As an Adobe online video advertising study has already shown, post-roll ads have the lowest completion rate while mid-roll and pre-roll ads have better results. Even so, all three can be used with success in advertising campaigns, depending on how well specialists manage to use the existing information on them. What types of campaigns go better with what type of ad and what type of content should they be inserted in?
When should we use post-roll ads?
The best option you have when using post-roll ads consists in offering the viewer follow-up information to the content he came online to watch. A good idea in this sense would be an ad on a concert of the band they were watching, an ad on a hair care product after a hair styling tutorial or a place where they serve the best coffee in town after a video on hot beverages. This format of online video advertising has the lowest completion rates, only 50% of viewers watching such ads.
When should we use mid-roll ads?
Viewers seem to “love” mid-roll ads more than any other type of online video advertising format. This is mainly because they have no choice on the matter and they do not wish to abandon the content they were watching. The more a viewer is interested in a specific type of content, the more prone he/she will be to let the ad play when the video is paused.
This format mirrors the TV experience perfectly in matters of how the online program is interrupted by “a word from our sponsor”. The good thing about it, though, lies with the fact that people are used to it enough so as not to mind that much. Mid-roll ads can practically be used in any type of content and any type of ad, since the viewer has nothing else to do but to watch the ad.
When should we use pre-roll ads?
Although an untold rule in online video advertising is that of matching the ad with the online content for better benefitting from the impeccable targeting resulting from the viewer’s own selection, pre-roll ads can also be placed randomly. The results and the consumer engagement will not be the same as in the advised frame but, since the ad cannot be skipped, the viewer will still sit through it.
Viewers are much more tolerant of video ads than they are of videos that take a while to load – viewers who had to wait for around 10 seconds for their video to load were three times more likely to abandon the ad than users who spend the same amount of time watching a pre-roll ad.
If at first marketers were thrilled at the thought of being able to place ads online and would do it as they saw fit, in time, this process became somewhat “regulated” by consumer demands and behavior. Internet users have become accustomed to the thought that they must tolerate commercials in their free video content but their attitude toward these ads is what dictates the way in which they are used in online video advertising.
