MSN video content guidelines

Based on engagement patterns, higher completion rates for short format content (2-5 minutes) are higher for MSN users. However, we welcome content variety from shorts to documentaries.

The 16:9 orientation is optimum with a dominant share of consumption conducted on desktop and laptop machines.

Vertical video is absolutely welcome; however, we still convert it to a 16:9 for optimal viewing. The web experience is amenable to landscape format videos. We support and suitably render videos of any aspect ratio. For more information, see Feed content specifications.

On Watch, revenue is generated through ads on the page as well as pre-roll. To maintain user satisfaction, not all videos have pre-roll ads.

The revenue generated by ads shown on the Watch page contribute to the video revenue/eRPM for each market. At the end of the month, each brand’s video starts by market are multiplied by the eRPM for each respective market to calculate the net revenue earned. RevShare is paid on that calculated Net Revenue. Read more about where you can track your earnings here.

You can learn how to find your analytics dashboard here.

For embedded videos, the revenue generated by ads shown in the video content section contribute to the video revenue/eRPM for each market. At the end of the month, each brand’s video starts by market are multiplied by the eRPM for each respective market to calculate the net revenue earned. RevShare is paid on that calculated Net Revenue.

For embedded scenarios, the instream revenue generated by the ads on the player are pooled into the total video payout pool and distributed based on overall stream starts.

A large segment of our audience is desktop-driven and spends more time engaged over the working week. Hence, traffic shows decline during weekends and holidays.

Seasonality also comes into play, such as summer breaks and extended holiday seasons. For example, the United States and Europe are impacted during the holiday season occurring from late December through early January, while countries in East Asia are impacted during Lunar New Year celebrations starting anywhere from mid-January to mid-February, depending on the year.

If seasonality does not explain the issue, the following troubleshooting steps may help:

• Track your content flow. Fluctuations in volume of videos published will likely affect the overall contribution and revenue.

• Verify your publishing production rates. This can be found in your MSN Partner Hub analytics dashboard. Check for a spike in video processing or content moderation issues, which can result in a lower percentage of videos getting published.

• Evaluate your engagement. Review your content’s engagement levels (completion rates) over the past few weeks. Do you see a success pattern in your content format or topic? Certain topics can perform better than others. Has there been a change in content format or topic? If so, note that typically average user engagement drops and will have a cascading effect on the visibility of future videos from the brand.

If your issue does not fit any of the scenarios above, please raise a ticket with our support teams so that they can investigate further to determine the root cause.

Revenue is impacted by performance metrics such as seasonality, traffic and engagement, and advertising eCPMs.

To ensure an optimum user experience (which helps with user retention in the long term), we do not play pre-roll ads on every video. Instead, these are shown based on user time spent across the feed. So, a user might watch five videos for five seconds each and see only one pre-roll ad, while another user might watch two consecutive five-minute videos and view a pre-roll ad on both of them.

Understandably, revenue and traffic growth will not be linearly related. Moreover, tepid eCPMs, driven by slow market conditions (specific to geography), can lead to revenue flattening or a decline over time.

We do not encourage any custom tracking requirements for partners due to the overhead involved in maintaining them. All tracking should organically be available in Partner Hub on MSN.

At this time, only comScore dual tagging support is the additional tracking requirement for existing partners.