Why Average Video Views > Likes & Comments

We are currently working with a brand and they invest a good sizeable amount in performance marketing.

One of the debates we had was – Should we give more preference to Average Video Views (AVV) or Engagement metrics like Likes and comments in our MMM?

📌 We believe that Average Video Views AVV > Likes and comments

Here is our rationale:

If we talk about human engagement (not bots), Viewing always precedes engagement.

So AVV captures both exposure and basic attention.

Engagement is predominantly driven by a small minority.
However there is a large majority of viewers who are not as vociferous as engaging minority but silently watch and buy !!

📌 Engagement is easier to game.

Cues like “Like if you want to see more”, “comment yes to receive a code”, “Tag a friend”, increase engagement but they may not translate to sales.
Further bots can easily do all of the above.

📌 Caveats:

AVV makes sense only if the duration stipulated is meaningful. Various companies have various yardsticks on what constitutes as ‘watched’ videos.
The jury is still out on the exact number. But we believe it has to be reasonably larger duration.

Further in some cases, where the duration of AVV is not that meaningfully large, the engagement metrics – Likes, shares and comments could be a better signal of brand familiarity and build up of brand affinity.
(See our related posts in comments).

Would love to know what others think.