Tag Archive for: YouTube

Google has made a big deal about its ability to prevent advertisers from paying for ads that aren’t seen by real human eyes, including on YouTube’s ad network, but a new study by a team of European researchers suggests something is amiss. According to their findings, advertisers are still being forced to pay for ads despite YouTube’s systems flagging the view as “suspicious” or fraudulently coming from a bot rather than a human.

The experiment from researchers at NEC Labs Europe, UC3m, Imdea, and Polito, was conducted in three stages. First the researchers uploaded videos to YouTbe and set up an AdSense account to monetize them. Then, the team set up AdWords accounts to run ads against the video, before creating and deploying bots designed to specifically view the videos with the ads.

While the researchers concluded that “among the studied online video portals, YouTube is the only one implementing a sufficiently discriminative fake view detection mechanism,” they also found “that YouTube only applies this mechanism to discount fake views from the public view counter and not from the monetized view counter.”

That means that YouTube filters out views it deems as fraudulent for the public view counter, but they are still charging advertisers for those views.

Throughout their experiment, the group observed the number of monetized views was consistently larger than the number of counter views and came to the realization that “views considered suspicious are removed from the public view counter, but monetized.”

public-viewcounter-v-monetized-youtube-dailymotion-e1443113264182-800x372

This isn’t the first time Google has been accused of charging for fraudulent clicks. When similar situations were brought up with YouTube, the company said the discrepancies are likely due to users watching the video ad, but not the video itself. That would lead to the view to be monetized but not included in the public counter.

However, the researchers say that cannot be what happened here because the bot was designed to “view” both the ads and the accompanying video all the way through.

The team also took the fact that YouTube performs part of its view validation after the fact into consideration, however after six months the team saw no compensation adjustments. That happened even after YouTube suspended the AdSense account due to the bots’ suspicious activity.

The team also found YouTube is vulnerable to relatively simple attacks. They say they have given their findings to Google and will continue to refine the tools used for the study and potentially make them widely available.

A Google spokesperson said, “We’re contacting the researchers to discuss their findings further. We take invalid traffic very seriously and have invested significantly in the technology and team that keep this out of our systems. The vast majority of invalid traffic is filtered from our systems before advertisers are ever charged.”

YouTubesThe Financial Times is reporting that YouTube will begin allowing third-party verification of ad viewability by the end of the year following major pushback from major advertisers.

Until now advertisers have had to rely fully on YouTube’s viewership metrics to gauge how their ad efforts are working, but third-party authentication could potentially provide a less biased and full understanding of how your ads are being viewed and it may even help finally settle the dispute between which video platform is more popular.

The report claims Unilever and Kellogg’s are the key instigators for a move to enable independent viewability measurement. Kellogg’s is especially notable as it has even stopped its ad buys on YouTube due to lack of third-party verification.

Google does allow advertisers to buy ads on a viewable impression basis, but the verification is reliant on the company’s own Active View measurement tool.

Using its own measurement tools, Google has boasted of incredibly high viewability rates. In one study this year, Google said 91 percent of ads served on YouTube were found to be viewable using Active View.

Google declined to comment specifically, but told The Financial Times, “We’re committed to meeting all of our clients’ measurement needs” and “are taking our clients’ feedback into account as we continue to roll out new solutions”.

Google Authorship

Google+ has been a controversial and underwhelming social media platform mostly populated by profiles made out of obligation in order to use Google’s services, but this will change soon as Google announced Google+ will no longer be a requirement for services across Google’s network.

Since Google made their social platform a requirement for all other services across their site, including Gmail and YouTube, there has been a strong pushback from users. The negative reaction was especially prevalent for YouTube users, who were forced to create new Google+ pages if they wished to create a new video channel.

In the announcement, Google conceded making Google+ mandatory for all users may have been a mistake:

“When we launched Google+, we set out to help people discover, share and connect across Google like they do in real life. While we got certain things right, we made a few choices that, in hindsight, we’ve needed to rethink.”

Over the next few months, Google will be uncoupling Google+ from all services. This means all it will take to access any Google products or services is a simple Google account. Once this is complete, users will be able to use YouTube, Gmail, or Google Analytics using a traditional Google account.

For users who were already pushed into making Google+ accounts, you will soon be able to remove it, although Google didn’t provide any more details about how or when.

