Video Ad

A product that takes explaining doesn't come across in a single image. What the screen does when several people edit one document at the same time can't be conveyed in text, and a display ad, laid into a slot as a banner, has nowhere to put that motion.

A video ad closes that gap with sound and movement. One condition comes attached: the viewer came for the video and not for the ad, so the ad is the thing interrupting.

Pagedeck's first 30-second ad missed that condition. The opening ten seconds were a logo and a company introduction. The skip button appears at five seconds, and by then nothing had said what the product was for; one viewer in twenty watched to the end. Among the ad formats that divide how an ad gets exposed, this one belongs to the group that stops people who weren't looking for anything.

Four things get decided.

1. The first five seconds. What you're selling has to arrive before the skip button does. The logo and the company name move to the back. Anybody not caught in that window is gone at six seconds, and for them the remaining 24 seconds don't exist.
2. Readability with the sound off. Slots that autoplay usually start muted. Without captions carrying what was said, those viewers get moving pictures and nothing else.
3. The billing basis. Some placements charge per impression, others only when somebody watched past a set duration. On a 30-second-view basis, a skip costs nothing, which raises the payoff for making the opening strong.
4. The length. Six, fifteen and thirty seconds are common. Six-second slots are usually unskippable and hold one sentence. Thirty gives room to explain, and demands that much more from the opening.

Measurement doesn't run on view count. Watch completion rate and how many people reached the site afterward. A hundred thousand views at 5 percent completion means five thousand people actually saw the ad. Unlike a search ad, which stands in front of somebody already looking, signups don't follow immediately here, so the verdict doesn't get made on the spot either.

"The product screen isn't in the first five seconds. Let's push the logo back."

It's decided before the skip button appears.

"Posted without captions, half of them won't know what's being said. It starts muted."

Naming the problem with a video built to rely on sound.

"A hundred thousand views at 5 percent completion. Five thousand people actually watched."

Separating the exposure number from real viewing.

At Pagedeck, Ravi builds a six-second and a thirty-second cut from the same material. The six-second version works on leaving the product name behind; the thirty-second one gets attached to people who have already seen that name.