Meta ThruPlay
ThruPlay is Meta's name for a video play of at least fifteen seconds, or the full video if it is shorter than fifteen seconds. Meta is Facebook and Instagram's ads tool. ThruPlay sits between a short three-second view and watching to the very end. On a long video, a ThruPlay is not the ending.
Theodor Lindfors, Founding Marketer ·
What counts as a ThruPlay
Let's take a drink brand as an example. They sell a low-sugar sports drink for active women over 50, mostly from their own website. Typical ads run on Meta, TikTok, and YouTube. On Meta, a three-second view used to make almost any scroll look like engagement. ThruPlay was introduced as a higher bar: fifteen seconds of play, or the whole video if it runs shorter than fifteen seconds.
Because the ThruPlay threshold is fixed and the video length is not, the same ThruPlay count means something different on a ten-second ad than on a ninety-second one. Let's take a drink brand as an example. They sell a low-sugar sports drink for active women over 50, mostly from their own website. A 10-second bottle shot can ThruPlay at completion. A 30-second trail-run cut ThruPlays at the halfway mark. 20,000 ThruPlays on the long cut is not 20,000 people who heard the offer.
Why Meta uses ThruPlay
As an optimization goal, ThruPlay tells delivery to find people likely to watch a meaningful stretch rather than people who happen to scroll past. That is useful when the message needs time to land and you are not optimizing to a conversion. Let's take a drink brand as an example. They sell a low-sugar sports drink for active women over 50, mostly from their own website. Introducing the drink to a new audience can buy ThruPlays on purpose.
ThruPlay is not a performance goal. If the campaign exists to drive purchases, optimizing to ThruPlay buys attention rather than customers. Meta will look for watchers, not buyers.
How to read ThruPlay
Always report ThruPlay with the video length. Then read it against video completion rate so you know whether the fifteen-second mark was near the end or barely past the hook. Let's take a drink brand as an example. They sell a low-sugar sports drink for active women over 50, mostly from their own website. The brand might have 20,000 ThruPlays and 8,000 true completions on the same 30-second asset.
Cost per ThruPlay is comparable to CPV (cost per view) and CPCV (cost per completed view) only if you name the definition each platform used. They are not the same unit. A YouTube TrueView and a ThruPlay should not share a cell in a deck.
Common ThruPlay mistakes
- Presenting a drink brand's ThruPlays as completions for a 30-second or 60-second video.
- Optimizing to ThruPlay on a campaign judged on site purchases.
- Comparing cost per ThruPlay to YouTube view costs without naming either definition.
Lemonado
How Lemonado helps when video metrics do not match
A ThruPlay, a TrueView view, and a two-second view are three different products that end up in the same video row of a report. A drink brand runs all three platforms. Lemonado keeps the platform definition next to the number so cross-channel video comparisons hold up.