With this change, Google+ will now be completely optional. This may be good news for users, but it will be interesting to see how the platform handles the shift. Many have already proclaimed the social network is dead, but it is entirely possible setting it free from the rest of Google may finally give the platform a chance to grow with only members who want to be on the social network.

 facebook-vs-youtube

Facebook’s video platform is quickly rising as one of the most popular online video services available due to statistics showing marvelously high video view counts, but experts argue Facebook’s numbers may be misleading. While Facebook claims massive view counts, it is entirely possible YouTube may have a larger lead than it appears at first glance.

What even is a video view?

A video view is the count of how many people watch a video. It can’t be all that complicated, right? Wrong. Online, there is a surprising amount of contention over what exactly constitutes a video view.

For Facebook, a video view is counted every time any video plays for only 3 seconds. On the other hand, YouTube does not consider a video to be “viewed” until it has played for at least 30 seconds.

These contrasting metrics raise numerous questions about the accuracy of view statistics and the efficiency of online videos. Making issues more complicated is autoplay. On YouTube, you have to at least click one video before you are shown an endless feed of autoplaying videos, but you can view a video on Facebook by simply not paying attention when you are scrolling.

View statistics have long been an important metric for display ads, but these factors suggest the advertising industry may need to agree upon a set viewing metric, or turn to other types of data entirely, to accurately gauge the impact of video ads.

Are a few seconds enough?

Think about the last commercial you saw. How long did it take before you knew what the commercial was for? One of the biggest benefits of video advertising is the ability to tell a story with your ad, but this also means it is often not immediately clear what the product being advertised is.

Problematically, both The Media Rating Council and IAB side closer with Facebook’s metric. These organizations define a video ad as viewable “when at least 50 percent of the ad’s pixels are visible on a screen for at least two consecutive seconds.”

Now consider the average length of the Top 10 Best Video Ads of 2014 compiled by AdWeek is 2 minutes and 17 seconds.

It’s time for a new video view standard that reflects the actual impact videos are having. Facebook’s numbers sound amazing on paper, especially in light of how new this incarnation of the video platform is. But, they are less impressive when you consider many of those “views” can occur just because you got distracted with Facebook open.

Videos can be an immensely powerful online advertising tool, but don’t be fooled by misleading numbers. Use analytics to make sure views are turning into clicks and conversions, or consider using a video platform with slightly more strict view counts.

Here’s a rundown of how the biggest video services count views, compiled by Marketing Land:

  • YouTube: The Google-owned video network counts a view after a user has watched a video for “around” 30 seconds.
  • Facebook: Facebook videos automatically play without audio on users’ News Feeds. Views, which are displayed publicly, are triggered when someone watches for at least 3 seconds.
  • Instagram: Facebook’s photo and video sharing network doesn’t display video view counts publicly, but the company uses the same 3-second standard to count them. Instagram video also loops automatically while a video post remains on users’ screens, so instead of total video views, the stat Instagram sends to advertisers is views by “unique users.”
  • Twitter: Unlike Facebook and YouTube, Twitter doesn’t currently serve autoplay video (although it is testing the feature for some iOS users), so a view is counted when a user clicks on a video within a tweet. Video view counts are not publicly displayed. Advertisers can view stats within the Twitter ad platform, or for organic tweets from within the analytics dashboard.
  • Vine: The Twitter-owned video network autoplays looping video with a maximum length of 6 seconds. Views on the Vine network are called loops, which are publicly displayed and triggered after a user watches the entire video. Vine doesn’t sell ads.

FBVidVsYouTube

Facebook has made a big deal of highlighting the strengths of the Facebook Video platform, but a new study from Visible Measures shows there is no clear-cut winner between YouTube and Facebook. The data collected by the company adds context to earlier numbers and demonstrates how both platforms have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Facebook isn’t being dishonest when they highlight their statistics for views, but Facebook’s video platform has a difficult time maintaining momentum with popular videos. The platform excels at launching videos and gathering early velocity, but YouTube still has the clear lead when it comes to long-term value.

To come to these conclusions, Visible Measures studied 82 randomly chosen video campaigns launched by brands within the month of March and found that YouTube generated more views (65%-35%). While Facebook trails behind YouTube, the younger platform has made incredible strides in the span of a single year. Facebook only had a single digit share of brand video in last year’s study.

Only 53 of the campaigns included in the study posted natively to Facebook, perhaps contributing to YouTube’s lead in total views in 66% of campaigns.

The most striking difference between the platforms is the contrasting trajectories of videos on each platform. Facebook videos tended to accelerate quickly before peaking and gradually fading away. In fact, Facebook videos typically reached 85 percent of their total views in only the first week after launch. To contrast, YouTube only received 63% of its total viewership within the first seven days after launch.

