creatives

Did you know that by this time next year, US Digital Video ad spend may hit $11.72 Billion? On a dollar basis, US digital video ad spending is expected to reach $28.08 billion by 2020, up from $9.90 billion in 2016 (eMarketer).

Programmatic video buying is also seeing extensive adoption and growth – accounting for 41% of all Digital Video dollars spent. That represents 58% growth over the past 2 years.

The numbers aren’t surprising considering video’s ability to engage and its strong click-through rates at 1.84% (BI Report).

Video is on the up and up as consumers continue to cut ties to traditional media and turn to digital. Audiences are increasingly discovering content, being entertained, and uncovering new brands through video consumption online, most especially on mobile devices.

As demand for video rises, advertisers need to adapt to the new medium to generate maximum results. Earlier this year, Yahoo and Nielsen & Hunter Qualitative partnered to produce a report on native video advertising that also highlighted some best practices for brands to create stronger video ads.

So how can you find success with video advertising? Here are some of the best tips:

1. Use Large Logos

When it comes to video ads on mobile, the larger the logo the better. Large logos can increase brand familiarity by 24%, affinity to convert by 17%, and brand recommendation increase by 33% according to Yahoo.

For Millennial audiences on mobile, affinity conversion increases by 25% when large logos are used – that’s 11.5x higher than on desktop.

So remember to GO BIG with logos.

2. Always Employ a CTA

Consumer purchase intent increases by 14% for video ads on mobile devices if advertisers employ a call to action (CTA).

Encouraging visitors to take a specific action to take them further along your sales funnel. Whether it’s a sign up, call, or click – CTAs represent lower-funnel metrics like purchase intent and brand recommendation which all help measure your ads performance.

3. Optimize Your Creatives for Mobile

When creating your videos keep in mind that on mobile, you can watch video either horizontally or vertically (including vertical landscape and vertical portrait). Optimizing your video ads for screen alignment is therefore extremely important.

Traditional horizontal landscape videos are the most efficient at driving top and bottom funnel metrics like purchase intent and brand familiarity.

4. Go with Traditional Length for Pre-Roll

We know that the traditional video ad lengths that run for 15-30 seconds work. When videos are shorter, say just 5 seconds, brand affinity conversion, brand recall and purchase intent metrics don’t do so well. 5 seconds may simply not be long enough for audiences to process and recall a brand.

Slightly longer video spots generally perform better, but only if they are entertaining, humorous, interesting, engaging and relevant to the viewer.

For Native video ads, Yahoo recommends 15 seconds which reportedly drive greater recall and purchase intent.

5. Go Ahead and Auto-Play

Digiday reported earlier this year that 85% of Facebook’s videos are watched without sounds, and other publishers seem to agree.

Yahoo advises that auto-pay significantly increases brand recall when compared to user-initiated videos play. Eye tracking indicates that auto-play helps keep viewers focused on the video ad itself, whereas user initiated videos depend more heavily on copy which can negatively impact engagement.

Video ad spend will only grow as the medium matures online and across mobile. But advertisers and brands need to experiment, test and optimize. Just remember to keep these best practices top of mind. Check out the full Yahoo report here.