How to make the most of the investment? Nielsen said that a strong ad that builds emotional and behavioural connections with consumers will not only help drive sales for the brand, but can also drive long-term brand loyalty and equity down the road.

“With the increase in devices used to watch TV programming, and the ways to multi-task while doing so, it becomes challenging for advertisers to ensure their ad dollars are well spent and ads are effectively resonating with viewers,” the firm said in a recent report.

We are all exposed to ads from multiple media sources, seemingly every minute of every day. With the sheer quantity of exposure, it’s easy for consumers to look right through ads and not be engaged–leaving advertisers lost in the clutter of the marketplace, Nielsen warned. So, an ad’s success is ultimately defined by its ability to efficiently reach a brand’s key consumers, break through the clutter and get correctly attributed to the advertised brand. To maximize ROI, advertisers need to know if their ads and brands are resonating in the memories of their core consumers in time to correct their campaigns while they’re in flight.

Content engagement varies widely across digital video segments, research has revealed, indicating that publishers have an opportunity to tailor their monetisation strategies accordingly.

The numbers are a nice companion piece to Ooyala’s Q1 2016 Global Video Index, which looked at digital content engagement. SVOD services like Netflix are almost exclusively comprised of long-form content like episodic series and full-length feature films. As such, nearly 100% of viewing across all devices is with long-form video, defined as content lasting 20 minutes or longer. However, consumption on ad-supported VOD (AVOD) differs significantly.

For AVOD, smartphone and PC viewers prefer short-form content the most, at 66% and 55% respectively. Tablet viewers spend little time with short-form video; instead viewing is split evenly between long-form (43%) and short-form content (44%). Connected TV viewers watch long-form content 92% of the time with AVOD services.

The report also analysed how consumption of AVOD and SVOD assets differ by device and content length. The findings show a near split in engagement between small and large screen devices. AVOD viewers spend 55% of their time on PCs, while SVOD viewers do the opposite, spending 55% on their time on mobile devices. This suggests SVOD services are more personal experiences and, therefore, favour more personal devices.

The Index also took a look at the trends, causes and solutions to video drop-off rates. The data shows that short-, mid- and long-form video viewers tend to drop off anywhere between 70% to 95% of completion depending upon device and content length.

Unsurprisingly, short-form video sees the highest completion rate, at 90% to 95%. PC viewers drop off sooner than on mobile devices regardless of content length. Quality-of-experience (QoE) is cause as well as solution for drop-off rates, finding a .2% or less buffer ratio, or the amount of time spent buffering versus watching, proves to be the most successful in keeping viewers engaged. Half of viewers drop from video when the buffer ratio is 1%, and 43% drop when it’s 0.4%.

Content recommendations make a significant impact on viewer retention. Pulling data from Ooyala Discovery, the company’s content recommendation technology, the report found viewers will on average watch 40% of all content recommended to them, driving more views. After being served recommended viewers will average a 10% organic lift in video viewing thereafter, leading to a 6% to 23% uptick of time spent on site.