These results were backed up by longer-term comparisons. Visible Measures points to findings that Facebook had 25% of total viewership of Super Bowl ad campaigns, but that number had dropped to 18.5% just two months later.

Visible Measure’s founder and CEO Brian Shin says these stats reflect the different natures of the platforms and noted that finding older videos on Facebook is specifically very difficult.

“If something is hot and of the moment, such as a newly released campaign, the Super Bowl, or even a cultural phenomenon like Fifty Shades of Grey, Facebook and similar social media sites are incredibly effective for driving the spread of timely content due to the trending nature of the News Feed,” Shin said in a release. “But the strength of Facebook to promote trending content also highlights how powerful YouTube remains as a platform for continued viewership.”

facebook-video

If it seems like your Facebook feed is becoming flooded with videos, it is no coincidence. Since Facebook video launched, it has rapidly become a staple of the staple of the social network and it shows no sign of slowing down in the future.

The service hit a new milestone recently, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook now serves more than 4 billion video views every day, adding a full billion views to the stats announced in January.

It is no surprise that Facebook video is such a hit, as the platform offers the perfect opportunity for users to view and share video without having to leave the network. With the latest numbers many are suggesting Facebook video may pose a real threat to YouTube in the near future.

YouTube reported reaching 4 billion daily views the last time it reported those statistics in January 2012, but they have likely added a fair number of views since then. However, actually comparing the views across either service is complicated because the two services count views differently. Facebook counts any playing three seconds on its autoplay videos as a view, while YouTube has a higher duration requirement to be included in its count.

During the company’s first quarter earnings call, COO Sheryl Sandberg also pointed out that a vast majority of Facebook’s video views come from mobile, and the ubiquity of videos on the service has primed users for video ads. “We’ve always believed that the format of our ads should follow the format of what consumers are doing on Facebook,” she said.

Sandberg also said brands are already taking advantage of Facebook video.

“Brand marketers particularly but I think all marketers have the opportunity to do video,” she said. “And that’s pretty exciting, even SMBs who never would be able to hire a film crew and buy a TV ad. Over 1 million SMBs have posted videos and done really small ad buys around them. And that’s pretty cool because I don’t think there are 1 million advertisers who have bought TV ads in that same period of time.”

YouTube has long been the number one platform for video advertisers despite some recent challenges from Facebook. The top YouTube ads for last month give a good indication why so many advertisers trust the platform to help them build their brands.

The top 10 YouTube ads in March generated more than 102 million views, led by the Ad Council’s anti-discrimination spot “Love Has No Labels.” The ad shot to the top of YouTube’s most popular ads after being posted on March 3. Since then, it has garnered over 50 million views on its own.

While it can be difficult to climb to the top of YouTube’s ad charts, anyone can see a surprising amount of success by sharing their content on the platform. Let these top ads from March 2015 inspire you, and maybe you’ll be at the top of the list in the not too distant future.

Top Ten YouTube Video Ads for March 2015

1. Ad Council: Love Has No Labels

2. Durex: #Connect

3. Samsung: Galaxy 6 Official Introduction

https://youtu.be/CnYtWWDor2s

4. Samsung: Galaxy 6 Design Story

https://youtu.be/raAoYFrIm0I

5. YouTube: Music Awards 2015

6. GEICO: Family – Unskippable

https://youtu.be/pvcj9xptNOQ

7. YouTube Spotlight: #DearMe – What Advice Would You Give Yourself?

8. GoPro: Didga the Skateboarding Cat

 9. Valspar Paint: Color for the Colorblind

 10. Clean & Clear: See the Real Me

https://youtu.be/vyNZXQ136oI

FBVidVsYouTube

YouTube has been the prime place to be for video advertising for years, but Facebook is making a strong effort to take the throne. It also seems to be working. A new survey from video advertising company Mixpo suggests Facebook video may overtake YouTube as the number one video advertising platform as early as this year.

Facebook Video vs YouTube

The survey polled 125 agencies, brands and publishers on their plans for video advertising this year. According to their results, 87 percent said they plan to run video ad campaigns on Facebook, compared to 81.5 percent on YouTube.

Facebook video’s rise has been incredibly quick, following a revamp of the service early last year. Since then, the platform has claimed incredible viewing and sharing stats for videos which are attracting many advertisers.

