Running ads optimized for the top-of-the-funnel has its risks, and one is highlighted in this video.
If you’re running video ads that are optimized for ThruPlay views, do this…
Breakdown by Placement
In my example, I had a video that generated 665 ThruPlay views and 526 people reached.
That’s right, more ThruPlay views than people reached. Why is that? Is this because my video was amazing? Let’s do some more digging.
Click the Breakdown dropdown menu and select Placement. This will generate separate rows for each placement used.
The culprit here was the Audience Network Rewarded Video placement. More than 98% of the results were found there.
Why? What is it about the Rewarded Video placement that made it so attractive in this case? And are these results legit?
Let’s take a closer look…
What is Rewarded Video?
Third-party apps monetize themselves with this placement. Here’s how Meta defines it:
Rewarded video ads are a fullscreen experience where users opt-in to view a video ad in exchange for something of value, such as virtual currency, in-app items, exclusive content, and more.
People are incentivized to watch your video in exchange for something, usually virtual currency related to that app.
So was my video so amazing that the average person watched for 20 seconds, and many watched that much multiple times? Yeah, probably not. These people likely didn’t care at all about my video, and that’s reflected in other stats.
What Should You Do?
If you ever run ads optimized for ThruPlay Views, consider removing Rewarded Video. It will inflate your surface level results while doing nothing for your bottom line.
I wrote a blog post that explains all of the times you should switch from Meta’s defaults. This is certainly one of those times.
