CTV Commercials: Best Practices, Requirements, and Considerations

by The QuickFrame Team
Mar 01, 2024 · 5 min read

This comprehensive guide is your one-stop resource to elevate your Connected TV commercials to new heights of success. 

Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just beginning your journey into CTV advertising, the insights and strategies outlined below will drive your CTV commercials to deliver the best performance possible.

Table of Contents

Building Your CTV Commercial: Key Considerations 

Design

Are you leveraging the best practices detailed below in your design and ensuring your brand’s voice is prominent in the creative?

Your creative content should narrate an emotionally engaging story tailored to your specific audience while maintaining your brand’s distinct voice.

Specificity

Are you producing creative variations that will influence your specific audience profiles to take action? 

Create audience-specific messaging and variation. Savvy advertisers leverage a range of shots, voiceovers, Call-to-Actions (CTA), and end cards to build a body of creative variations that can serve a range of audiences while maintaining consistent brand voice and identity. 

Variation in Call to Actions could include:

  • Shop Online: geared towards Prospecting Campaigns to drive new users to the site. 
  • Shop Now: geared towards Retargeting Campaigns to push users down the conversion funnel. 

Shelf Life

Are you regularly refreshing your creatives to avoid ad fatigue? 

Ad fatigue can lay waste to the best CTV creative – no one likes getting hit over the head with endless replays of the same ad! We recommend refreshing evergreen creatives every 2-3 months and 10-20 days for seasonal creatives. 

Test and Iterate

Are you producing new creative to see what resonates with your audience? 

Proactively assess your creative’s performance at the end of your typical sales cycle, evaluating visit rates, conversion rates, cost per acquisition (CPA) targets, and return on ad spend (ROAS) to inform iterations. You can use the Sales Cycle metric on the Campaign Dashboard to determine when to assess your creatives. The Sales Cycle is defined as the time between the initial site visit and Conversion.

Best Practices for CTV Commercials 

When creating effective TV commercials for your campaigns, adhering to best practices is key to ensuring your message resonates with your target audience.

Consistent Logo and Visit URL Visibility

  • Your logo and site URL should be displayed prominently throughout the TV commercial. 
  • You want viewers to take action by typing in your site’s URL or visiting your site organically, as we know this leads to better performance metrics: Cost Per Visit (CPV), Conversion Rate (CR), etc.
  • By keeping these elements continuously visible, you not only promote brand recognition but also enhance the likelihood that viewers will remember to take action after viewing your ad.
  • Ads with a persistent logo, URL, and CTA yield:
    • 41% Lower Average Cost Per Visit (CPV)
    • 112.6% Higher Average Conversion Rate (CR)
    • 48% Higher Average Visit Rate (VR)

Voiceovers

  • A well-crafted voiceover can be the difference between your message being heard and your commercial being tuned out. 
  • It’s particularly crucial during commercial breaks when viewers might not actively look at your ad. 
  • By employing a compelling voiceover, you can ensure that your message is heard and resonates with your audience, leaving a lasting impression.

Call to Action (CTA)

  • Because viewers can’t click to visit your site, include a visual and audio call to action at the end of your ad. 
  • Ensure your call to action (CTA) aligns with the actions you want your viewers to take, like visiting a website or social profile.
    • A call to action (CTA) is best utilized – written and audibly – on the creative’s end card. 

Call to Action Examples Include:

  • Sign up today
  • Don’t Miss Out — Visit Our Website Now!

Aligned Messaging

  • Ensure the messaging and call to action (CTA) are consistent across your entire channel mix, from TV to digital. 

Creative Elements Not Considered Best Practices

QR Codes

  • Though you can put QR codes within CTV commercials, it is not something we consider a best practice or recommendation.
  • We do not recommend running with QR codes for the following reasons:
    • Many CTV platforms use deterministic attribution models that do not need a QR code to “verify” that a user was exposed to an ad and showed engagement.
    • Scanning a QR code during a short 15 and 30-second ad can be inconvenient, leading to a poor user experience.

Phone Numbers 

  • Though you can include a phone number in your ad, it is not recommended by our team. Reasons being: 
    • The deterministic attribution methodology of many CTV platforms do not rely on phone calls to measure engagement.
    • Phone call reliance during a brief 15 and 30-second ad might compromise user experience while removing any user consideration period.

Seasonal Creative Best Practices

Small creative variations go a long way when supporting seasonal and promotional pushes. 

Design

  • Make small adjustments to evergreen creative to fall in line with that holiday season. 

Specificity

  • Create alternate end cards and calls to action that speak to seasonal promotions.
  • Leverage variations in voiceover to further highlight the timely promotions. 

Shelf Life

  • Keep holiday-specific creative in-market for 10-20 days to create urgency and combat ad fatigue. 

File Requirements for TV Commercials

To ensure your creative is successfully accepted into your platform of choice upon upload, please review the video specs below to understand the standard requirements for CTV ads.

Creative Specifications

Aspect Ratio
  • 16:9
  • 1920×1080 (minimum)
Length
  • 15 seconds & 30 seconds slots
File Format
  • .mp4
  • .mov
File Size
  • Max size 4GB
Frame Rate
  • Must be constant
  • 23.98, 25, or 29.97 FPS
  • Based on native frame rate

Pro Tip 1: Frame rate is determined when the video is created and exported in the platform you’re utilizing. If you need to adjust your frame rate, export your original file at the proper frame rate that aligns with your platform’s requirements.

Pro Tip 2: In order to avoid network denial of your creative, all of the components of a video need to be the same frame rate and match the editing timeline before editing or exporting. Multiple frame rates in one creative will trigger a duplicate frame rate issue, which can impact whether or not your ads will be served.

Resolution
  • 1080p
Bit Rates
  • 15-30 Mbps
Audio Level Restrictions
  • Overall mix level -10db to -14db
  • Dialogue -12db to -15db
  • Music -18db to -22db
  • Sound effects -10db to -20db w/ occasional spikes up to -8db

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