The findings of the survey also show more businesses and advertisers are seeing the value in video advertising, as more marketers report planning video advertising campaigns across all platforms in 2015. Similarly, the number of advertisers without plans for video advertising this year has fallen to nearly non-existent.

YouTubesYou might assume that the largest social media platform would have the most effective paid advertising platform, but Facebook’s platform doesn’t hold the title according to a report from VentureBeat.

According to the report based on a study by AoL Platforms, YouTube is actually the champion of paid social media advertising platforms in more than a few key areas, including introducing new products to customers, and helping consumers make purchasing decisions.

The report examined data found within 500 million clicks and 15 million conversions during the first quarter of 2014, using Convertro’s attribution technology to track social purchase interactions. This data was then used to determined which platforms had affected online sales and at what point in the purchasing decision they had influence on the consumer.

Jeff Zwelling, CEO and co-founder at Convertro told VentureBeat:

We believe that YouTube does well in both of these important purchase funnel areas for a number of reasons. YouTube’s own search volume and preferential positioning on Google’s results help drive large amounts of traffic, of course. But when you get to YouTube, the content is rich, descriptive, and usually helpful.

I’ve done this myself. I recently bought a coffee machine. I had the decision down to three alternatives and couldn’t decide which one was best for me. In the end, I watched videos on YouTube of people using all three machines and chose the one that matched my idea of a good coffee maker.

YouTube is the best platform for both introducing new products and helping to close sales, while Facebook comes in second in both of those areas. Google+ consistently came in third.
You can get more information from the full report available here.

With the constant stream of news coming out of the online marketing industry, it can be hard to keep up with all the latest updates without missing some important information. That’s why we compile all the news you may have missed this week all in one convenient place every Friday. Let’s get started:

Google Updates Guidelines Regarding Redirects

Google has had a policy against redirects intended to deceive or manipulate search engines or users, but this week they updated their Webmaster Guidelines to explicitly include mobile-specific redirects. They also include an example of a deceptive mobile redirect with a scenario where “desktop users might receive a normal page, while hackers might redirect all mobile users to a completely different spam domain.” Google details the revisions in an announcement on their Webmaster Central Blog.

Google Wants To Help You Remember Where You Parked

parking-location

According to Android Authority, Google’s latest update to the Android version of the Google Search App includes a new feature which can help users remember where they parked their car and even give directions on how to get back to that spot. For users parking at large venues, malls, or in heavily-populated areas, this could potentially be a lifesaver. The parking reminder works by asking if you want to save a location as a Google Now card. Then when you are ready to get back to your car, you just tap on the card in the app and directions will appear.

Search Ads Get More Revenue per Conversion When Integrated With Social

marin-impact-search-and-social-ads

Online marketing is quickly reaching the point where you can’t approach it in a vacuum and hope for success. The days of keeping SEO, PPC, and social media marketing apart are fading fast, if they aren’t completely gone already. A new study from Marin Software confirms this y showing that advertising performs vastly better when integrated with a social advertising strategy. Jessica Lee breaks down the details of the study at Search Engine Watch, but you can also get the full white paper here.

YouTube Now Lets Channel Owners Attach Short Intros To Their Videos

This week, YouTube announced that channel owners can now add a three-second intro to their videos, allowing them to build a stronger and more cohesive brand presence across the video platform. Channel owners must upload the intro as an unlisted video, then click “Add a channel branding intro” on the InVideo Programming page. At that point, channel owners can select which videos should include the intro. However, YouTube has said intros can not be used as ads, sponsorship, or product placements, and should not be used by channels whose videos act as advertisements.

Twitter Earns 14 Million Monthly Active Users in Q1 of 2014

Twitter’s earnings report for the first quarter of 2014 shows they continue to grow in just about every area, even outperforming Wall Street estimates in all but one area. The area in which they have continued to struggle is gaining monthly active users, but even there Twitter is showing very positive signs. While not beating Wall Street estimates, Twitter monthly users did grow by 14 million since Q4 2013, culminating in 255 million total users. This is substantially more growth than shown n Q4 2013.

Vine is Coming To Desktop With New Features

Vine

Up until now, Vine has been confined to smartphones, but this week the social video platform has made the leap to desktop with a well laid-out website and some new features. The new features include top navigation in the left which includes the home feed and popular now feed, and all feeds can now be linked together in TV mode. The biggest addition however is the new search bar that lets users search by tag, person, or location for the first time. You can get more details in the announcement on Vine’s blog, or you can see the new site for yourself here.