Really, it was only a matter of time. Following Facebook's lead, from today videos uploaded to Twitter will automatically play as users scroll through their timelines.
The videos will be muted by default, as they are on Facebook, and clicking on the content will expand it to full-screen with sound. The new feature applies to all video, GIFs and Vines uploaded via tweet. Videos will also appear in a larger format in timelines, which Twitter says saw improved engagement in their testing.
The introduction of autoplay video makes sense - Facebook video views have gone through the roof since they introduced autoplay back in December 2013, with more than 4 billion videos now being viewed on the platform every day. They're now beating YouTube on total views, and that increase has advertisers excited, despite Facebook playing coy on how much revenue they expect video advertising will generate for them in future. Regardless, video is seen by many as the Holy Grail of online advertising, and playing a more significant part in that space is no doubt a good strategic move by Twitter. Will it annoy users? Definitely that was a big concern at Facebook, but people seem to have accepted autoplay into the wider experience, so it's a minor risk in that respect (also, users can opt-out of autoplay, and the feature will be automatically disabled in areas with low bandwidth).
In their official announcement, Twitter also noted that in their 'extensive testing', they found that:
- People were 250% more likely to prefer autoplay videos over other viewing methods (including click-to-play and video preview thumbnails)
- Users had a 14% lift in video recall, when comparing autoplay to other video formats
- Brands saw a 700% increase in completions of Promoted Videos via autoplay
Definitely, those stats are hard to ignore, and it'll be interesting to see if those levels of engagement can be maintained now that the full rollout is in place.
Improve Ad Metrics
Along with the introduction of autoplay, Twitter has also announced changes to the way it will charge advertisers for Promoted Videos.
From Twitter's announcement:
"We're delivering on a new standard for how brands will be charged for a video view. Starting today we'll only consider a view on Twitter chargeable when a video is 100% in-view on the user's device, and has been watched for at least 3 seconds. We're putting this standard of 100% viewability in place because we think it's simply the right thing to do. If a video is not 100% in-view, we don't think an advertiser should be charged."
This is a good move by Twitter, giving advertisers more transparency in how they'll be charged, and reassurance that their Promoted Videos have actually been seen. Further to this, Twitter also noted that they're working with Nielsen and Moat with a view to providing third-party verification of the metrics for Promoted Video campaigns in order to give advertisers increased transparency on the effectiveness of their Twitter marketing efforts.
Monetization Troubles
It's no secret that Twitter has struggled to capitalize on its potential in recent months. Twitter's Q1 earnings fell well short of analyst expectations, which saw the share price plummet and, eventually, lead to the departure of CEO Dick Costolo. While Twitter has a significant audience, and as such, significant potential for greater monetization, they've not yet cracked the code on how to best maximize their opportunities. Twitter singled-out Direct Response ads as a problem in their Q1 announcement, an ad unit they've since had to re-assess and re-frame, leading to significantly lower revenue potential. The company's no doubt learned from this, and as such, has taken a much more robust approach to video ads, particularly in regards to third-party measurement, in order to re-assure advertisers and better quantify their ad results.
Will these new video products win over new business and get more people utilizing Twitter's video ad products? Time will tell, but they certainly seem to be taking steps in the right direction. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with next in the post-Costolo era.