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Tips to optimize video ad serving

We have all heard the old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words, and if that is indeed the case, then you can only imagine the potential value of a video. There is a reason why advertisers are turning to video ad serving to lure in customers, and it all begins with getting a ton of valuable information out to customers in a way that is both informative and entertaining. While video ads are commonly used as a way of advertising, not every publisher gets the most out of them. If you are thinking about creating and serving video ads for your business, then there are some things that you need to know that will help improve your chances of reaching the people you want. Let’s take a look at a few tips:

Customize by device

Who are you trying to reach with your video ads and where are they most likely to be watching? These are two basic questions that need to be answered before you start creating marketing videos and trafficking those ads onto the ad server. Because the same ad may not look exactly the same when viewed on different devices, customizing them to fit the device that they will be displayed on, such as TV, mobile, or desktop is a good idea before you release them to the masses.

For example, if you were in the business of selling a smartphone app, you might want to customize videos for mobile devices, which likely have smaller screen sizes than big-screen smart TVs. On the other hand, a high-resolution video ad that plays perfectly and beautifully on big-screen TVs might be slow to load and too heavy for a mobile phone. It is important to know the common video ad errors, their causes and typical solutions so that you can prevent them ahead of time and quickly fix them when they do arise with the goal to minimize wasted ad impressions.

Take advantage of platform-specific features

There are a ton of different places where you can use video ad serving. Many of these video platforms come with a set of unique features that are designed to help enhance the user’s experience or the ad’s effectiveness. For example, you might consider having a companion ad when viewing on the web, or perhaps going with interactive ads that people can explore with their Roku remote control. All of these features are designed to help viewers engage with the ad. Because it might be more time consuming and costly to create special features of your ad just for these platforms, you need to consider the return-on-investment (ROI) of these additions. If it takes too much time and money without getting many impressions or clicks then it is going to have a low ROI. Therefore, you need to ask yourself several questions before considering the customizations. Is it easy to implement? How big is the share of impressions on this platform? Are there incentives or tech support from the publisher?

Part 2 - Length, resolution, reporting and target audience

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