One of the most dynamic advertising formats in social networks in 2022-2023 has been vertical mobile video clips, known as Shorts and Reels. These short videos were inspired by TikTok. Let’s take a closer look at why they’ve gained such popularity among users and why they continue to remain relevant. Let's begin.
Reels are short videos on Instagram and Facebook, stored in a separate folder from Stories, and with no limit on publication duration.
The main difference between Reels and Stories is the publication time. Stories are available for 24 hours, while Reels remain available as saved videos.
Reels became popular because they have dedicated buttons in social networks and appear in news feeds or the "explore" section. That’s why this format quickly gained popularity and became highly demanded for advertising.
Advertising in Reels on Instagram & Facebook is done by placing vertical video ads through the ad placement settings in your ad campaign group.
Enabling reels ads on Instagram or Facebook. To activate reels ads:
We’ve previously covered the dimensions for Reels in our blog.
At the same time, YouTube adopted the vertical video format and named it simply – Shorts.
Shorts are short, vertical videos up to 60 seconds in length, published on YouTube.
Advertising in Shorts on YouTube - this type of ad plays while viewing vertical short videos in the Shorts section on mobile devices.
The ad format looks like this:
How to advertise in the Shorts format?
As of 2023, Google offers two ways to run ads in Shorts. Here’s how you can do it.
First Method – Customized:
- Create a video campaign in Google Ads;
- In the campaign settings, under "Devices," select “Mobile Phones”;
- Upload a vertical Shorts video with the following ad specifications:
- Aspect ratio - 9:16;
- Duration - No more than 60 seconds;
- Title length - No more than 100 characters.
- The ad format should be “In-stream” (player mode).
* When creating the video, keep in mind that in fullscreen mode on desktop, it will have black bars on the sides. This is why we recommend selecting “Mobile Phones” in the campaign settings.
** Shorts won’t play on desktop yet, as YouTube currently lacks the technical capability.
*** Also, there’s an opinion that by uploading a video in this format, it will automatically be shown only in Shorts on mobile devices. However, we decided to be cautious and adjust the campaign settings accordingly.
Second method – standard:
In the fall of 2023, Google introduced a BETA feature for larger accounts, called “Brand Awareness and Reach Campaigns,” where you can choose the video ad format and specify that the ads should only appear in Shorts.
The only drawback of this campaign type is the cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) pricing model, which may not be proportionate to sales performance. And sales are precisely what advertisers need most.
We hope you found this material helpful. See you next time.
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