Do you know what YouTube Pre-Roll Ads are and how they can affect your viewing enjoyment when you’re watching on YouTube?

These are the short videos that play before the actual video that you’re trying to watch on YouTube. While more than 94 percent of us will click the “skip ad” button once the requisite five seconds of time has passed, companies are spending billions of dollars on this advertising. To make these ads effective, you have to engage your audience quickly. Check out these tips on how to do that.

Keep the Pre-Roll Ads Brief

Most users want to get to the video they choose to watch and not see a bunch of ads from a company or product they have no interest in. Because of this, you must engage the user and grab their attention within the short time you have, which is the first five seconds of the ad.

Once you’ve got their attention, you only need to keep it for up to ten more seconds. That’s right, YouTube pre-roll ads don’t need to be any longer than fifteen seconds to be effective. When you think of some of the short ads you see that have gotten your attention you might enjoy them because of their humor, because of the message, or because they found a way to fully engage you quickly without overdoing things.

Make the Video Relevant

Do you hit the “skip” button because the ad doesn’t seem to go with the interests of the video you’re trying to watch? Of course. You want to see something that might make things better for you or give you the experience you want with the products you’re looking at. Relevant ads make a huge difference when you’re trying to grab someone’s attention in the short time that you have in the YouTube pre-roll ads.

Many times, the relevancy of a video has to do with the keywords used that are associated with the topic. Keep it on topic and your videos will support your business.

Make Sure Your YouTube Pre-Roll Ads are Where your Viewer’s Attention Is

Where do you look when you see one of the pre-roll ads playing? A large number of people will stare that “skip” button just waiting for the timer to get done so they can skip the video. You have the capability to change the button to something useful.

What can you do to make your “skip” button more useful? There is a German car company that crashed its car into the skip button and another company threatened to electrocute a puppy using the skip button. You don’t have to be quite this drastic in your approach, but you can use the skip button and the attention around it to your advantage.

Make Them Wonder What Will Happen in Your YouTube Pre-Roll Ads

What’s going to happen next? If your YouTube pre-roll ads are impactful enough, this is exactly what’s going to go through your mind when you see something interesting on the screen. This is what you want and if you create the wonder along with the instant engagement, you’re going to have their attention and make them want to see more of your video before moving on.

Most of the time, the best way to get viewers to stick around and see more of what you have to offer is to show them something unexpected so they want to see more. You’ll get your message out and they will be entertained at the same time.

Be Entertaining

One of the hardest things for you to do is to be entertaining in your YouTube pre-roll ads, but if you can be, you’re going to win over an audience. This is where you might want to enlist the help of professionals to have a better understanding of what will entertain your target audience. The critical first five seconds are where you need to be the most entertaining and it can be difficult for you on your one.

If your advertising budget doesn’t allow for professionals, find your funny friends and let them help you make the video that’s going to grab the world by their funny bone and keep people watching to see what you have to offer.

The YouTube pre-roll ads are a great way for you to get a short message out and advertise where your audience is already viewing. Use these five tips to help you spread the word and get more viewers to your websites through the short videos that most of us watch and simply wait for the “skip” button to appear.