COLOGNE-Having opened its Audience Network to video ads earlier this year, Facebook hopes to offer its more than 3 million advertisers the same user experience it has achieved with native content. “Video is key to our ecosystem,” says Yoav Arnstein, Head of Audience Network Sales for the AMEA region.
Some 80% of ad impressions delivered within Audience Network are now native. In an interview with Beet.TV at the annual DMEXCO conference and exposition, Arnstein says the company hopes to expand video not only to native but to other environments as well.
“We are in the early stages of video in the audience network,” says Arnstein. “We are really making sure that we can deliver the same positive consumer ad experience like we did with native.”
As with other types of ads, Facebook sees itself as facilitating “meaningful connections between people and businesses” via video formats. It’s not just about taking video from Facebook and delivering it through publishers and app developers, but finding ways to do it that are not disruptive. “We want to see whether we can innovate video formats around the web,” Arnstein says.
He believes that video advertising is outpacing the creation and availability of video overall. Although the successful launch of Facebook Live has increased the amount of video being viewed, “I still feel there is some gap between the amount of available video content for consumption and the level of willingness from advertisers to spend on video and the results it can bring,” Arnstein says.
Another sector in Facebook’s sights is gaming. But the company knows that game developers are very sensitive to the consumer experience and are thus cautious about embracing ads.
“For us it is a great opportunity and a great challenge to see how we can participate in that ecosystem in a way that will drive value for everybody,” says Arnstein.
This interview was taped at DMEXCO ’16. It is part of a video series of industry leaders. The series is sponsored by Videology. For more Beet.TV coverage of DMEXCO, please visit this page.
