Exit before video start (EBVS)
Exit before video start, or EBVS, counts viewers who pressed play and then left before the first frame appeared. It is the clearest sign that startup was too slow. Unlike an error, nothing broke; the viewer simply ran out of patience.
Why it matters
Every exit before start is a lost view, and for ad-funded businesses a lost impression. It is also invisible in error reports, because nothing failed. Tracking EBVS shows how much audience slow startup is costing and gives a direct business case for speeding it up. Teams can put a number on that lost audience with FastPix Video Data, which works with any supported player and counts these exits separately from errors, so slow startup shows up as lost views instead of staying invisible.
How it works
- The player records a play request when the viewer presses play or autoplay starts.
- It waits for the first frame to appear or for an error to occur.
- If the viewer leaves first, with no frame and no error, the view is marked as an exit before start.
- The share of views marked this way is the EBVS rate.
What is a good EBVS rate?
A good EBVS rate is as low as you can get it, and many teams aim for a few percent or less. Some exits are normal, such as people who tapped play by mistake. A rising rate almost always tracks slower startup, so compare EBVS with startup time by device and region.
EBVS vs video start failure: what is the difference?
Video start failure means the video could not start because something broke, such as an error. EBVS means nothing broke, but the viewer gave up waiting. Start failures point to bugs, bad URLs or DRM problems, while EBVS points to slow startup. Counting them separately tells you whether to fix code or speed.
Where it's used
Short video apps and news publishers treat EBVS as a revenue metric, since every exit before start is a view, and an ad impression, that never happened.
Where it usually goes wrong, and how FastPix handles it
Teams often count only errors as failed views, so viewers who leave a slow-starting video are missed entirely.
That gives you a count of views lost to slow startup that error reports never show, which you can turn into lost ad or subscription revenue.
By the numbers
- In a 2012 study of 23 million video views, viewers began abandoning videos that did not start within 2 seconds, and each extra second of delay raised abandonment by about 5.8 percent. (Research quantifies how video stream quality affects viewer behavior (ScienceDaily, 2012))
