According to Cisco reports, more than 80% of all internet traffic comes from videos.

As internet users continue to prefer video to all forms of content, video marketing is becoming an integral part of marketing strategy.

However, one of the difficult part about video marketing is to get internet users to watch your content.  

Psst ! Enter autoplay.

Autoplay is a unique approach to video marketing that doesn’t rely on a viewer initiating the ‘’play’’.

 It turns out that most people are likely to watch an ad when it automatically plays rather than having to play it themselves. This is the reasoning behind the ads marketing strategy for businesses.  

Here’s everything you need to know about autoplay video ads:

Creating an Effective Autoplay Ads

Some of the benefits of these adds include; instant engagement, improved user experience and increased conversion rate.

Creating an effective autoplay ads needs good planning. Here are some tips:

1. Identify Your Main Goal

What do you hope to achieve with your autoplay video?Your primary goal  will be driving force behind your video. Is it more sales? Or do you want to boost brand loyalty with success stories? Whatever it is, it should be well defined.

2. Research Your Audience

Who are you looking to attract? It’s difficult to generate leads If you don’t know your target audience.

 Ensure you’ve done adequate market research on your target audience to achieve your business goals.

3. Research Your Competitors

What are your competitors up to?Find out their marketing angles so that you know how to make your autoplay ad stand out.

4. Audit Your Past Performance

Analyze your past videos to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Learn from your past mistakes to generate more leads.

Ways to Increase Your Leads Using Autoplay Video Ads

Consider the following best practices when aiming to generate leads with video ads:

1.Mute Your Autoplay Ads

The reason why some marketers are still using loud Autoplay Ads is because they work. The psychology behind  lead generation process has always been invasive  anyway.

While constantly using loud autoplay Ads on your target audience  can generate some leads, this practice could also have negative outcome. Customers might begin to associate your marketing technique with unprofessionalism.

Resist the urge to be loud while trying to capture the attention of your target customers. Use silent autoplay ads with clear text instead.

 A potential lead will be interested to check any autoplay ads uninvited -loud or mute. This strategy shows professionalism and consideration for your audience’s browsing experience, giving them positive outlook of your brand.

Even with a mute video, ensure your video features a visible control menu. Due to their intrusive nature, some people might negatively  react to your auto play video ads. With the help of visible menu, such a user can quickly close the the video.

2.Focus on Grabbing Viewers’ Attention

There are so many businesses competing for your target niche’s attention online. Starting from different social media platforms to websites. The average digital customer is bombarded with marketing content at every turn.

The content bombardment has made internet users lose interest in  promotional content, calling for a need of new approaches to capturing their attention.

When creating autoplay Ads that generate leads, focus on the following:

Attention: By it’s very intrusive nature, an autoplay ad is likely to grab internet user’s attention. But, you’ll need to front a thought provoking promise or emotionally compelling offer within the first five seconds, otherwise they will quickly close the video.

Why emotionally compelling offer?

According to an Oxford University research on consumer behavior, humans purchase on emotion and use logic to rationalize it.

Since your ad is on mute, make sure to use creative visuals to catch internet user’s attention and then have your emotional offer  in clear concise writing.  

Interest:Now that you’ve grabbed their attention, next thing is to lead them on. What’s unique about your product or service that separates you from the competitors?  How will your offer make the consumer’s life better.

Desire: At this point, ignite your target’s interest to provoke desire. The objective is to make them feel as if they are missing out on the World without your product or service.

Action: No matter how emotionally appealing your offer is, don’t expect a lead without a Call-to-Action(CTA). This is where you prompt the user to take the next course of action.

Think of CTA as the connector between your ad video and actionable step you want your potential customers to take.

Make your CTA very specific. Leave no room for ambiguity. Another effective psychological trick you can apply on your CTA is to create a sense of urgency. This trick is likely to make the internet user to take immediate action to avoid missing out on the offer.

3.Keep It Short and Sweet

An average modern human checks their phones nearly 150 times a day, and shifts their attention in less than 10 seconds. What does this mean? As a marketer, you have very limited amount of time to push your product before their shifts somewhere else.

 Minimize use of promotional language. The aim of autoplay video ads is to generate leads and not to immediately convert.Focus on making creative ads that will give you better engagement, generate more views and gain more shares.

Even though there’s a dire need to keep your video short, remember professionalism is everything.

4.Focus on Problem, then Solve it

All humans want easier convenient life. Emphasize on viewers problem to remind them their pain points.

Once they remember how helplessness they felt in the past , dive back with the solution. You’ll generate leads.

5.Optimize Your Video Ad for Mobile

With more than than 50% of all web traffic coming from mobile gadgets, failing to optimize your video ad for mobile is setting up yourself for failure.Optimizing your video for mobile make it fit seamlessly into mobile screen and orientation.  

6.Provoke Emotions

Emotion is part of human life and the most sought after human emotion is happiness. You can evoke a feeling of happiness by showing product or service consumer  dancing, laughing out or embracing each other to convey a message of happiness.

You can also use words of happiness to support your video. There are also some songs which provoke feel good emotions.

Colors also play a role to provoke emotions.  Consider incorporating color psychology in your plan. What’s color psychology and how does it work?

Color Psychology

According to a research on color psychology in marketing, colors evoke emotions. You can use colors to visually influence the decision making of target audience.

