A Buffering Ad: The Only Thing Worse Than a Buffering Video

Provided everything goes according to plan, mobile video ads are a powerful way to establish a one-on-one connection with consumers. Buffering however can be a painful nightmare that can ruin it all.

Failure to fight buffering could be catastrophic for brands, contributing significantly to lost monetization, both for the ad that the viewer abandoned and subsequent lost opportunities. A rise in ad streaming problems due to buffering has the potential to undermine the entire mobile video ecosystem. Leverage the ratio of pleasure and pain in the user experience of your mobile ads and make better decisions by considering the following:

• 36.5% of all streaming ads completely failed to play in Q4 2019, according to a recent report
• More often than not, buffering is a result of poor internet connection – viewers want to see content while they’re on the go, but movement means they are often in and out of strong signal throughout their journey
• Ad start times nearly doubled, from 1.14 seconds a quarter ago to 2.27 seconds in Q4, prompting nearly 50% of audiences to grow impatient and exit before ads started; ad buffering increased 48% to 1.14% in Q4 from 0.77% in Q3
• On the single worst day for advertisers in Q4, ads that failed spiked to more than half of attempts, with 55% of ads failing to play as expected
• A “rebuffering ratio” (the percentage of time a viewer spends waiting, as opposed to watching video) of less than 1% results in 2.9 billion viewing hours lost to buffering in one quarter
• If a stream fails because of buffering around an ad load, the advertiser is the brand out front, the face of the issue

Afraid of incidentally killing viewer engagement, due to buffering, rather than inspiring it with your ads? Looking for a seamless experience to get your money’s worth as an advertiser?
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