STOP buying OLV NOW, Why? - FouAnalytics "see Fou yourself" | Dr. Augustine Fou

Editor's Note

FouAnalytics is a syndicated column by Dr. Augustine Fou—one of the leading independent voices in ad fraud detection and digital marketing measurement—applying methodological rigor to the programmatic advertising supply chain. This piece dissects how bad actors manipulate online video (OLV) completion metrics, exposes the illusion of 90% view-through rates, and outlines how marketers can independently verify performance or protect their budgets before the next ad cycle.

Let's start with a simple question – what's your average completion rate for video ad campaigns? 90% or higher? Do you believe that's real? Do you watch 30-second video ads to completion? Or do you skip the ads to get to the content?

Consider the following data from FouAnalytics. unload_ms means the milliseconds at which the user left the page. The 514 - 17,414 means 0.5 seconds to 17 seconds. If 92% of the users left the page between 0.5 seconds and 17 seconds, how does a 30-second video ad get played to completion? Right, it doesn't. So why does your agency or ad platform keep reporting 90% completion rates or greater on your OLV (online video) campaigns? It's because of the following giant loophole on how video completions are recorded and reported.

Data from FouAnalytics showing when users left the page

One giant loophole bad guys have been exploiting

This has been staring us in the face since the beginning of video ads. Why? How? Everything is declared. And it relies on parties being honest and invoking the complete.gif pixel only when the video ad is watched to completion.

Any standard that relies on parties to tell the truth is not good enough. Can you rely on bad guys to tell the truth? Of course not. If you are looking for high video completion rates, they will give you high completion rates, simply by invoking the complete.gif pixel even when the video ad was not viewed to completion, for example at 0.5 seconds or 1 second or 17 seconds, whatever. They can also invoke the firstQuartilePixel.gif, midpointPixel.gif, and thirdQuartilePixel.gif too any time they want. When these tracking pixels are invoked, the ad platforms record these as if they were the truth — i.e. 1/4 of video ad was watched, half of it was watched, 3/4 of it was watched, or watched to completion — even if these did not actually occur.

Actual data on video completes: 1-6% reach "thirdQuartile"

The reason video ads are marked at 80–90% complete rates is because bad guys can call the complete.gif tracking pixel even when they are not supposed to — i.e. falsified the video completion rates. Now that you know this, do you think your OLV campaigns are working like you thought they were? If only a quarter of the users watched the first quarter of your video ad, what impact do you think your expensive video ads had? OLV is also far more expensive than display ads. Video ad CPMs are 5–10x higher than display ad CPMs. The table below is from FouAnalytics data in Q1 2024.

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Because your "90% completion rate" video campaign might actually abandon after half a second—and platforms won't fix the math. Every week, FouAnalytics uses forensic campaign data to expose online video fraud, fake tracking pixels, and wasted ad spend, giving media buyers and budget owners the independent proof needed to protect their investments.