Facebook acts on transparency, increases buying options for video

A third party audit is in place now to increase transparency.

Social network Facebook has announced updates to increase transparency for advertisers by allowing for third-party verification including an audit by the Media Rating Council, and has also specified more buying options for video ads.

The audit is a follow up on its transparency promises after reports that it had been over-inflating video view metrics for at least two years.

Other than the audit and third-party verification, Facebook has also said it will provide more impression-level data. This means advertisers will receive specific information about how long an advert was on a user's screen.

The company also says it will give advertisers three more buying options for video ads across Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network. These will include completed view buying, two-second buying, and sound-on buying.

Completed-view buying allows advertisers whose campaign relies on viewers seeing the whole short ad, to only pay for the video ads that have been viewed in their entirety - the ads have to be 10 seconds long or shorter.

The two-second buying option, which is compliant with the MRC video standard, lets marketers choose to only pay for adverts where at least 50% of the ad's pixels are in-view for two continuous seconds or longer.

Sound-on buying gives advertisers the ability to specify that they want to only pay for video views where the sound is switched on.

These options will be rolled out over the next few months.