiving higher VCR. Allocate more budget towards the best performing ad groups to increase the VCR. Also, allocate more budget towards Desktop channels. Because Desktop devices are mostly receiving higher VCR. Sometimes, mobile devices perform well. At that time, reallocate the budget towards mobile. 

Conclusion

In this article, you learned how to calculate video completion rate. Video ads can create a bigger impact on branding than other ad formats. Video ads with great visual effects and information attract users to the business. When running a video ad campaign, VCR is the key metric to analyze the video ad campaign performance. A higher video completion rate is good for the video campaign. If your video ad campaign is not performing well then do the above optimizations to increase the performance.

Read More : How Does Video Content Impact On Completion Rate?

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Sridaran Baskaran

The post How To Calculate Video Completion Rate? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

Brands can use different formats of advertisements in digital advertising. Display, Video are the two common formats of advertisements. Mostly, the display campaign’s performance is measured using CTR (Click Through Rate) and the video campaign’s performance is measured using VCR (Video Completion Rate). Ad server or 3rd party verification providers can measure the video completion rate. The video completion rate helps to determine the campaign success of the video advertising campaign.

Table Of Contents: 

1. What Is Video Completion Rate? What is the formula to calculate VCR?
2. How to improve the VCR of your campaign? 
3. Conclusion

What Is Video Completion Rate? What is the formula to calculate VCR?

The video completion rate is a percentage that indicates how much percentage of users who seen your ads completely watch your video from start to end. 

VCR = Complete Views /Impressions

For example, if your video ad campaign served 1000 impressions and 700 complete views. Then the VCR of your campaign is 70%. 

VCR  = 700/1000

A good VCR for a video ad campaign is about 70%. Some good campaigns also receives above 90% Completion Rate. 

Other than the completion rate below metrics also important in video ad campaigns, 

> 25% Complete 

> 50% Complete

>75% Complete 

> 100% Complete (Complete Views)

25% Complete : The number of viewers watched 25% percent of the video ad.

50% Complete : The number of viewers watched 50% percent of the video ad.

75% Complete : The number of viewers watched 75% percent of the video ad.

100% Complete : The number of viewers watched 100% percent of the video ad.

Getting higher completion rate for a video campaign that has a longer video ad is difficult. In this situation, the other metrics will be helpful to understand the performance of the ad campaign.

How To Optimize The Video Ad Campaign To Improve The Video Completion Rate?

A higher completion rate is the expected goal for every video ad campaign. But, achieving a higher completion rate is not an easy task. Here, I will provide suggestions to improve the completion rate for your video ad campaign.

Find The Expected Completion Rate: Normally client provides the expected completion rate in the media plan. So, you can get the completion rate from the media plan. 

Video Ad Length: Video ad length is also an important factor for a higher completion rate. For a long video ad, it’s very difficult to receive a higher completion rate. Less than 30 seconds of video is good for receiving a higher completion rate. If your client is providing longer videos then you should explain to them the difficulties of getting a higher completion rate. In this situation, you can report other complete events 50% complete or 75% complete.

Set the completion rate goal in the ad campaign: You can set the completion rate goal in the platform. So, the platform automatically tries to achieve the goal. But, sometimes the platform can’t achieve the goal. At that time you should do campaign optimization to increase the completion rate.

Identify the low-performing inventory sources: Run the inventory level report for your ad campaign. Exclude the poor-performing inventory sources from your ad campaign and monitor the performance.

Identify the poor-performing sites/apps: Sometimes excluding the entire inventory source leads to low delivery issues. At that time, you can run a site-level report and exclude the poorly performing sites or apps.

Increase the bid price: Normally platform bids on a bid request depend upon the campaign goal. But, bid price plays an important role in winning the auction. If the competitor bid high then it can’t win the auction even though the bid is very valuable to achieve the goal. So, increase the bid price slightly and monitor the performance.

Pause the poor-performing ad: Video content is also very important for a higher completion rate. So, based on your performance report, pause the lower completion rate ads. 

Change your audience: Demand side platforms provide you an opportunity to choose the audience category from various data providers. Each data provider is different. So, if your audience is not good for you then choose the audience from another data provider. 

Budget Allocation: Mostly, video completion rate and conversion are the main performance goals. When you create the campaigns, try to differentiate by channels (Desktop, Mobile). Desktop mostly receives a higher completion rate and conversion than mobile. Sometimes mobile channels perform well. Based on your campaign performance allocate more budget towards the best performing channel. So that you can use the money more effectively.

Video Ad Content : Finally, elements of a video ad should be interesting, should be engageable to get better VCR. I wrote a detailed article that tells the importance of video ad content on VCR.

Conclusion

As I said above, the completion rate is the main goal of the video campaign. Many factors like channel, video length, bid price, audience l, etc should align to get a higher completion rate. Normally ad platforms try to get a higher completion rate for your video campaign. All you need to do is to provide enough user availability and bid price. Four or Five days after starting the campaign, check the performance and do the optimization per the above suggestions to improve the VCR.

Please share your optimization techniques to improve the VCR here to help us improve the knowledge.

Read More : How Does Video Content Impact On Completion Rate?

Sridaran Baskaran

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The post What is Video Completion Rate? VCR Optimization Strategies first appeared on Marketing Strategy.