Your strategy for paid outreach on the world’s most successful social network is about to change in a big way. In early 2017, Facebook announced that marketers who want to reach out to the platform’s increasing base of video-loving consumers would soon gain the power to do so via mid-roll ads.
Facebook’s deployment of mid-roll ad tools promises to make it more lucrative for advertisers, but they’ll have to follow the rules to capitalize. To host ads, videos need to be at least 90 seconds long, and the spots themselves are constrained to 15 seconds in length. Facebook also mandates that marketers insert ad content no earlier than 20 seconds into a video’s playback time.
Observers think that these rules will also result in changes for publishers because they’ll no longer be able to concentrate solely on getting a high number of early views. It could also help Facebook overcome the self-admitted reality that most of its video campaigns derive 47 percent of their total value within the first three seconds of viewing.
At the outset, Facebook will offer publishers 55 percent of the revenues from their ad sales. This figure puts the income split on par with what YouTube pays. Such a competitive program makes sense considering that Facebook has long been gunning to overtake the video platform. It could also make it easier for marketers to strike deals with content creators who prefer sticking to the social media giant.
In addition to freeing publishers to derive more benefits from ad money, Facebook’s announcement marks a departure from its old model. The social media network is on the record as being firmly against displaying pre-roll ads before videos start. Its mid-roll compromise comes on the heels of other trial offerings that explored different ways to rectify the previous lack of revenue options.
The Facebook app now includes an increasingly prominent tab where people get to view videos, and the company has been pushing hard to entice more users to broadcast via Facebook Live. Given the social media giant’s heightened focus on making its video offerings more appealing and the ability for marketers to target specific niches, mid-roll ads could represent a significant source of positive engagement even if there are still kinks to iron out.
