If you haven’t considered incorporating video into your advertising strategy, now is the time. 68% of marketers say video has a better return than Google Ads. The rise of TikTok alone proves that consumers have an unquenched appetite for video content.

Video ads are an opportunity to tell a story and connect with your audience — this is something that is much harder to do through a text ad or static imagery.

If you’re investing time and resources into creating video ads, you want your content to be seen, to be engaged with, and to drive the desired outcome. Based on our experience working with clients on their video campaigns for our platform, here are our six best practices for successful video advertising campaigns.

Define your target audience

Before launching any campaign or even designing the creative, you have to determine the ideal target audience for your business, product, or promotion. A clear vision of your customer will help you determine the best channel and messaging to reach them.

The various video ad channels available to you provide varying levels of audience targeting. Cable TV, for example, reaches an extremely broad audience. Platforms like ours allow you to target your ideal customer more directly, based on over 150 first-party demographic data points on our members.

Tell a story

Unlike a static display ad, you have a lot of room to play with a video ad or commercial. Video ads are especially well suited for explaining complex topics, telling a multi-part story, or creating an emotional connection with your audience. Use this to your advantage.

That being said, those watching your ad have a short attention span. The first five seconds of your ad should hook your audience into the story right away.

Optimize your video for the platform

On Facebook, in-app advertising, display ads — there are so many channels on which you can show your videos. Each platform has its own requirements based on best practices for keeping its audience engaged.

A few things to consider for any platform:

• Video length: When an ad interrupts something consumers are watching or pop ups before they can access their desired content, it should be kept very short. For example, Facebook recommends video ads on their platform are 15 seconds long or shorter. On AdWallet, our users are opting in to viewing commercials, so you have more time to get your message across. Our platform allows commercials up to one minute and thirty seconds long, but we find 30 seconds to be the sweet spot.
• Captions: Don’t assume that people seeing your ad will hear it. They may be watching from their phone without headphones in or could be deaf or hard of hearing. Captions ensure anyone seeing your ad will understand it.
• Mobile optimization: Where will your audience be viewing your ad? Is it on their computer, tv, or phone? Understand how your ad will be viewed and make sure it is displaying properly.

Include an enticing call to action

If you intend to use your video ad campaign to generate leads, your ad needs to include a clear call to action. This could be to register for an event, download an offer, or to sign up for your newsletter.

If you are asking your audience to take an action and submit their personal information, the instructions you provide should be easy to follow and, ideally, provide something of value to the consumer. For example, if you’re driving to your website and offering a discount code, that discount code should auto-populate on your site, so that visitors don’t need to enter it themselves. We find that this removes friction from the process, which increases conversion.

Collect only the information you need

For ads with form fills, it may be tempting to collect as much information as you can about who is watching. However, long forms deter people from filling them out. You should only capture the personal information that you truly need — often their first and last name and one form of contact information.

A/B test to improve results

As with any ad campaign, there are always ways to improve. Test and learn to understand what variables within your campaign are most effective. Try telling the same story with different imagery, testing two different offers against each other, or testing the same commercial with different audience segments.

Look at your campaign results to understand which ads perform better. When you show an ad through AdWallet, viewers can give direct feedback about whether or not they enjoyed the ad — helping you quickly understand what’s working and what’s not.

Already running video ads on Facebook, TV, or display advertising? Give AdWallet a try — users of our app are invited to watch commercials uniquely targeted to their interests. Yes, that means they actually enjoy and choose to watch video ads — they don’t skip them.