COVID-19 Impact on Video Creative & Performance

CPMs (as of 6/26) are down 19% on Facebook and up 10% on Instagram (compared to the beginning of COVID - week of 3/9). CPMs hit their low the week of 3/16 and have since been rising approximately 8% WoW. A dramatic decrease was seen at the beginning of June but CPMs quickly rebounded.

Average spend was down 19.5% from the week of March 2 to the week of March 23, but as advertisers that were seeing success scaled, overall spend increased 121% between the weeks of March 16 and April 20. Average spend has subsequently decreased from the end of April to the week of June 22, netting out to a 65% decrease from the weeks of March 9 to June 22.

Lower CPMs coupled with increased average spend resulted in a 73% increase in average impressions from the weeks of March 16 to April 20. As CPMs have increased since end of April and spend decreased, impressions have dropped.

After a decrease in CTR at the end of March, advertisers have optimized towards the new normal and CTR has seen a subsequent increase of 40% from the end of March to the week of June 22. CTR, however, is not trending upward at the same rate as spend is decreasing, likely because the unstable economic environment is impacting consumer spending habits.

Ads messaging "Sales" have seen the biggest increase in usage from the beginning of the year to the end of June— demonstrating just how willing advertisers are to promote discounts in the slumping economy. "Convenience" messaging, on the other hand, has seen the biggest decrease in usage— a 60% reduction from the post-January peak in February to the current time.

While more brands are running ads promoting "Sales", overall spend against these ads is down (but has decreased at a similar rate as the overall decrease in average spend on Facebook and Instagram). Investment in "Home" messaging dropped off mid-May, as performance was poor (likely driven by fatigue of this messaging in market).

Ads communicating "Sales" drove the second highest CVR in June, even with increased spend. The CVR of "Health" related ads has remained relatively stable throughout the year, but actually drove the highest CVRs at the end of June—a message to continue testing as COVID-19 cases increase in many parts of the world.

At the beginning of the pandemic, brands scaled back on videos with people. During June, however, advertisers returned to using people in videos with pre-COVID frequency.

Videos with people saw a steep increase in average spend during March (in-line with the rate at which overall spend increased during that time). From the end of March to the end of April, however, spend on videos with people decreased 12% faster than the average. Since the end of April, videos with people have seen a 73% decrease in average spend and videos without people have had a 70% decrease.

The overall average CVR has dropped 25% from the end of April to end of June, but videos with people have seen a 45% decrease in CVR. Videos without people have seen a 40% increase in CVR, even with relatively stable spend.

From March to April, videos with 3+ people saw the largest decrease in usage, while videos with 2 people or no people have seen the largest increase. Since the end of April, however, only videos with 1 person have increased in use.

While videos with 2 people and without people saw an increase in usage from March to April, videos without people scaled spend 2x faster than the scale in usage, compared to an equal scale in spend and usage for videos with 2 people. Since the end of April, average spend for all videos (regardless of the number of people they contain) has decreased—videos with 3 people have experienced the largest decrease.

Only videos without people have seen an increase in CVR since the end of April, even as videos without people have had the same usage and spend as videos with 2 people, which saw CVR drop 48%.

Usage of fully animated videos spiked 38% from the end of March to mid-April. Since then, brands have only increased their usage of partially animated videos—4% from mid-May to end of June. Fully animated videos and non-animated content have both decreased in usage during that time.

From the end of April to the end of May, non-animated content has seen the largest pull back in investment—a 54% decrease, 2.7x higher than the average. Between the end of May and the week of June 22, all content types saw consistent declines in spend WoW.

Non-animated videos saw the largest drop in CVR from end of April to end of May, even with the drop in use and spend. Since then, partially animated and fully animated content have seen reduced CVRs similar to the average trend, while non-animated videos saw a slightly slower decline.