Facebook Reach and Frequency Buying: Options In Video Views Objective

Facebook Ads for Video Views defaults to optimizing for ThruPlays - 15 sec video completions.

When trying to compare buying models in Campaign Planner [Reach and Frequency planner], there are a few options that can be used to understand the differences in video ads buying models.

• Paying for impressions

• Paying for ThruPlays

• Paying for 2 sec continuous views

Let’s work with an example to understand the models:

• Budget: $15,000

• Run dates: Jul 1 - 31, 2020

• 18-65+ in United Arab Emirates

• Placements of Facebook Feed, Instagram Feed and Explore

• Model 1: Getting charged for Impressions

• Model 2: Getting charged for ThruPlays

• Model 3: Getting charged for 2 sec continuous views

You can setup these models via the above example by choosing the Optimization For Ad Delivery and When You Get Charged options and duplicating them. Once you have loaded these three models, you can now compare the reach vs the audience size.

If you compare the estimated reach for the three ad models, the estimated reach for the Impressions ad model is the highest at almost 36% of total 9.9 M audience size, 9X higher than option 2 or 3. However, this is purely based on Reach.

When you start comparing the Frequency Per Person, model #1 has the highest frequency at 4+ (51% of total ad delivery) - which makes since since we’re asking Facebook to charge us on Impressions delivered, compared to other two models which has more skewed distribution towards 1 or two times per person.

If you click on any of the models from the right panel, you can now view details of the expected results in comparison with the budget. With the first model, it tells the expected reach based on the budget and the curve for diminishing returns where you can see adding more budget will not add more reach [you can view similar curves for the other two models as well to know the returns].

With the Get Charged For Impressions model, you can estimate that at approx 50% of the audience size, the curve starts flattening.

The Cost Per Results for each model are based on the model chosen.

• Model 1: Getting charged for Impressions // Cost Per Result is the expected CPM

• Model 2: Getting charged for ThruPlays // Cost Per Result is the expected cost per ThruPlay

• Model 3: Getting charged for 2 sec continuous views // Cost Per Result is the expected cost per 2 second continuous view

Choosing between ThruPlay and 2 sec view would depend on the content duration and whether you want a higher video completion rate. With Reach and Frequency buying, the reach will always be higher than Auction bidding [default in Ad Manager]