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Facebook Video Metrics Statement

Following Facebook’s announcement of a reporting issue concerning Facebook video. iProspect would like to supply the following statement to explain and reassure:

What has happened?

  • Facebook made a serious mistake and miscalculated one of their video metrics (Average Duration of Video Viewed). 
  • The metric should have calculated the average duration based on the total number of people viewing the video (for any duration), however the metric was calculated based on the total number of “views” – which Facebook define as 3 seconds or more. 
  • The affected metrics are the Average % Video Viewed (visible in Ads Reporting) and Average % Completion (visible in Page Insights).

What does this mean for clients of iProspect?

  • This error will not result in client billing or delivery implications.  Facebook advertisements are not purchased on the basis of watch time, or the way in which we optimise ads. 
  • There is also no impact on other metrics - key stats including reach, number of 3 sec views and number of 10 sec views remain unaffected by this issue.

What are Facebook doing about the error?

  • Facebook will remove the Average Duration of Video Viewed metric from their reporting dashboards and it will be replaced by an “Average Watch Time” metric, which is the corrected metric i.e. the total number of seconds a video is watched for divided by the total number of video plays.

If you would like to read more about the announcement and its significance, Facebook have written an official statement from David Fischer Facebook, VP, Business and Marketing Partnerships which can be read here