Video has become a priceless medium for promoting your brand, engaging with your audience, and delivering a clear message. Over 86% of businesses use videos in their marketing strategies. Some companies, however, have decided to stick to the tried and tested image advertising. Both video and image ads can be great sources of revenue, but let’s see which ad format of the two gives the best results.

What Are Video Ads?

In simple terms, video ads utilize video content to promote products, services, or brands. 
Based on the type, video ads may accompany existing video content or play in a standalone video player. Some may even not require a player at all, as is the case with companion and in-banner video ads. Video ads can vary in length, format, and positioning, they can auto-play or play after being prompted, and they can be muted or unmuted, skippable or unskippable.

What Are the Types of Video Ads?

Depending on when and where they show up, video ads can be divided into two types, instream and outstream video ads: 

• Instream Video Ads — Instream ads can be linear and non-linear. Linear ads are the ones that interrupt a video stream and can be pre-roll (appear before the stream starts), mid-roll (appear at a certain point during the stream), and post-roll (appear at the very end of the video). On the other hand, non-linear ads, also known as overlay ads, appear on top of or around the running video content without disrupting it. 
• Outstream Video Ads  — Outsteam video ads are video ads that appear in non-video environments such as blogs and articles. Based on their position and characteristics, there are in-slide (they appear in the corner of the page and follow the user while they slide through the content), in-banner (show up in a banner rather than a video player), and in-content ads ( that blend within the text content). 

What Are Image Ads?

Most commonly used in display advertising, image ads use static visual content, such as images or graphics, to convey a marketing message. They come in multiple formats, such as banners and interstitial ads, and they often include a text-based CTA. They are cost-effective and easy to implement on websites. 

Video Ads vs. Image Ads: Which One Is Better for Publishers?

Both video and image ads have their advantages for publishers. For instance, if you’re a publisher with a large video content selection, e.g., an OTT service, incorporating video ads should be your focus, as they usually come at higher CPMs and have a higher earning potential. Similarly, if you have several available display ad slots on your website, image ads would be your forte. Generally, publishers choose based on their available resources and, of course, their user base. 

Video vs. Image Ads: What Do the Statistics Say?

If we look at the statistics, it becomes clear that video ads usually perform better than many other ad formats, including images. Video helps increase website traffic and dwell time, convey a clearer picture of the product or service, and generate new leads. Let’s take a look at some numbers:

This is not to say that image ads are completely obsolete and we should just forget about them. After all, not every piece of information is video-worthy. 

For starters, it only takes users a few seconds to look at an image and decide if they’re interested in the advertised product. Much more efficient for advertisers than having to sit through a 15-second video. 

Secondly, images are still cheaper to produce than videos. Many businesses simply can’t or don’t want to work videos into their budgets.

Lastly, because of their limited capacity for written text, image ads (or at least the good ones) tend to be concise, snappy, and memorable. 

What Do Publishers Prefer?

As mentioned, a publisher’s choice entirely depends on their available ad inventory. So whether they opt to incorporate image or video ads, they need to make sure that the ads in question match the overall design of their website (fit the available ad slots), go along with their content vertical, and that their integration will not impact the core web vitals of their website negatively. 

The Profitability of Video and Image Ads for Publishers

There is no precise census on which of these two ad formats is more profitable for publishers (only individual assessment based on their own website characteristics), but the general rule of supply and demand still applies. 

For instance, video ad placements are generally more sought after due to how engaging video content is, which can result in higher CPM for publishers. 

On the other hand, due to the low cost of image ad production and the popularity of display advertising among advertisers, publishers are offered a wide range of ad networks for display ads, giving them a larger pool of ad demand and decreasing the chances of fill rate drops. 

Adding Video Ads and Image Ads to Your Platform

Image ads are a lot easier to implement than video ads. For publishers to incorporate video ads into their websites, they need a quality video player that won’t impact the website’s latency and can support multiple codecs and video file formats. Not to mention, the player needs to ensure quality, low-latency playback. In addition, publishers also need quality video content they can play and monetize. 
In contrast, image ads are smaller in size. They are compatible with numerous devices, browsers, and platforms. They are flexible in placement, as they can be banners, sidebar ads, interstitial ads, or ads within the content — native advertising.

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Image vs. Video Ads by Platform

Since every online platform, whether it’s social media or another type of platform, has a specific content type that is usually more prevalent/popular, the performance of image and video ads will also vary from platform to platform. For instance, on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, video content is the most popular format, so advertisements in the form of short clips will be a lot more successful. And for a cooking review website, for example, it would be blog posts, so native display ads might fit in better. However, can the same be said about Google, Facebook, and Instagram? Let’s find out. 

Image vs. Video Ads on Google

Video ads are becoming more and more prominent on Google. However, this depends on the industry, campaign objectives, and target audience. Display ads still remain one of the most frequently used formats due to having better clickthrough rates.  

Image vs. Video Ads on Facebook Ads

While the recent changes in policies, like Apple’s Tracking Transparency, have caused some damage to the digital advertising world on Facebook, both image and video ads are still frequent on the platform. However, 52% of surveyed advertisers have stated that they prefer leveraging video ads. In addition, according to them, video drives more ad clicks.

Image vs. Video Ads on Instagram

Both organic and sponsored videos perform better than their image counterparts on Instagram. More specifically, video ads on Instagram generate three times as much user engagement. Similarly, organic video posts see around 40% more comments and likes than organic images. 

Video vs. Image Ads: An Overview

Ultimately, including both video and image ads on their website is the best solution for publishers. This way, publishers serve more ads, i.e., diversify their revenue streams. For instance, incorporating multiple banner ads on a web page alongside outstream video ads or instream video ads (within the publisher’s video content) is a great way to maximize potential earnings. 

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