Bringing your pre-roll advertisement to the right place is key to having a successful digital campaign. It will drive traffic and raise awareness among people who are potentially becoming your customers.
On the contrary, poor distribution of ads means losing a chance to meet the right audience. Your effort can’t be paid off, and the video will bring no result. We don’t want you to experience a bad moment. So, we’re going to describe the proper platforms for pre-roll ads.
#1. YouTube
If you are looking for a top funnel to skyrocket your pre-roll advertisement, YouTube is the best spot to go. With over 2 billion monthly active users on the platform, you will have a greater chance to meet a bigger audience and grow brand awareness.
Many marketers have proven the effectiveness. They claimed that pre-roll skippable ads on YouTube were the most effective advertisement format.
Let’s see each type to see which pre-roll ads that will benefit your business:
- Skippable ad. People can skip the ad after 5 seconds.
- Non-skippable ad. It is a 15 to 20 seconds ad, and people can’t cut it off.
- Bumper ad. This ad is non-skippable but short enough. It is only 6 seconds long.
Video type is not the only thing you should know before making an ad because YouTube also applies basic specifications. The basic requirements are:
- Maximum file size: 10 megabyte
- Audio format: MP3 or ACC
- Frame per second: up to 30fps
- Format: MP4
- Resolution: 16×9 or 1080 pexels
#2. Facebook
Have you ever watched a video ad that appears before you watch live streaming on Facebook? That’s a pre-roll advertisements! The ad is usually 5 to 15 seconds long. It will only appear if the video creators choose to monetise their live.
This advertisement is worth trying because Facebook claims that 2 billion people watch in-stream ads on the platform. That statistic strengthens its position as a top channel for video advertising.
Additionally, Facebook also provides a 6 seconds pre-roll advertisement. It appears on the search result when users look for a particular video.
To help advertisers reach the right audience, Facebook also expands its topic targeting options. There are more than 20 topics with 700 sub-topics that you can choose. If you select a topic, Facebook will allow you to place your ad in content tagged by creators or users with the chosen topic.
#3. Twitter
Twitter is another platform that offers pre-roll ads feature for advertisers. You can consider using this platform if your audience is millennials because 80% of its users are the young generation. Though Twitter isn’t that popular for video marketing, in fact, it performs well.
The average click-through rate is better than Facebook ads. Twitter can reach 1-3%, while Facebook only gains 0.119%. If you aren’t convinced, Twitter offers more than 200 content partners from 15 industries that will highlight your pre-roll ads and bring your ads in front of the right audience.
What makes pre-roll ads on Twitter more interesting is you can customize a call to action if you want to provide a clickable element on the ad. You can also choose video content you’d like to be paired with or don’t want to.
When it comes to the duration, Twitter gives you several options. You can make a 2 seconds ad to a 15 seconds pre-roll ad.
#4. Vimeo
With over 175 million active users globally, Vimeo can be another suitable platform for your pre-roll ads. However, this platform doesn’t have special features to publish ads like YouTube or Twitter.
You need a third-party tool to upload your pre-roll ads. Another fact is Vimeo doesn’t label ads as other platforms do. There isn’t “sponsored”, “ad”, or other terms that come up with your pre-roll ads. The good news is it doesn’t impact the effectiveness of your ads.
Now let’s see how businesses utilize video ads on Vimeo. They usually include a link on the video description and enable a clickable call to action. Once your audience clicks the link, they will go to your landing page.
Conclusion
Before making a pre-roll ad, it is better to determine which platform you will use as the distribution channel. Consider the duration, resolution, format, and other requirements.
More than that, you need to analyze the dominant users on each platform. Make sure your target audience is the active users on the platform.
Author Bio
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).
Twitter: @breadnbeyond
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: Andre Oentoro
