By Daniel Rohsler, Account Manager
Since 2014, Facebook has allowed advertisers to build custom audiences out of people who have viewed a video ad. Until recently, the limitations of this feature only allowed for remarketing to users who have either viewed a video ad to completion or watched at least 3 seconds of a video - which in the world of Facebook metrics counts as a standard ‘Video View’.
This was pretty groundbreaking at the time of the feature’s release - but when you dig a bit deeper into the ‘viewed’ vs ‘completed’ segments, things can get a little murky.
On one end, the audience of users who have completed a video ad is incredibly high-value. But the value of the audience built only from ‘video viewers’ can be questionable, especially considering Facebook videos will auto-play in a user’s News Feed.
But of course, Facebook has once again upped their game and now gives advertisers better segmentation options when building out custom audiences from videos. As shown in the screenshot below, an advertiser can now choose from 6 different audience segments: people who viewed 3 seconds, 10 seconds, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 95% of a given video.
So why is this good for advertisers? Scale. With the old system, you’d typically see plenty of scale with your ‘video viewer’ audience, but limited scale with your ‘completed’ audience. Now, by choosing options like 10-second view or 50% view, you have more scale and a more qualified audience.
It’s kind of like going to a restaurant and not having to decide between ordering a glass of wine or a full bottle - you now get to order however much you want!
Another great update is the ability to group viewers of different videos into a single custom audience. For example, if you had 3 videos of a similar theme in rotation, you can now remarket to users who have watched X% of any of those 3 videos as a single audience - a great way to help add scale and ensure that the users in your retargeting group are interested in your content.
Facebook has also added the ability to include recency as part of your audience refinement - ranging from 1-180 days. This is a great way to re-engage lapsed users or keep new users engaged with fresh content.
These improvements are helping Facebook further establish itself as a leader in both demand generation AND demand fulfillment. For businesses hoping to drive ecommerce through Facebook ads, this opens up a whole new world for approaching sequential messaging and helps establish video as an essential part of a brand’s upper funnel.
