What are Pre-Roll Ads and Why it Can Help Your Business?

The rise in video content's popularity in recent years has made digital video advertising more popular too. While people generally find this type of ad effective and interesting, it's important to note that not all video ads are equal. In this article, we will examine pre-roll ads and why they are a smart choice for your video advertising business.

What are Pre-Roll Ads?

Pre-roll ads belong to the category of instream video ads. Instream ads, as their name implies, appear during a video stream. The term "pre-roll" signifies the exact positioning of the ad within the stream, meaning it appears before the video content begins. In contrast, there are other kinds of instream ads like-roll ads, which appear in the middle of the stream, and post-roll ads, which play after the video has concluded.

Why You Should Use Pre-Roll Videos

Pre-roll ads aim to catch the viewer's attention right away and make them feel they want to know more. They're short and don't need to tell the whole story of your brand – just enough to make the viewer curious and want to click to your website or landing page for more information. Since you have the viewer's attention while they're already looking at the screen for their main content, you have a fantastic chance to introduce your brand to a captured audience.

What Kind of Pre-Roll Video You Should Make

Let's be real here. Nobody really wants to sit through an ad before they can watch what they actually came for. So, the key is to genuinely entertain and please your audience instead of loading your pre-roll ad with a sales message. Some of the best pre-roll ads don't even tell you what a company sells, let alone provide detailed cost or purchase information.

This isn't the time for long, wordy text, lots of contact info, or other promotional stuff. Your sole objective is to entice your viewer to click on the ad for more details. If you can simply grab your viewer's attention and keep it for the duration of the ad, then you've got yourself a successful pre-roll video. Forget about the sales pitch for now, and your content will work much better.

How Pre-Roll Ads Compare to Other Instream Ad Formats

How well do pre-roll video ads work? Studies reveal that they perform better than mid-roll and post-roll ads. Specifically, pre-roll ads achieve a 47% higher conversion rate than mid-roll ads, and mid-roll ads, in turn, boast a 58% better conversion rate than post-roll ads.

Another study emphasizes that pre-roll ads offer more than just superior conversion rates. They are more than three times less likely to be seen as interruptions compared to other types of instream ads. Additionally, pre-roll ads exhibit stronger ad recall statistics, and viewers generally find them to be more informative and engaging.

Due to these impressive statistics, pre-rolls are undoubtedly the most sought-after digital advertising space among the three instream ad types. In simpler terms, almost all video publishers want to advertise in this slot. This leads to two important outcomes: first, pre-rolls command a higher CPM (cost per thousand impressions), allowing publishers to earn more revenue. Second, because of the high demand, pre-rolls enjoy a higher ad fill rate.

Pre-Roll Ad Best Practices

1. Activate Autoplay

If you turn on autoplay for your video player, you'll make sure that nearly every visitor to your website watches a pre-roll ad, whether they care about the video or not. This will lead to more people seeing the ad and, as a result, greater ad income. But remember, many web browsers only permit autoplay if the video's sound is turned off, so you could lose the chance to display some high-CPM ads that depend on audio.

2. Use the “Call Ad Again” Feature

Even if you have autoplay turned on, it's not certain that the player will always have a pre-roll ad for every visitor on your site. Target Video's "Call Ad Again" feature increases your odds of getting those pre-roll views. In simple terms, when there's no ad available for autoplay, the player will switch to the click-to-play mode. Then, with "Call Ad Again" turned on, when the user clicks the play button, the player will try again to show an ad by making another ad request.

Also read: How to Advertise Your Video with YouTube Ads (A Complete Guide)

3. Create Short Videos Playlist

By making more ad requests, you can show more ads. When you make a playlist of several shorter videos, you'll create more opportunities to display pre-roll ads. To put it simply, every visitor who watches two or more videos from your playlist will add to the total number of ad views you can provide.

4. Maximize Viewability With a Floating Video Player

One effective method to boost your video ad earnings is to have your HTML5 video player move along with the viewer. And yes, we mean it quite literally. If a user starts watching a video but then scrolls away before it finishes, a floating video player will appear in the corner of the screen and stay there, even as the user continues scrolling through the page. The player is small enough not to disrupt the user's experience significantly, but it encourages the viewer to stay engaged with your video content. This, in turn, ensures more ad views, as ads only count when a user has watched them for a certain number of seconds.

5. Leverage Contextual Targeting

The upcoming demise of third-party cookies will significantly alter the digital advertising scene, making behavioral targeting nearly impractical. That's why it's crucial to embrace contextual targeting without delay. With contextual video advertising, the ads displayed on your website or app will align with the surrounding content. For instance, if your content is all about pets, your visitors are likely to encounter ads for pet stores, pet food, and other pet-related items and services.

Also read: How to Write an Impactful Video Marketing Script (2023)

Ready to Get Started? Here's what you need to do.

It's the perfect moment to begin creating your pre-roll video content. People are watching these videos regularly, so don't miss out on the chance to showcase your brand to an audience that's already engaged. If you need assistance to begin, that's precisely why we're here! We create pre-roll videos for clients of all sizes, across all industries, and with various budgets.