Online videos get significant consumer attention, with ComScore reporting 1.2 billion video views daily in the United States. For advertisers seeking out audiences who are tuning out television ads or avoiding them entirely, Web video ads offer an opportunity to recapture audience attention. A recent Nielsen study shows that Web video ads outperformed television ads across the board and also provided a significant boost to television ads when consumers saw the Web ad first.

Web Video Ad Performance

Overall, Web ads are watched for 20 seconds with an 87 percent completion rate. The most effective positioning for these ads comes mid-roll, with a 99 percent completion rate for shorter ads and 89 percent for longer. The least-effective video ad positioning is the post-roll ad, with a top completion rate of 79 percent.

Message recall excels with Web videos, doubling the message recall of television ads at 40 percent. Other high-performing metrics include general recall at 64 percent, brand recall at 50 percent and ad likability at 28 percent. The Web video ads outperformed television in every metric.

Combining Web and Television Video Ads

But businesses don’t need to throw their television ad strategies out the window and only focus on online video advertising. The Nielsen report found that consumers who encountered the video ad prior to seeing the television advertisement had a double-digit increase in their responses to the television ad. Using a multichannel approach to video advertising by combining these two platforms produces better results overall. Implementing a system to track ad viewing across these channels is an important part of understanding the full impact of video ads.

Best Ad Reach

Light television viewers are difficult for many advertisers to reach, but it turns out they spend plenty of time looking at online videos (425 minutes per month!). Their viewing minutes have increased 45 percent while television viewing numbers remain nearly level or decreasing in certain demographics, with the 18-24 year old demographic’s weekly average dropping from 21 hours and 45 minutes to an average of 18 hours per week.

Web video ads perform almost two times better than television ads in key metrics, but television still has a valuable place in an advertiser’s toolbox. Using a strategy that combines Web and television ads provides a better return on investment and improved reach than a single-channel approach.