Given these remarkable stats on how people consume content, the study set out to better understand how different formats perform on mobiles.
There were some really useful takeaways from the results. Probably most importantly, square formatted videos had 30% – 35% more views and an increase of 80% – 100% for engagement against landscape video. They also found out that it costs 7.5% less for square video on Facebook and 33% less for Instagram, making it much more cost effective than targeting desktop consumption.
They also provided some key insights into how square video performs physically on someone’s newsfeed – square video takes up 78% more real estate than landscape. This extra space, it seems, drives users to engage more.
One interesting bit of information that came from the study is that completion rates seem much higher on desktops than on mobiles. We can take two things from this – if you want people to finish watching your video, it might be a good idea to target desktops, and crucially, the first moments of your video need to be super compelling (but you already knew this anyway!).
Advertisers should take note of this study when next creating content!