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You’ve checked your startup times. You’ve optimized your CDN. But you still see a drop in views right at the beginning, long before the video should start.
It’s frustrating. You brought the audience in, but something’s stopping them from ever seeing your content.
This is a problem nearly every video platform faces. And there’s a name for it, even if most teams don’t know it yet: Exit Before Video Start (EBVS).
Let’s keep it simple:
EBVS stands for Exit Before Video Start. It’s the metric that shows you how many people leave before your video actually plays, even before the first frame. It’s easy to miss. Users show up, they’re interested, and then… nothing. Maybe it’s a slow load. Maybe the spinner spins a bit too long. For whatever reason, they decide to bounce before your content gets a chance.
If you care about user experience or retention, EBVS is one of the most brutally honest metrics you’ll track. High EBVS means your users are giving up at the worst possible moment, right before you deliver value. And the impact isn’t small. Reduce your EBVS by just 10%, and studies show you could see viewer retention jump by as much as 15%.
Does EBVS always mean you did something wrong? Not quite but it’s worth digging into the details.
Some users never intended to watch, they misclicked, or changed their mind. Others hit an obvious dead end: a “Video unavailable” or “Network error” message. That’s not impatience, that’s just a broken experience.
So, if you’re using EBVS to spot where you’re losing viewers, make sure you filter out the accidental clicks and the hard fails. Focus on the genuine walkaways: the users who came to watch, waited, and left before the first scene.
Knowing your EBVS gives you a clear signal of where users are slipping away, and it’s a metric you can easily add to your analytics to finally see (and fix) what’s costing you viewers.
Nine times out of ten, it’s because your video startup time is too slow. That’s the gap between when someone hits play and when the first frame shows up. Miss that window, and you’ll see users drop before your backend even gets warmed up.
Akamai’s numbers are brutal: if your video takes more than 2 seconds to load, users start bailing. Add just one extra second, and almost 6% more people will exit before they see anything. Push it out to 10 seconds? You’ve lost half your audience before frame one.
Want a deeper dive into startup time? Check out our full guide on video startup time.
If you want to understand why viewers are leaving before your video starts, you need more than surface-level stats. You need real, granular analytics that tell you what’s actually happening across your streaming workflow.
At FastPix, we offer an advanced analytics solution to measure and optimize Exit Before Video Start (EBVS). By simply integrating our Data SDKs into your video player, you’ll immediately start seeing critical Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics on our intuitive dashboards.
These metrics can be analyzed and compared across various dimensions, including geo-location, player-specific, device-specific, network-specific, and stream-specific data. This in-depth analysis enables you to drill down into the root causes of the high EBVS, helping you enhance the overall streaming experience for your users and eventually retain users by optimizing the content delivery.
Bonus: FastPix Data is free for your first 100,000 views every month, for every organization.
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Example: Reducing EBVS with FastPix
More recently, one of our client an OTT streaming platform experienced a high EBVS rate due to lengthy pre-roll ads. By our analytics, the platform identifies this issue and shortens ad durations, resulting in a 15% reduction in EBVS and a corresponding 10% increase in viewer retention. This explains how targeted optimizations based on EBVS metrics can enhance user experience and retention.
Accurate EBVS tracking starts with proper data collection, and that means using a monitoring SDK that fits your stack. FastPix offers SDKs for every major platform and player, making it straightforward to capture meaningful EBVS and QoE data wherever your viewers are.
1. Choose and integrate your FastPix SDK:
No matter what you’re building on, we’ve got a plug-and-play SDK for you:
Just drop the relevant SDK into your player setup. Setup is designed to be painless typically a few lines of code. Go through the Guides and Docs to go through the SDKs process in detailed.
2. Let the SDK do the tracking:
Once integrated, the SDK automatically listens for all the key playback events:
No need for custom event wiring or manual tracking, the SDK handles the details for you.
3. Filter out accidental exits and edge cases:
FastPix’s SDKs are smart about noise. Instant exits (less than one second) are flagged as accidental, so your EBVS stats stay clean. You can also configure additional filters to match your app’s unique behavior or edge cases (like dismissing errors or modal closes).
4. Analyze your data in context:
Open up the FastPix dashboard and you’ll see your EBVS data sliced across every relevant dimension:
5. Take action and optimize:
You don’t just see numbers, you see what’s driving them. Maybe older devices are struggling, or maybe pre-roll ads are too long on mobile. Use these insights to:
And then, watch the changes play out in real time, directly in your dashboard.
If you’re using an analytics tool like FastPix, you’ll know exactly why users are leaving before your video starts. The data tells you what need your attention, whether it’s slow startup, device-specific issues, or something else so you can fix the real bottleneck fast.
But even if you’re not plugged into a full analytics stack yet, there are few strategies you can use to cut down EBVS and keep more viewers around:
You’ll get the fastest results when you pair smart analytics with these best practices. Know where the exits are, fix the big issues first, and you’ll see more users stick around for your content.
Tracking EBVS gives you a clear view of how many users leave before the video even begins, but that’s just one piece of the streaming puzzle. Each metric you monitor like startup, rebuffering, playback failures, bitrate, serves a unique role in the bigger picture of user experience.
It’s not about picking one metric over another; it’s about seeing how they all connect. The most reliable way to improve user experience is to track, compare, and optimize across all these metrics, not just one.
That’s where analytics like FastPix Data make sense. It gives you real-time playback and QoE metrics across APIs and dashboards so your team can see what’s happening as it happens, then actually act on it.
You get detailed startup, rebuffering, playback, and bit rate data for every session, and you can drill down by device, region, or stream, no waiting for a monthly report or a slow enterprise upgrade.
Reach out and we’ll be happy to walk you through the process and show exactly how FastPix can fit in…
A good EBVS rate is typically below 5%. The lower the rate, the better the user retention and overall experience.
High EBVS rates often lead to user frustration and increased abandonment, negatively impacting satisfaction and retention.
EBVS occurs when a user exits the stream before the video starts, often due to delays or other issues. Video Start Failure (VSF), on the other hand, refers to instances where the video fails to start entirely due to errors or technical issues, leading to a complete failure of video playback.
Yes, EBVS can be influenced by user behavior, such as impatience with loading times or a preference for quick-start videos. Users with less tolerance for delays are more likely to contribute to higher EBVS rates.
Device type can impact EBVS rates, as older or less powerful devices may struggle with video processing and startup times, leading to higher EBVS. Optimizing for a wide range of devices is crucial to minimize this impact.
Yes, A/B testing different video player configurations, network setups, and content delivery strategies can help identify the most effective methods for reducing EBVS.
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