Advertising & Paid Media
Video advertising
Also known as: video ads, online video advertising
Video advertising is paid media that uses moving image to reach audiences across platforms such as YouTube, connected TV, social feeds and publisher sites. Formats range from skippable and non-skippable in-stream ads to short in-feed clips and out-stream placements. It is bought on impressions, views or conversions depending on the objective.
What it is
Video ads appear before, during or alongside content, or natively within a scrolling feed. The buying options differ by platform and format, and so do the norms for length, sound and captioning. Measurement mixes exposure metrics such as views and completions with outcome metrics such as conversions and brand lift.
Why it matters
Video is how a large share of people now research, compare and are entertained, so it carries both awareness and demonstration duties. It is also a strong driver of the branded demand that later appears in search, direct traffic and AI assistant prompts. For complex products, showing the thing working often persuades faster than text.
How it works
Teams set an objective first, then pick formats and lengths that match it, for example six second bumpers for reach and longer demonstrations for consideration. Creative is built for sound off viewing with captions and early brand presence, with vertical versions for feeds and horizontal for CTV. Results are read with view rate, completion rate and cost per view for exposure, plus conversion and brand lift studies for impact.
When it applies
Use video when you need to build awareness, explain something visual, or reach audiences who spend their attention on streaming and social platforms. It applies across the funnel, but the format, length and measurement approach must change with the objective.
Examples
- A fintech app runs six second bumpers for reach alongside fifteen second in-feed clips optimised for app installs.
- A kitchen appliance brand buys connected TV placements for a demonstration film, then retargets viewers with shorter product cutdowns.
- A professional services firm publishes short client interview clips as paid in-feed video to a job title audience on LinkedIn.
How it is measured
- View rate and completion rate by format and placement
- Cost per completed view or cost per thousand impressions
- View-through and post-view conversions attributed to video exposure
- Brand lift in ad recall, awareness or consideration from platform studies
Insights on Video advertising
Related terms in Advertising & Paid Media
- AI-generated creativeAI-generated creative is ad and marketing creative produced or adapted using generative models, including images, video, voiceover, headlines and body copy. Teams use it to produce more variants, localise faster and test concepts that would be too costly to shoot. It still needs human direction, brand review and legal checks before it runs.
- Asset groupsAn asset group is the creative container inside a Google Performance Max or Demand Gen campaign, holding headlines, descriptions, images, logos, videos and audience signals. Google assembles ads from these assets and serves them across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps. Retail campaigns can tie an asset group to a specific set of products through listing groups.
- Brand safetyBrand safety is the practice of preventing advertising and brand content from appearing next to material that could damage reputation, such as violent, illegal or misleading content. Brand suitability is the related, narrower idea of matching placements to a specific brand's tolerance and values rather than a universal baseline. Both rely on exclusion lists, content classification and verification reporting.
- ChatGPT AdsChatGPT Ads refers to advertising placements inside OpenAI's ChatGPT. OpenAI has publicly signalled that advertising is part of its commercial plans and has been testing and building out ad capabilities, so the format details continue to change. For marketers it represents a possible new paid surface alongside organic visibility in AI assistants.
- ChatGPT Sponsored AgentsChatGPT Sponsored Agents is the name given to a paid placement format in which a brand's agent or assistant can be surfaced inside a ChatGPT conversation to help complete a task, such as booking, quoting or buying. It sits alongside other advertising formats OpenAI has discussed for ChatGPT, where commercial results are marked as sponsored rather than blended invisibly into answers. Availability, naming and mechanics are still moving, so treat any specification as provisional and check current OpenAI documentation before planning spend.
- Conversational advertisingConversational advertising is paid placement inside a dialogue, whether that is an AI assistant, a chatbot, a messaging app or a voice interface. Instead of a static creative next to content, the ad appears as a response, suggestion or handover at the point where the user has expressed intent. The defining features are turn-by-turn context, a disclosure label, and the option for the user to keep talking rather than click away.
Primary research · August 2026
How ChatGPT Shortlists Software Brands
An audit across 10 categories and 60 buying questions. I recorded what ChatGPT reads, throws away and links to when a buyer asks it which software to buy, and what that decides.
- 60
- Questions asked
- 10
- Software markets
- 2,680
- Results read
- 367
- Links shown
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