What To Expect From Facebook Video Ads

Facebook is set to release video advertising into the news feed this July, says The Financial Times in a recent article detailing the expected financial benefits the service will have for the social media giants.

The new video adverts will autoplay in a user’s news feed without sound, giving the user the option to restart the video with sound. The ads can run for a maximum of 15 seconds but, to increase brand exposure, Facebook will ensure that users see advertising from only one brand on any given day. Naturally, there are concerns that the ads may be too disruptive, leading to decreased user activity on Facebook.

To test its effect on active user figures the service will first go through an extensive testing phase, with Facebook’s key advertisers – American Express, Coca Cola, Ford, Nestlé and Unilever to name a few – taking part in the trials period. There is no indication as to whether or not certain ads will be targeted at specific users, but this could be down to the small number of brands involved in the testing phase. If the trials prove successful and more brands are persuaded to use the service, there may be more opportunity for targeting.

To persuade more brands to use the feature, Facebook are charging them slightly less than the amount they would pay for TV advertising. Facebook video ads will reportedly cost somewhere in the “low $20s” per thousand video views, even when audio has not been activated.

Facebook, Yahoo and AOL have all been pitching their advertising services to agencies in the past month in order to get a slice of the $64.5 billion US TV ads market. As a result, eMarketer expects revenue from digital video ads to increase by 41.4% between 2012 and 2013, reaching $4.1 billion – which is still only a small percentage of the TV ads market overall.

Facebook video ads are expected to raise around $1.5 million a day for Facebook, but this could increase to $4m a day by the end of the year according to Morgan Stanley analyst Scott Devitt.

Do you think Facebook video ads will be a success? Or will they prove to be too disruptive?