Insider's Guide to Mobile Video Pre-caching - Building a better mobile user experience with zero-latency video ads
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The document discusses how pre-caching technology enhances the mobile video ad experience by allowing videos to launch instantly in HD quality, addressing issues caused by slow loading times that can frustrate users. It highlights how traditional streaming video, originally designed for stable desktop connections, fails on mobile devices due to variable connectivity, often leading to negative brand perceptions. Pre-caching improves user experience by eliminating interruptions and buffering, ultimately benefiting advertisers through higher engagement and purchase intent.
Insider's Guide to Mobile Video Pre-caching - Building a better mobile user experience with zero-latency video ads
- 1. Pre-Cached Video: For a Seamless Mobile Ad Experience
- 2. If you own a mobile device you’ve probably tried watching streaming video content with a weak network signal. It's a user experience characterized by slow load speeds and poor video resolution. When that slow-loading video is an ad, well, let’s just say you the user are not exactly endeared to the brand that is making you wait.. In fact a slew of recent studies have shown that slow load times lead to all kinds of problems for brand advertisers and may be contributing to the rise in ad- blocking. What is a savvy marketer to do? Get smart about alternative mobile video technologies of course! Because with mobile video pre-caching, the same mobile videos could be launching instantly in full HD quality every time. Read on to find out how! Executive Summary 2 30% of consumers abandon mobile video ads that fail to launch within 5 seconds!1
- 3. 3 A brief history of mobile video... Streaming video is without question the global standard technology for digital video advertising. It’s important to understand that “streaming” video, or “buffering” a digital video live as it plays, was originally designed for a desktop environment where, it was assumed, the user had a stable high- speed data connection. Streaming is generally great for that particular use case. The trouble is, when publishers and networks went looking for ways to provide mobile video inventory, they took the same streaming technology they used on desktop and repackaged it as “mobile”. However a mobile device can’t count on the same stable data-connection as desktop. A mobile device is constantly moving around, from home wi-fi, to underground with no connection, to a saturated 4g network and back. It’s this variable connectivity that is creating low-quality video ad experiences on mobile. Experiences that annoy users and that fail to deliver on the full promise of mobile video. Pre-caching on the other hand is a truly “mobile-first” technology. Designed specifically to deliver a more seamless mobile video ad experience. Unfortunately, as the industry has moved towards programmatic buying it has continued to rely on streaming video because no standard existed for selling pre-cached inventory programmatically… until now!
- 4. 4 ● Videos launch instantly ● HD Quality ● Regardless of connectivity ● “Mobile” streaming ● Leaves people waiting ● Negatively primed audience! Please Wait... Vs. What the difference looks like... Pre-caching Streaming
- 5. Positive Priming with Pre-caching - #userexperiencematters Priming is a term from psychology describing how an initial experience will influence an individual’s perception of subsequent experiences either positively or negatively. Priming happens all the time with digital advertising formats and can have a very real impact on important brand metrics. One study from Carnegie Mellon University researchers1 found that negative priming from interruptive ads like mobile streaming actually decreases purchase intent! Here are two examples of priming with both Streaming and Pre-caching video ads: 5 Streaming Slow-loading ad blocks user access to content Negative Posture towards brand’s message TECHNOLOGY EXPERIENCE #1 PRIMING EXPERIENCE #2 OUTCOME Pre-caching Instant Launch in HD quality doesn’t slow user down Positive Posture towards brand’s message Better Performance, Higher Favorability, Higher Purchase Intent Poorer Performance, Low Favorability, Lower Purchase Intent
- 6. User opens an app User goes about their business inside the app User sees HD quality video ad instantly 6 Mobile videos that launch instantly and in full HD everytime. Pre-caching is a very simple concept. It just means that the video ad is entirely loaded in “cache” - a hidden file - before the user ever reaches an opportunity to see that ad unit. Here’s how it works: Invisible to user, no interruptions, everything happens in the background 1 2a 2b 3 App calls Ad Server Ad Server Serves a video ad Video ad is fully loaded in the app Video Inventory is Opened in App
- 7. 7 Conclusion… #UserExperienceMatters. By designing a seamless user experience pre-caching makes the entire prospect of engaging with digital video ads a lot less painful for mobile consumers. Users don’t want to see that buffering counter while waiting for an ad to let them get on with their life.. They don’t want low quality video either. Users want high quality video ads that launch instantly and preferably enhance their experience in whatever digital content they are consuming. As an industry we owe it to users to get smarter about how we deliver mobile video ads and pre-caching technologies are a simple way to do that.
- 8. Get in touch hello@smrtr.media Sources: 1 Krishnan & Sitaraman, Video Stream Quality Impacts Viewer Behavior: Inferring Causality Using Quasi-Experimental Designs, Akamai Technologies, 2012