Slightly more than half of mobile in-application pre-roll ads were completed in the US during Q2, according to a TubeMogul analysis [download page] of programmatically bought ads. While pre-roll completion rates were lower on mobiles than on desktops, the opposite was true for click-through rates, which averaged 4.9% in the US on mobiles versus just 0.6% on non-mobile devices.
The study also looks at mobile views by day of the week and time of day, with some intriguing results (all data limited to the US):
- The highest share of weekly mobile video ad views in the US was reserved for Thursdays (17%), followed by Fridays (15.3%), Saturdays (16.7%), and Sundays (14.9%), such that about half of views took place between Thursday and Saturday;
- Saturday accounted for a leading 22.4% of weekly views on Apple devices;
- Completion rates averaged 52.2% on the weekend versus 44.4% on weekdays;
- About one-quarter of daily tablet video ad views occur between 8PM and midnight;
- Smartphone video ad views decline slightly during those hours, but that’s a function of the behavior of iPhone users, as Android phone users actually watch 33.9% of their daily video ads during that time period.
About the Data: Data for the report comes from top brand campaigns run through TubeMogul’s media buying platform in the second quarter of 2013, spanning millions of mobile pre-roll video ad views. Unless otherwise noted, data is from the United States and reflects an entire campaign’s lifecycle, which typically lasts 3-6 months. All time zones are localized.
