Google Ran Secret Video Ad Experiments and Here's What It Found

YouTube ran a series of secret ad tests to help brands get a sense of what works in digital video and what grabs people's attention for the most amount of time. The Google Creative Lab ran the experiment using 16 different videos with variations on pacing, sound and other factors, including whether vertical video was important. Those with longest view-through rates were obviously the most compelling, and could be used for coming up with best practices in online video.

The point of the tests was to see how ads might perform creative choices are made with mobile environments in mind as opposed to desktop, or even TV. The average completion rate for the average video ad on mobile devices is 22%, according to Google. On desktop, it's 28%. The best-performing video in the test, one in which fast pacing was the dominant factor, achieved a 33% "view-through" rate on mobile., Google said.