Yellow evokes happiness, green nature and blue intelligence. Use the right color to evoke the expected emotions. Colors reinforce brand loyalty since your customers will always recognize your video ads.

Here are color tips to consider:

1.Summer Vibe Colors

Summer is a happy time. Warm colors evoke the feeling of summer. They make your video standout.  Same applies for orange and red colors.

If your ad is about problem solving, go for colors that evoke a calm feeling. Such colors include blue, green and violet.

2. Opposites Attract

The three primary colors are contrasting colors. For the purpose of your video, use a big ratio of contrasting colors rather than complementary.

Other ways to provoke emotion:

1. Speak Directly to your Niche

Who’s your target niche? Address their needs directly. This will make them feel connected to your brand. This is how to build loyalty.

2. Focus on Benefits

Your viewers want to know one important thing “What’s in for them”. How will your product or service positively influence their life?

Listing  features is not as important as focusing on the product’s benefits.

If you’re a sports shoe vendor, for instance, talk about comfort, stability and happier feet. Don’t talk about the science behind the shoes. Use active verbs to attract the audience.

3. Avoid Waffle

Express yourself in simple straightforward language. Avoid fluffy conversation. Quality of words is better than quantity.

You need to hook their attention within the first three to five seconds of the video. Avoid complicated words even if you want to sound knowledgeable.

4. Native Feel

Create customized videos for the specific platform where they will be posted. Ensure you have the right ratio and length.

7. What Does Your Landing Page Look Like?

No matter how attractive your video ad looks, if you fail to optimize your website’s landing page, all your effort to generate the leads won’t get you conversion.

You need to ensure your landing page is complements your lead generation efforts by aligning its content with the ads content. Don’t start introducing new narratives or services on  your landing  page, this will confuse the customers.

Is your landing page well optimized? Guide your lead towards the desired action with a page that’s fast loading and mobile friendly.

How to Measure Success of of  Autoplay Video Ads

 How can you tell if your autoplay ads strategy is a success? Here are metrics you can use to measure the success of your autoplay ads:

1.Play Rate

How many internet people continued watching your ad video after its first few seconds ? When you divide the number of times your ad video was played by the number of views it generated, you get the play rate.

Play rate helps you answer the following questions:

How relevant is your content? Is it engaging content that resonates with your target audience?The goal of your video should be to create relevant content that generates lead.

How appealing is your autoplay ad? Do internet users want to continue watching?

You should start tracking your play rate from start. This way, you can tell what works and apply that in your future creations.

Tips to Improve Your Play Rate

Looking for tips to boost your play rate? Find out:

a) Excellent  Sub titles- Use correct grammar in your title, tags and descriptions. Grammatical mistakes erodes your brand’s image.

b) Position of the Ad-  Choose the most eye-catching section of your web for video placement, commonly near the top. This is a strategic location that boosts the authority of your brand.

2.Comments, Like, Shares and Reactions

Engagement metrics like comments, like, shares and reactions can tell you the success of your video. When the content resonates with the audience, they’re likely to react. They might leave a comment, a like or even tag their friends.

How can you boost reactions to your videos? Here are tips:

Tell an Interesting Story

Use of science speak, stats and trends show authority but people enjoy following a narrative. Funny or inspiring stories create content that audience can relate. Here are ways to tell a compelling story :

Show your authority: You can tell a story of how your product or service has impacted people’s lives. These success stories can also be based on current trends affecting your industry.

Show a Process: Don’t only focus on end results. You can do a creative video that shows the process. For example, if you’re a car seller, you can create a video to show the import process of the car. This is an engaging content that will connect with intended buyers.

Be Personal: In today’s World, customers want to know the real identity behind the brand. They want to see the face behind the voice and get a feel for what your brand stands for. Create personalized videos featuring your office environment, employees and colleagues as a way of letting them into your world.

Be Inspirational: Sharing inspirational stories is the best way to humanize your brand. The secret is to be concise in your wording and avoid being too sentimental.

3.Click- Through Rate

All your ads must feature a CTA. How is CTA related Click through rate (CTR). To calculate CTR, you divide the number of views by number of clicks (positive response to CTA) your video receives.

To drive more leads, and eventually sales, your content must be compelling enough to make viewers complete action.

4.Watch Time

How much time did viewers spend on your video content? Watch time is an important measure because it informs you at what point viewers stopped watching. This can help you establish what went wrong.

Did the viewer stopped watching when the content transitioned? Watch time will also help you determine the right video length.

Most users stop watching the video in its last quarter believing they have grasped all the content. If  you put your CTA at the end of the video, it can reduce your conversion rate.

5. Conversion rate

Conversion rate is one of the key metric for measuring the success of your ad video. If your video is engaging, you’re likely to enjoy high conversion rate.

When the video is irrelevant or not engaging, your conversion rate will be low.

Optimize your video for conversion rates to influence your viewers to take the take action leading to more conversations.

What’s the Future of Autoplay Ads?

Even though autoplay ads are disruptive, this marketing technique is likely not going anywhere.  It makes your video unmissable, and keeps internet users on your site longer. They have allowed businesses to enjoy increased revenue through video marketing.  

Find out more how you can use autoplay video ads to your best advantage.