The future is video—at least, that’s what the industry is saying. According to eMarketer, brands are projected to spend $53.39 billion on video ads by 2023. Before incorporating video into your marketing mix, keep the following in mind to ensure your campaigns are set up for success.

1. Less Is Always More

It’s well established that consumers have short attention spans, zipping through everything from music to TV shows to ads within seconds. On average, Facebook users spend only 1.7 seconds on mobile content and 2.5 seconds on desktop. With this in mind, make sure you don’t overstay your welcome with long, meandering videos. Facebook recommends keeping videos between 5-15 seconds since they have a higher conversion rate. Make them fun, make them colorful, but most importantly, make them short.

2. Test to Be the Best

Unsure about making the move to video? It might be a good idea to get your feet wet by testing video against other ad types and seeing what resonates best with your audience. Recently, one of our customers, PADI, A/B tested display and video to help inform future campaign optimizations. The results speak for themselves: video ads delivered a 6x and 2.8x higher click-through rate (CTR) for prospecting and retargeting, respectively. There’s only one way to know whether video is right for you, and that’s by testing it out on your digital campaigns.

3. Know What You’re Measuring For

Whether it’s brand awareness, engagement, or response, having a clear set of goals from the outset will enable you to easily measure the impact of your efforts. A few things to consider include type(s) of attribution models, data, success metrics, and the most appropriate and accurate technology. For example, if your goal is to improve brand awareness, you should be optimizing for clicks, impressions, view-through rates (VTR), and average engagement. Make sure to do your due diligence and think holistically before launching your video ad campaigns.

4. Get More Bang For Your Buck

Marketers who used video see a whopping 81% increase in sales and a 54% boost in brand awareness. Recently, Hawaii Shark Encounters, an experience-based company centered around ocean education, used video to lower their cost per thousand impressions (CPM) and cost per acquisition (CPA) by 69% and 66.8%, respectively, and produce a consistent ROI of 3.4x. The proof is in the pudding.

Interested in getting your own video campaigns set up? Set time with one of our display advertising experts today.

Originally published on May 7th, 2019, last updated on July 22nd, 2022.