New Premium Video Ads are Facebook's Latest Move to Dominate Ad Dollars

How fast can marketers shift their ad dollars to mobile? As fast as they find new ways to do so. And now, Facebook has launched Premium Video Ads as a way for advertisers to drive branding objectives on Facebook. Of course, a few select (i.e. top spending) advertisers are participating in the new program.

And since the latest report from Facebook states that revenue from mobile ads represents 53 percent of its total advertising income, where do you think those ads will show up? Mobile developers rejoice!

Premium Video Ads are designed for advertisers who want to reach a large audience with what Facebook calls “high-quality sight, sound and motion.” Each 15-second video ad will start playing without sound as it appears on screen and stop if people scroll past (old school desktop, you can bet mobile will work differently). If people tap the video, it will expand into a full-screen view and sound will start. People can expect to begin seeing these new ads over the next few months.

Premium Video Ads are bought and measured in a way that’s similar to how advertisers already buy and measure ads on TV (this has to make TV execs shudder). The ads are bought based on Targeted Gross Rating Points to reach a specific audience over a short period of time. Delivery is measured by Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR), and advertisers only pay based on what Nielsen OCR measures.

To make sure Premium Video Ads are as good as other content people see in their News Feeds, Facebook is working with Ace Metrix to help review and assess how engaging the creative is for each ad before it appears on Facebook. Ace Metrix will allow Facebook to objectively measure the creative quality of the video in the Facebook environment, and highlight performance indicators for advertisers such as watchability, meaningfulness and emotional resonance. Facebook is taking this step in order to maintain high-quality ads on Facebook and help advertisers understand what’s working to maximize their return on investment.

It’s a limited rollout in terms of the numbers of ads to start.