There is no medium more engaging than video. It integrates sight, sound and motion and can transport virtual viewers anywhere in the world and educate them on any topic. Video advertising advancements continue to show more promise, targeted reach, and the usage is increasing by triple digit percentages year-over-year with significant growth expected to come in 2021. 

Yet, whenever video ads are in the picture, they often live in the shadow of three big myths that suggest their inefficiencies, which I want to debunk.

Myth #1: Video Advertising Is Only for Branding

Organizations creating 50 or more videos increased their overall results by 254% in the last year.

Video advertising is great for branding, but the benefits span far beyond that and can bolster the entire funnel from top to bottom. Top agencies use video for tactics such as lead generation and/or consumer education. 

While some data analysts and marketers frown at the rate of direct conversion, it is abundantly clear that there is a halo-effect on conversions.

According to an Animoto survey from 2018, 73% of consumers say they were influenced by a brand’s video posts on social media. That being said, Magna Global found 84% of consumers will disengage if a video ad interrupts their content. 

Engagement improves when the ad is contextualized with the video and there is a call and response relationship between the video content and the promoted product or service. A great success story example is mobile screen protector company Zagg. The company saw their conversion increase over a stunning 65% by advertising on product specific YouTube channels.

Myth #2: Impressions Are the Most Important Video Ad Metric

On average, 99.87% of impressions on a pre-roll video ad do not result in a click. 

The amount of views on your video ad does not always directly relate to success in lead generation, brand familiarity or conversions. Actually, virility and total impressions have very little impact on whether a video advertisement will do well, because broad isn’t always better. 

Success should be gauged on the way marketers target and interact with their specific audience. A home improvement professional in New York would never be focused on reaching recent homebuyers in Los Angeles. Those would not be tangible leads. The less time you have to spend on filtering relevant leads, the more time you have to move targeted leads through the funnel. 

A recent Hubspot study found 42% of users said that they almost never click on in-stream ads and 15% of those surveyed said they don’t even watch online videos. Instead of worrying about your video being seen by the most eyeballs, the key is to create video advertising that is engaging. That is what increases the probability of interaction.

Myth #3: You Can’t Afford Video Advertising

On average, video production costs on average $50K, however, there are formats that can cost close to $0. 

Typically, companies will use less than 10% of their advertising budget on video advertising, no matter the size of the company. With the myriad of free tools available and the accessibility to affordable high quality tech, any organization can produce engaging content without skipping the avocado toast. 

However, if production is a sore spot, certain forms of video ads can be created with simply a logo, links and some call-to-action (CTA) copy. In addition to selecting more affordable new video ad formats, you can also use a programmatic buying strategy. That way the company only pays for the cost per conversion you set.

How to Implement Conversion Strategy for Video Ads

The first step to implementing a conversion strategy for video is to confirm that video DOES drive conversions using research and attribution. There are years of data that show that video is not just an awareness tool, but each organization needs to give more weight to video as a driver of conversions. 

The second step is to prepare a mix of video ad units and creative to match the platform and the audience. For example, your TV ad will be different than your social media ad, which will also be different than your on-stream ad unit. 

The third step is recognizing that video is crucial to reaching your target audience. The video market is 5X larger than the print and radio markets combined.   

YouTube alone has a massive population of 2 billion users that are increasing the video content they view by 50% year over year. There is no better time to start diving into the ocean of video advertising than now.

Zack Rosenberg is the founding CEO of CatapultX, an “on-stream” video company that is empowering brands and publishers to harness the power of AI to connect with consumers in-the-moment across all digital channels.

Snapchat, making video advertising more prevalent on its platform, said it is rolling out its First Commercial product to all U.S. advertisers after a successful beta trial.

With First Commercial, advertisers are assured that the first thing a Snapchat user sees when they open the app is an unskippable six-second commercial. The product has been in beta since April and has been used by brands including NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Tinder.

Snapchat said that during the beta trial, the lift in brand awareness is more than two times higher for Snapchatters whose first ad on the platform is a commercial versus a Snap Ad.

“We know we can count on Snap to consistently deliver creative tools and media formats that help us engage with our audience in novel ways, putting our members at the center of our brand while giving them the freedom to create in ways that inspire them,” said Nicole Parlapiano, VP of North American marketing for Tinder, the first brand to run First Commercial alongside a national lens and national filter on the same day. Snap said the cost per completed view of the commercial was 4 cents. 

“For the launch of our Photo Verification feature, we used a National Lens and National Filter to highlight how these selfies can make your Tinder experience more authentic,” Parlapiano said. “At the same time, we added a First Commercial to the mix so that we also reached users watching shows on Snapchat’s Discover platform. All together, these three touch points drove meaningful adoption of the feature across the US.”

Snapchat said that First Commercial will be available in Snaps Ads Manager in mid-October.

First Commercial is part of a push to sell more video advertising to fit with programming on its Discover Platform as the number of Snapchatters watching shows on the platform has increased by 45% in the second quarter compared to a year earlier. 

As part of that effort, Snapchat has hired video ad sales executives, including David Roter of Twitter and Peter Naylor of Hulu.

Snap also said it will launch three new docu-series featuring talent that it said resonates with its community.

Honestly Loren, from ITV America and Sirens Media, features social media star Loren Gray exploring what happiness really means to her. Life’s a Tripp from Trooper Entertainment features Tripp Redd, who is voting for the first time in 2020 and takes a journey to experience major issues from drug addition to police reform with celebrity friends. Swae Meets World from Big Fish Entertainment, is centered on Swae Lee as he prepares to launch his first solo album apart from his brother.

All three series are scheduled to debut in 2021.

Video advertising platform SpotX said an extended partnership with zvelo is enabling it to prevent brands' commercials from running in objectionable content.

Zvelo’s ability to detect and block malicious websites and content— including fake news —helps ensure brand safety for SpotX users. Other content blocked includes material supporting terrorism and cryptocurrency mining, SpotX said.

Related: Advertisers Following Viewers as They Move to Over-the-Top

“Our expanded partnership with zvelo really reinforces SpotX’s unwavering commitment to brand safety, as well as our duty to clean up the video ad ecosystem and educate media buyers about fraudulent inventory as new threats emerge,” said Nick Frizzell, senior director, brand safety & inventory operations at, SpotX.

“Empowered by zvelo’s technology, we’re able to help media buyers avoid brand-damaging associations with fake news,” Frizzell said. “In an environment where buyers continually struggle to identify worthwhile ad inventory within the onslaught of new content and websites emerging every day, our zvelo-backed brand safety practices help publishers sort through the noise and successfully target advantageous ad placements.”

Related: fuboTV Connects With SpotX for Programmatic Advertising

Zvelo provides a classification engine that categorizes fake news using a combination of static and heuristic analysis techniques, aggregation of vetted third-party “fake news” feeds, and human-supervised machine learning.

"SpotX was the first supply-side platform that we partnered with in providing content categorization for brand safety, and we’re proud of the work we’ve done together to make the internet a safer place to advertise,” said Jeff Finn, CEO, zvelo. “At the same time, we’re excited to provide greater capabilities for the categorization of fake news sources than ever before, and to assist SpotX in offering a thoroughly vetted, brand-safe ad inventory for publishers.”