Tips for Video Ads
When forming creative for an ad campaign, you want something thought-provoking, eye-catching, and memorable. Video ads can stop a viewer in their tracks. They can be brighter, more descriptive, and more unique than a static image. Video advertising has increased tremendously over the past few years. People love to view videos and it’s a great way to connect with your audience. Here are some tips and tricks to improve your video ads:
Make sure your ad is in line with your goals:
You want to determine if your video ad will be successful. Therefore, you must figure out the purpose of the ad. It could be to drive more traffic to the website, generate more brand awareness, increase sales, etc. Video ads tend to perform better for brand awareness campaigns. They are typically broader than PPC ads and are about catching the viewer’s attention. If you want to drive sales, Paid Search campaigns are usually better, since the viewer is searching for a product or service. Video ads, however, will draw the viewer in and warm them up to your business. It is not to say that your video ads won’t be successful if they are conversion-based, but you have a greater chance of yielding your desired results with a more top-of-funnel audience.
Choose the right platform:
Now that you have decided that video ads are in line with your goals and objectives it is time to choose the appropriate channel to display them. To figure this out, think about your audience. For example, say you are choosing between LinkedIn and Facebook for your ad campaign. If your organization is B2B, LinkedIn would be better, since that is more business-oriented. However, if your organization is B2C, then Facebook would be better since it is more personal and less professional.
You also want to think about the age group. If you are targeting people older than 25, Facebook would be a great platform. If you are channeling people under 25, Instagram or TikTok would be better because those age groups use those platforms most often.
If age is not an important demographic for you, YouTube is always a great option. Most age groups use YouTube. You can also Pre-Roll your videos on other ad-servable inventories. For example, if you go to CNN or WebMD, you will usually see links to videos that are not from YouTube. You can have your video play when someone clicks on those videos. Lastly, if you want to reach a wide audience at once, such as an entire family or group of friends, Over-the-Top Television (OTT) can be beneficial. OTT is used on devices like Smart TVs, Apple TVs, Roku’s, and gaming consoles. These ads play on apps such as Hulu, ESPN, ABC, and more. There are a lot of options to choose from, so it’s important to know your target audience well enough to determine what they will respond to positively.
Quality is Key:
These video ads are more important than your average post, therefore, they need to look professionally executed. If you plan on filming the ads yourself, you must make sure that they look cinematic. For example, make sure that the lighting is good, and use a tripod or other means of steadying the phone. Avoid zooming in so it doesn’t come out pixelated and make sure that the sound quality is audible and clear.
This can take a lot of time. Unless you really know what you are doing, it is better to hire a professional
videographer (which we have here at aha!). By just spending some time with a videographer, you can have hours of content that you can use for years! Our videographer can film in the studio or on location.
The best part of having a professional film the content is that you can reuse those assets. You will have plenty of video content that you can split up and utilize in future ad campaigns, social media posts, website content, and more!