Video Ad Guidelines & Best Practices

Before you build your campaign, it's important to be aware of the advertising policies and requirements for the video ad format you've chosen. You'll need to build your campaign and video ads so that they are in compliance with these guidelines.

Next, to build a successful video ad campaign, it's important to be certain whether your goal is to build a branding campaign, or a direct response campaign. You can then follow best practices according to your goals and align your campaign settings and video ad content accordingly.

Video Ad Policies

AdWords video ads are subject to AdWords advertising policies, and these policies may differ slightly depending on the video ad format. Video ads will be disapproved if they are not in compliance with these guidelines. Disapproved ads may not run on Google or the Google advertising network.

Review the advertising policies for video ads in the AdWords Help Center.

Video Ad Creation Best Practices

Video Content

The video you create for your ad should be direct and engaging. You don't have a captive audience, so it's important to maintain user attention throughout the duration of the video. Keeping the tips below in mind will help.

• Deliver your key messages early in the video, because users may not watch the full length. Play rates drop off significantly after 45 seconds, and some publishers may choose to only show videos that are 15 seconds long or less.
• Be clear about what your business offers and your message, since the video may be your sole communication with a site's users.
• Provide clear next steps for users to take after finishing the video, such as making a purchase or visiting your website or store.
• Video content should be entertaining, informational, and relevant to what your business offers. You only have a captive audience if they choose to continue watching your ad, and viewers can drop off at any time. Users are more likely to view most of the content if the video has an entertaining storyline and if they are able to learn about your product's features through the video.
• Video ads allow you to use both sight and sound to communicate with your consumers, so make sure that the voices and sound tracks you use complement your overall message. If you're using a soundtrack, the music should not drown out any voices.

Opening Image (Click-to-play only):

Your image should be descriptive and eye-catching. We suggest using the techniques below to create an effective opening image:

• Entice users to click play using rich, sharp colors.
• Include a few words to describe your product, service, and/or company.
• Boost your play rate with a call-to-action that lets users know they can play the video to learn more.
• Create multiple video ads with different opening image sizes to increase the number of placements where your ad will be eligible to appear.
• Avoid using standard banner ads as the opening image. We've found that an opening image that doesn't look like an actual advertisement can generate greater interest. Such "non-commercial" images make users feel like there's more to learn by clicking the "play" button and viewing your video.
• Avoid cramming text into your opening image -- crowded and complicated messages can be unattractive to users. The key is to arouse people's curiosity and make them wonder what the video is about.
• Make sure the quality of your opening image is consistent with the quality of your video. Don't make a bad impression on your audience by showing an interesting image to entice people to play the video but then provide disappointing video content.

Video Ad Performance Best Practices

It's important to monitor the performance of your video ad to be sure it's reaching users in a way that's optimal for you. We recommend waiting at least 30 days after beginning a video campaign to measure its success. The return on investment (ROI) that a video campaign brings to your business sometimes may not be apparent immediately.

After your video ads have had a chance to run for a while, review their performance and consider optimizing your campaigns to keep them effective and valuable for your campaign, whether it's branding or direct-response focused.

Ad performance

To effectively monitor the performance of your ad, we suggest following the tips below:

• If you find that interaction rates are declining, keep your campaign fresh by adding new videos or images to keep users engaged.
• Bid by impression rather than by click; this way, lower clickthrough rates won't affect where your ad appears.
• When running cost-per-click (CPC) campaigns, use negative keywords and exclusions to prevent your ad from appearing where it would not be effective.
• Focus on interaction rates, rather than clickthrough rate or cost-per-conversion, as these are a better indicator of the time your audience engages with your brand.

Beyond just concentrating on individual video ads, you should also consider your campaign performance more broadly.

• Use geo-targeting to focus your advertising to regions or areas where you conduct business.
• Tailor your campaign to specific sites and demographic groups with placement targeting.
• If using a keyword-targeted campaign, make sure your keywords are closely related to your specific theme or topic.
• Optimize your bids to reach a target cost-per-play price.

Placement performance

Use interaction rate to compare how each of your targeted sites is performing in comparison to your campaign average:

• If a site is performing substantially better than your average, add more sites like it to your campaign. Enter the URL in the "List URLs" box in the Placement Tool to get a list of possible website targeting options.
• Consider excluding less valuable sites where users are frequently exposed to your ad and extending the reach of your campaign by adding better sites through the Placement Tool.
• If you want to continue running on sites with dropping interaction rates, try adding new video ads to your campaign to provide a fresh experience. If your campaign is keyword-targeted, extend your reach by adding additional relevant keywords to expand the number of possible contextual placements.
• By using negative keywords or exclusions, you can prevent your ads from showing up alongside content that may not fit with your specific marketing objectives. This helps to keep your ad placement as targeted as possible and to reach your desired audience.