Should we directly start a video with a product placement, or should we hook the audience within a few seconds, or either postpone it after several minutes ? This is a frequently asked question for Brands and Creators ... and everyone has their own opinion on the matter:

If the brand integration is too early, the audience will likely skip the ad, if the integration is too late, I may have already lost a portion of the audience.

So, to solve it, we decided to find the answer by numbers, based on a dataset of 340 videos for which we have the click-through rate per 1000 views, as well as the placement segment timecode.

As a preamble, it's important to note that the position of the sponsored segment is not the only factor that influences the click-through rate. A good click-through rate can also be explained by a great promotion on the product (like Black Friday), or by a particularly well-thought-out product placement, or by a creator who is more persuasive than average.

However, the idea is to consider that, across hundreds of observations, these external factors cancel each other out. Nevertheless, one should remain cautious not to over-interpret the results.

The first step is to search for clusters to evenly distribute the data as homogeneously as possible.

We identified 3 classes:

• Class 0: Product placement starts before the 40th second (111 videos)
• Class 1: Product placement starts between the 40th second and the 3rd minute (144 videos)
• Class 2: Product placement starts after the 3rd minute (85 videos)

Here is the statistical distribution of their click-through rate per 1000 views.

Additionally, as we also have the conversion rate (number of sales per 1000 views) of these videos, we also took the opportunity to calculate the median Conversion Rate.

The Class <40s have the best click-through rate and the highest conversion rate. There is a statistical degradation for both click-through rate and conversion rate for product placements made between 40 seconds and 3 minutes. Conversely, indicators seem to improve for product placements positioned after 3 minutes.

Therefore, even though the click-through rate doesn't solely depend on the timing of product placement, one could reason as follows:

• It seems that either one should do their sponsorship before the first 40 seconds, right at the beginning of the video,
• or wait for more than 3 minutes to allow the audience to settle in.
• However, between 40 and 180 seconds, product placement appears to be "too early". Zooming in and focusing on videos where product placement occurs between 60 and 120 seconds (71 observations), we even have the worst performance in click-through rate per 1000 views!

On the other hand, after 3 minutes, click-through rates (and conversions) are almost similar to those in the <40s range.

To sum-up, statistically, it seems preferable to place your product placement before the first 40 seconds of your video. If that's not possible, it seems better to do it after 3 minutes of the video, as if the audience that remains is proportionally experiencing the same type of performance in click-through rate (and conversion) as at the beginning of the video.