VTR Calculator
VTR Formula
In particular, certain types of advertising can be of great assistance. For example, the view through rate (VTR) is very important to understand for video ads. The VTR can help you understand whether or not your ads are successful, whether anyone is paying attention to them, and whether or not your ads are attractive enough to online users to result in business success.
But what is the view through rate exactly and how is it any different from any other type of advertising? Keep reading and learn more about the view through rate and how it can tell you more about viewer metrics.
What Is the View Through Rate (VTR) Exactly?
The VTR is not only a measurement of how many people watch your video ad but of those who watch the ad all the way through. This is an important metric because it is very difficult to entice a user enough so that they watch an entire ad. Suppose that you run an ad on a video.
A certain number of people will see this ad depending on where it appears in the video. If it appears at the beginning of the video, all the viewers will see it to a certain extent. If the ad appears at the end of the video or halfway through, a lower number of people may end up seeing it.
Whatever the case, when a person sees your video ad, they will watch a certain percentage of it. Most ads have a skip button, especially those on YouTube. So, the ad may only play for around 5 or 10 seconds before the user has the opportunity to skip it.
Most users will end up skipping the video ads they receive for one reason or another. Of course, if you're trying to advertise your brand or a product that your brand has, this isn't going to be very helpful for you. However, there will be a certain number of people who see your ad and then watch it all the way through.
This means that the ad interested the user in some way but it does not mean that the user clicked on the ad.
Impressions and the VTR
A user clicking on your ad, of course, is ideal, because that will bring the user to your website where they can then see what your website has to offer. The VTR doesn't measure how many people click on the ad.
Instead, the VTR is the number of people who watch the entire ad divided by the number of impressions the ad receives, and the result of this is multiplied by 100. An impression is nothing more than the number of times your ad appears on a video. It does not take into account how many people see the ad, the period of time that people take to watch the ad, or whether or not people interact with the ad in any way.
But this does not mean that impressions are useless. The more impressions an ad has, the better because that means there will be a larger opportunity for more people to see your ad and be interested in it. The post-impression response is also very important because it provides information about the users' response after viewing the ad for the first time.
Why Does the VTR Matter So Much for Your Brand?
As you have seen, the view through rate formula is quite simple and it can tell you a lot about viewer metrics, but why does it matter for your business? One of the most important reasons why the VTR is so significant is that it can tell you a lot about how effective your marketing campaign is. If you spend a lot of money on video ads, the last thing you want is for the majority of your viewers to skip over those ads as soon as they appear.
The VTR provides important information that can put into perspective the effectiveness of your ads. For example, if your video ads appear 1000 times but only 10 people watch the ads all the way to the end, this is quite a low VTR. Having a low VTR, of course, is not great, although it isn't the end of the world.
Even if viewers only watch a small portion of your video ad, it is still better than not running your ad at all. By watching a small part of your ad, those viewers will still know that your business exists. But the real success comes when people watch your ad all the way through.
The Length of Your Video Ads
Keep in mind that this task can be harder to accomplish if your video ads are quite long. It is generally a bad idea to run ads that are very long such as 5 or 10 minutes. Most viewers have short attention spans and they are not going to want to pay attention to an ad that goes on for so long.
For that reason, if you really care about your VTR, you should aim to keep your ads on the shorter side. Ads that are around 15 to 30 seconds tend to be ideal because they are still short yet informative. That way, viewers will have a better chance of watching the ads all the way through while still getting plenty of information about your brand.
This is not to mention that running shorter ads is a much more affordable task. If you plan to run an ad that is several minutes long, you may not be able to run very many of those ads because they take up so much time and money.
What Is a Good Result From VTR Advertising?
One of the best results you can get from VTR advertising is brand awareness. Suppose that people don't watch your video ads all the way through. Instead, they might only watch a few seconds of your ad before skipping it.
You might think that such an interaction is useless to the success of your brand, but this is not quite true. That's because exposing people to your brand even if it only lasts a few seconds can be very helpful in spreading knowledge about your brand. When a person sees your ad for a few seconds before skipping it, that person will still walk away with the knowledge that your brand exists.
While this might not produce any meaningful results right away, that person might think back to your brand at a later time and then search for your brand later. Or, the person might see the same ad for your brand yet again and be more interested in it when it plays a second time. Whatever the case, the more times you expose people to your brand, the better chance you will have at improving your website's traffic and overall success.
Brand awareness is the foundation of every successful business. If very few people know that your brand exists, you obviously won't get very much traffic or purchases. But the benefits of VTR advertising go far beyond brand awareness.
This type of advertising is also very helpful when it comes to figuring out your advertising budget. The amount you pay for video ads will change according to where you show the ads, how long the ads are, and what industry the ads cover. For example, putting a video ad on YouTube will generally cost you more money than putting the ad on lesser-known video platforms.
Other Benefits of VTR Advertising
Even so, paying more money for better ad space is usually worth it. After all, millions, if not billions of people use YouTube on a regular basis, so showing your ads there would be like winning the lottery. Of course, if you are a new business that is just starting out, you might not have the funds to start off advertising on such a big platform.
For that reason, you'll have to look around and find a platform that is established enough but also affordable enough for you to show your ads. As your brand continues to grow and generates more funds, you should be able to start showing your ads on more established platforms.
Finally, the VTR is very good at telling you if there is anything wrong with the quality of your ad. Of course, if the majority of people skip over your ad, this is a clear sign that your ad isn't very interesting. If this is the case, you can then revise your ad in various ways so that it is more attractive to your target audience.
Once you see that more people are starting to watch your ad all the way through, you will know that your ad is doing much better.
How to Achieve a Better Result With VTR Advertising
While VTR advertising can carry plenty of benefits, you might be wondering what you should do if your ads aren't doing all that well. Fortunately, there are several ways in which you can improve your VTR advertising campaign and one of the best places to start is by ensuring that you're targeting the right audience. Suppose that your brand sells luxury skincare products.
The last thing you want to do is direct your ads to a group of people who never buy skincare products. You also don't want to market towards people who only buy very cheap skincare products. Instead, to make sure you sell as many luxury skincare products as possible, you will want to find an audience that loves products of this nature and uses them often.
That way, you can increase the chance of your audience watching your ads for a longer period of time, if not all the way through. This will not only improve your VTR advertising strategy but might even bring in some new potential customers. After all, if a person is already searching for a particular product and then your ad provides them with the perfect product solution, it would only make sense for that person to watch more of the ad and even click on the ad.
Other Ways to Improve Your Results
Besides targeting the right audience, you'll also want to make sure that your ad is in good shape. If you notice that most people are skipping over your ads, those ads are likely not catchy enough. Good ads need to be short yet informative and interesting.
If the ad doesn't hook the viewer, the viewer is only going to skip the ad. But if the ad starts out with something interesting such as a strange fact, the viewer might be tempted to watch more of the video ad. As long as your ad can convince the viewer that he or she needs whatever your brand is selling, the viewer will be more likely to watch more of the ad and even click to explore your website.
This, of course, is the ideal scenario if you're trying to bring more traffic and sales to your brand.
What You Need to Know About the View Through Rate
The view through rate is essential when it comes to video advertising. Without it, you won't know how many people are watching your entire ad compared to the number of impressions that ad gets. The VTR is also important for budgeting your ad campaigns and for increasing brand awareness.