By Nathalie Tadena

In the fierce competition for online video ad dollars, YouTube has the upper hand when it comes to extending the shelf life of a marketer's video, according to a new report.

Research from video content advertising firm Visible Measures says brands enjoy a so-called "ripple" effect when they share a new video on YouTube that drives views of the brands' older videos, an effect that does not happen when they share a new video on Facebook. As a result, videos on YouTube are watched by more people over an extended period of time, the study claims.

Visible Measures found that 45% of a brand's total views on YouTube are of new content and the remaining 55% are on previously uploaded videos to the brand's YouTube channel. In contrast, when brands upload a new video to Facebook, 95% of the brand's total views are of the new content rather than existing content.

"YouTube is really search-oriented and Facebook is really discovery oriented," said Visible Measures Chief Executive Brian Shin. "Because YouTube has that search capability, it makes it easier to have a large portfolio of content that can have a longer shelf life. You can always find stuff on YouTube."

After a user watches a video from a brand, YouTube can recommend videos from the same marketer or related videos for the user to watch next. In addition, users are also likely to click on the YouTube page of a brand if they've enjoyed that brand's video, Mr. Shin said.

On Facebook, meanwhile, it's more difficult for users to search for a brand's older video content and users are less likely to go to a brand's Facebook page after watching a video, Mr. Shin said.

Facebook for its part has made moves to challenge YouTube in online video. Facebook in July unveiled a new feature called "Suggested Videos" that will direct users who view a video in their news feed to other videos the company thinks they might be interested in. The initiative will include ads between professionally produced content from major media companies.

Facebook is valuable for a marketer in the first three days of releasing a new video, but videos quickly lose consumer engagement after those initial few days, Visible Measures' data shows. After the first week of a video's launch, YouTube accounts for 51% of views. After three months, YouTube accounts for 63% of those views, Visible Measures said.

"During the first three days of a campaign, Facebook is very strong for that initial surge (of views) but YouTube quickly catches up," Mr. Shin said. "You get greater total viewership on YouTube but on those first few days you want to think about Facebook as a way to spike your video campaign."

In its report, Visible Measures analyzed 808 video ads comprising 1.6 billion views from 548 campaigns uploaded in the first half of the year from brands such as Pepsi, Samsung and Dove. The campaigns analyzed have both YouTube and Facebook videos with at least three months of data and more than 50,000 views each.

Write to Nathalie Tadena at nathalie.tadena@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 30, 2015 06:44 ET (10:44 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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