TubeMogul: Online video viewers have short attention spans

A recent TubeMogul study, reported by Peter Kafka over at All Things Digital, kept my (short) attention span. The article covers recent research carried out by the video-tracking firm that reveals the average online video viewer spends less than a minute watching any given clip.

The consequences of short attention spans for advertisers is that ads shown in the latter portions of a video clip, particularly those with a running time of 1 minute or more, will only be seen by a small proportion of viewers.

According to TubeMogul's data, ten seconds into a video clip a little over 10% of viewers have abandoned it, rising to over half at 60 seconds or more.

So what keeps the attention of video viewers? In a nutshell - relevancy. If the video content matches viewer's requirements they are more likely to watch it in its entirety, regardless of length. Of course, quality and value are also important considerations.

Dave Kaminski of the WebVideo University Blog believes online videos should be succinct and offers advice for online video content producers. "Pithify. That means show them the baby... don't tell them about the birth. Cut the fat, get to the point and hit the viewer with your benefits fast. In fact, you should hit them with your strongest benefits in the first 10-20 seconds of your video. Don't wait; the viewer may not be around to see them otherwise."

Tags: advertising, All Things Digital, attention span, online video, relevancy, Tubemogul, viewers, WebVideo University