The campaign in brief
A video campaign can look great in a report: strong viewability, a fair price, plenty of impressions. And yet many viewers may never find out whose ad they just watched, because the spot delivers its main message after a large part of the audience has already left. We saw exactly this in one of our own campaigns.
We had two versions of an awareness video. The 6-second version showed the brand and the message right away. The 10-second version showed them only after about six seconds. On YouTube we ran both as non-skippable ads. In the DV360 content network (in-stream ads on publisher websites) we used skippable formats only and launched with the 10-second video.
Finding 1: Viewers leave right before the brand appears
The lesson: in a skippable format, a brand that shows up after the fifth second reaches only part of the audience. Here is the first period, when the content network ran only the 10-second spot. Figures are rounded and anonymised.
| Format / inventory | Viewability | Completion rate | Audible and visible at start | at 50 % | at end |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube, non-skippable 10 s | 96 – 97 % | 94 – 95 % | 97 – 98 % | 94 – 95 % | 93 – 94 % |
| YouTube, bumper 6 s | 88 – 90 % | 87 – 90 % | 84 – 86 % | 85 – 87 % | 83 – 85 % |
| In-stream, private deal (skippable) | 86 % | 29 % | 83 % | 76 % | 17 % |
| In-stream, private deal, optimised for viewability | 90 % | 28 % | 89 % | 80 % | 20 % |
| In-stream, private deal, optimised for completion | 54 % | 75 % | 7 % | 7 % | 2 % |
| Open auction, custom intent targeting | 81 % | 62 % | 45 % | 45 % | 36 % |
| Open auction, news site | 76 % | 43 % | 69 % | 44 % | 23 % |
Four things stand out.
High viewability does not mean the viewer sees the message. In the private deal, more than 75 % of plays are audible and visible at the start and at the midpoint. Between the midpoint and the three-quarter mark, which is exactly where our 10-second spot shows its brand, that share falls to a quarter or a third. Viewers skipped.
High completion can be a trap. The line optimised for completion reaches 75 %, but only 7 % of its plays are audible and visible at the start. The video plays to the end in places where almost nobody sees or hears it. In a report that looks good, but for the brand it is an empty impression.
Different ways of buying behave differently. The open auction on a news site had better audibility, visibility and completion in the second half of the video than the private deal, but a weaker start. Custom intent targeting had high completion and lower visibility at the start. There is no single “best” setup.
Outstream had a negligible volume, a few hundred impressions, so we cannot draw any conclusions from it.
YouTube is not the universal winner
At first glance YouTube beat the content network on every metric. But the comparison is not fair: on YouTube we ran only non-skippable videos and bumpers, and in the content network only skippable ones. A viewer cannot leave a non-skippable ad, so completion approaches the maximum the format allows. The platform is not better; the format simply does the job we gave it. Platforms should be compared only where viewer behaviour is comparable.
What we did about it
We added the 6-second cut to the content network, next to the 10-second video. It is still skippable after five seconds, but the message and the brand now arrive before viewers can leave. Results for skippable in-stream in the second period:
| In-stream, skippable | Completion rate (before → after) | Audible and visible at 75 % | Audible and visible at end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private deal | 29 % → 52 % | 26 % → 49 % | 17 % → 38 % |
| Private deal, optimised for viewability | 28 % → 55 % | 30 % → 47 % | 20 % → 36 % |
| Open auction, custom intent | 62 % → 67 % | 41 % → 38 % | 36 % → 32 % |
| Open auction, news site | 43 % → 45 % | 38 % → 37 % | 23 % → 25 % |
In the private deal, about twice as many viewers stayed to the end. A shorter video naturally completes more often, so the higher completion rate is not the point. The point is that the brand now comes before the skip button.
A few caveats. The second period was shorter, the volumes were different, and the results mix 6- and 10-second videos. YouTube beat the content network on every metric, but that comparison is not fair: on YouTube we ran only non-skippable ads, so completion was close to the maximum by design. Compare platforms only where viewers can behave the same way. We also saw differences between private deals, open auctions and targeting types, but they were too small or too mixed to draw conclusions from.
Checklist: what to do with your next video
- Check at which second your brand appears, before you choose the format. If it is after the fifth second, don’t use a skippable format, or cut a shorter version.
- Show and say the brand together within the first five seconds. The logo should be on screen while the name is heard; a sound logo alone is not enough. Google’s ABCD guidance for YouTube ads recommends the same: brand early, one simple message.
- Prepare a 6-second cut. It does not have to be a new spot; often a trim of the existing one is enough.
- Assume the sound is off and the screen is vertical. Support the voice-over with subtitles or on-screen text, keep the key message out of the top 10 % and bottom 25 % of the frame, and prepare 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1 versions. More than 70 % of YouTube watch time happens on mobile.
- Evaluate by who saw the brand, not by who finished the video. Lay the audible-and-visible curve by quartile over the spot’s timeline, and compare 6- and 10-second videos by cost per viewable second rather than cost per view.
Conclusion
Before you launch, find out at which second your brand appears. If it is after the fifth second, don’t put the spot into a skippable format, or cut it shorter.
Sources: internal DV360 analysis (4 – 30 September 2026, anonymised client data).
