Xperience Marketing Solutions

The major social networks don't agree on how to count video views; here's a rundown of the sometimes slippery metric. Here’s the rundown on how the major players count video views: Google/YouTube: The skippable TrueView ads on YouTube and the Google Display Network count a video view when someone engaged with an ad or watches 30 seconds of a video ad, or the duration of the ad if it is shorter than 30 seconds. Facebook and Instagram: Facebook and it’s family of apps count a video view for both in-stream and Stories ads at 3 seconds. However, advertisers can buy video ads on either a CPM basis or ThuruPlay basis. When buying on a CPM basis, an impression is counted when one pixel of the video ad comes into view. With ThruPlay, advertisers are charged when a video ad plays to 97 percent completion or up to 15 seconds, whichever comes sooner. LinkedIn: For LinkedIn’s sponsored content, video views are counted when 50 percent of the ad is in-view for 1 secon...

Ad campaign objectives now include traffic, conversions (for website), and post engagement. Why marketers should care Facebook’s Click-to-WhatsApp ads offers marketers and advertisers a way to start a conversation with consumers on its encrypted messaging app. The ads can be purchased through Facebook’s Ad Manager platform and display in a user’s Facebook News Feed. Now, in addition to messages, Click-to-WhatsApp ad campaign objectives include traffic, conversions (for website), and post engagement. Facebook has been aiming to monetize its encrypted messaging app for some time now. In Jan. 2018, the company first launched a business app and business profiles for marketers using the WhatsApp messaging app.   Facebook’s Click-to-WhatsApp ads began rolling out in August of last year, launching a pre-filled WhatsApp chat that allowed users to message a business via the app. (Advertisers running Click-to-WhatsApp ads receive metric reports in their Facebook Ads Man...

LinkedIn is offering businesses two channels for using video on the platform. Companies can now run native video ad campaigns and include video within their Company Pages. Video for Sponsored Content According to LinkedIn, more than 700 advertisers have been beta testing Video for Sponsored Content, the new native video advertising offering, since October. Shrivastava said that, during that time, LinkedIn members have spent an average of almost three times the amount of time watching ads embedded with video contrasted with static ones. The native video ads appear in the news feed as standalone, sponsored posts and auto-play on mute when in view, just like user-uploaded video on the platform. The ads can help businesses produce leads by driving site traffic. Video for Company Pages Additionally, businesses and publishers can now place video on their Company Pages. LinkedIn says, during the beta program, it found Company Page video five times more likely tha...

Facebook is banning all ads that promote cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, in an effort to prevent people from advertising what the company is calling “financial products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.” Facebook’s ban applies to all ads that “promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices, such as binary options, initial coin offerings, and cryptocurrency,” according to a company blog post. It will span ads running on Facebook, as well as Facebook-owned Instagram and its Audience Network ad network of third-party sites and apps. “This policy is part of an ongoing effort to improve the integrity and security of our ads, and to make it harder for scammers to profit from a presence on Facebook,” according to the company. References Tim, P. (2018, January 30). Facebook will ban all ads promoting cryptocurrency. Retrieved from Marketi...

Facebook is piecing together the business side of WhatsApp in much the same way it did with Messenger. In September, WhatsApp announced verified profiles for businesses to establish their presence on the messaging service that Facebook bought for $19 billion in 2014. Now, Facebook is giving businesses a way to kick-start conversations with customers on WhatsApp. Businesses can now add buttons to their ads running on Facebook that link to their WhatsApp accounts, Facebook announced on Wednesday. These buttons are effectively the WhatsApp-specific alternative to the Messenger-linked buttons that Facebook introduced last year and expanded to Instagram earlier this year. “Many people already use WhatsApp to communicate with small businesses. It’s a fast, convenient way to stay in touch. By adding a click-to-WhatsApp button to Facebook ads, businesses can now make it even easier for people to learn about their products, set up an appointment or use their service,” said Facebook...

Less than two months after testing extending tweets’ maximum length to 280 characters, Twitter is enabling the new length for all users on Tuesday. The new maximum will apply to tweets in all languages except Chinese, Japanese and Korean, in which space is less of an issue. The company said 140 characters don't give users enough space for folks to express themselves. In a blog post, Twitter shared some of its product research regarding the 140-character limit. “In languages like Japanese, Korean, and Chinese you can convey about double the amount of information in one character as you can in many other languages, like English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French. … We see that a small percent of Tweets sent in Japanese have 140 characters (only 0.4%). But in English, a much higher percentage of Tweets have 140 characters (9%). … Our research shows us that the character limit is a major cause of frustration for people Tweeting in English, but it is not for those Tweeting i...

Snapchat debuted its latest augmented-reality ad format. Advertisers can now create their own branded versions of Snapchat’s 3D World Lenses that allow people to augment videos shot with their phones’ rear-facing cameras with animated three-dimensional objects, like Snapchat’s famous dancing hot dog, that can be moved and resized to fit the scene. Imran Khan, chief strategy officer of Snapchat’s parent company, Snap, announced the rollout of Sponsored 3D World Lenses on Thursday at an Advertising Week session in New York. Bud Light and Warner Bros. are the first advertisers to run these augmented-reality ads. In the Bud Light ad, the user can walk around a concession vendor selling Bud Light.  Warner Bros. is using the ad format to promote “Blade Runner 2043” and features one of the flying cars from the movie. In addition to crafting 3D World Lenses to entertain Snapchat’s audience, brands can also create more purpose-driven campaigns, similar to the augmented-reality...

Facebook will try to stem the spread of fake news, even if it means cutting off some revenue. Facebook will block Pages that repetitively publish posts flagged as fake news from buying ads on the social network, the company announced on Monday. “If Pages stop sharing false news, they may be eligible to start running ads again,” Facebook product managers Satwik Shukla and Tessa Lyons wrote in a company blog post. Facebook already prohibits pages from buying ads that link to articles flagged as fake, through a process involving third-party fact-checkers that Facebook enacted earlier this year. But that policy didn’t wholly prevent fake news publishers from using Facebook as a way to drive traffic, since they could still buy ads linking to non-fake articles on their sites. Now Facebook is extending the penalty. After being criticized for fueling the rise of fake news leading into last year’s presidential election, Facebook has been stepping up its efforts to tamp down t...