Switched to shorter video ads for a food festival and engagement doubled

I made 30 second ads instead of my usual 90 second ones for the Austin Taco Festival last month. I figured people would just scroll past, but the click-through rate went up to 4.2% compared to my old 1.8%. Turns out people want the info fast and don't need a whole story. Has anyone else seen better results with shorter ad formats for event marketing?

3 comments

3 Comments

gavin_kelly912d ago

Laughed out loud at your results because honestly, that's exactly what I'd expect from my own dumb luck. I once made a 45 second ad for a chili cookoff and spent three days editing the perfect slow-motion jalapeño shot, only to realize later that nobody even clicked past 15 seconds. My click-through rate was like 0.3% so you basically doubled my sanity by cutting yours down. Some of us just gotta learn the hard way that less is more, even if it hurts the filmmaker inside.

thompson.nathan2d ago

Holy crap 4.2%? That's insane for a click through rate on ads honestly. I tried something similar for a local music festival I was helping with and we went from 60 second spots down to 20 seconds and our conversions actually dropped. Maybe it depends on the crowd or the product or something but I'm shocked you got double the engagement just by cutting the time in half. People really are that impatient these days I guess.

dylanmurray2d ago

Have you thought about whether the length of the ad matters less than the actual content placement? Like, maybe the first 20 seconds of your 60 second spot had all the good stuff and the rest was filler, but when you cut to 20 seconds you accidentally trimmed something important. I saw a study once where they found that cutting the middle of a longer ad actually hurt results, but cutting the end was fine because nobody watches that far anyway. Could be that your drop was just bad luck with what got chopped.