Why Modern Ecommerce Advertising Needs Short-Form Video

Video advertising is the most popular form of digital marketing, due to its ability to strike a deeper emotional connection with online users. According to statistics, 91% of businesses prefer video as their preeminent marketing tool. 

Most video advertisements are featured on social networking platforms, with YouTube being the most preferred website. 

YouTube accounts for up to 2.5 billion monthly active users (MAUs). It’s presently the second-most popular social media website, coming only second after Facebook. 

But despite video marketing’s remarkable efficacy, not all video-based advertisements yield the intended impact. 

Digital marketers must think creatively to produce video advertisements that achieve the intended objective. One ingenious approach is to research the most popular trends and ride the wave instead of going against it. 

In the recent past, short-form videos have emerged as one of the most raging trends in e-commerce advertising. Multiple surveys have found bite-sized video ads to be the most leveraged video formats by marketers, with their popularity cutting across diverse niches and industries. 

But do short-form video commercials truly live up to the hype? 

This post shall help put that question to rest. 

Here’s a comprehensive guide to short-form video advertising and why every e-commerce business should embrace this transformative digital marketing strategy.  

What Is a Short-form Video?

Short-form videos are essentially limited-length video clips. 

Short-form video advertising has become an inseparable part of digital marketing, particularly on YouTube and TikTok. This technique enables brands to address the steadily diminishing attention span of online users. 

But how short can a short-form video be? 

While there’s no standard duration for limited-length e-commerce ads, most bite-sized video content lasts under 60 seconds. Some can be as brief as 5 seconds, delivering a message swiftly while being reasonably engaging. 

Role of Short-Form Video in Modern Ecommerce Advertising

1. Grabbing Users’ Attention

You’ve probably heard that online users have the attention span of a goldfish, which averages 8 seconds. 

That’s deplorably short, right? 

Well, here’s another worrying fact to ponder! Recent findings have shown that our collective mental concentration on social media is steadily waning. 

Therefore, it’s imperative to capture your audience’s attention within the first few seconds. And short-form video advertising does precisely that. 

By integrating bite-sized commercials into your e-commerce advertising, you can get the message across to your audience within seconds. 

Note that the digital marketing landscape is becoming increasingly competitive. To get ahead of the pack, you must create eye-catching commercials that connect with your viewers from the get-go. 

Fortunately, short-form videos are remarkably easy to produce. All you need is a punchy intro, which you can quickly whip up with the right video generator tool. 

We’ll highlight a few ways on how to hook your viewers and get them to watch your short-form commercials to the end in the subsequent section. 

2. Providing Instant Value

Grabbing social media users’ attention is only half the battle. To persuade them to take further action, you must publish content that truly appeals to their needs and interests. 

That’s another area where short-form video advertisements deliver remarkably well. 

Bite-sized advertising for ecommerce is all about sifting out the noise to incorporate meaningful and relevant content. With only a few seconds to deliver their messages, most advertisers will emphasize value over entertainment. 

Short-form videos provide instant education and inspiration, delivering easily consumable content before viewers possibly scroll away. 

You may incorporate stunning graphics or authoritative voiceovers to grab your audience’s attention. But once hooked, the remainder of the few seconds should focus exclusively on addressing viewers’ pain points.

3. Aligning With a Raging Trend

Short-form videos are presently in vogue, with many social media users favoring ‘snackable’ content. 

The raging demand for short content is evidenced by the popularity of YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok videos. 

Billions of social media users scroll through their feeds looking for what’s catchy, informative, and relevant. While they may spend hours on these websites, they’ll only give their attention to truly meaningful content. 

Embracing bite-sized ecommerce videos isn’t just about catering to social media users with diminished attention spans. It also lets you leverage an existing trend. 

Note that, when it comes to digital marketing, it always pays to jump into a wave and ride the momentum. If your competitors are already recouping massive returns on ad spend (ROAS) using bite-sized videos, why would you sit the trend out?

4. Integrating With AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized video marketing tremendously. 

Gone are the days when human creators would labor for hours or days trying to produce audience-relevant, professional-grade commercials. With the emergence of AI, marketers can whip up the best ads for ecommerce within minutes without compromising on the quality. 

Advertisers utilize AI and machine learning (ML) to predict user behavior using real-time and historical data. 

If you can pinpoint a customer’s next move with military precision, you don’t require a lengthy video to deliver your message. A few seconds is all you need to address their pain points. 

It’s also exciting to know that many AI video generators come with reliable analytics for tracking your campaign’s progress. Besides, most of these tools let you repurpose video ads into multiple formats and versions for publication in diverse social media platforms.

5. Increasing Engagement Rates

Engagement rate is a critical metric for gauging the performance of digital marketing campaigns. By tracking the number of likes, comments, or shares, you can gain deeper insights into the potential impact of your video ads. 

Short-form videos typically generate more engagement than long-form clips due to their ability to hook viewers instantly. Professionally created bite-sized ecommerce video ads can garner 2 – 8 times more engagement than traditional posts. 

Most internet users also find shorter videos more shareable, requiring limited time and internet bandwidth to save or reshare. 

We should also point out that social media algorithms favor engaging content. 

By generating more likes and comments, short-form adverts are able to feature higher up on search engine rankings. More people can view your videos and possibly reshare them, expanding their reach further.

6. Ramping Up Conversion Rates

Bite-sized videos leverage the fear of missing out (FOMO) to stimulate demand for your offerings, increasing conversion rates. 

A shorter, high-converting video ad creates an instant emotional resonance with the target audience. It delivers dopamine hits, awakening the interest of traditionally passive viewers. 

As noted, many social media users prefer instant gratification. They’re looking for marketing ads that speak to their needs instantly, rather than those that bombard them with needless information. 

Perhaps you’ve always wondered – how can advertisers use shopping ads to grow sales? 

By posting limited-length videos, marketers are able to capture fleeting attention and drive impulse action while paying less. It’s an ingenious way to ramp up conversion rates without spending your bottom dollar on advertising. 

7. Harnessing Social Media Algorithms

As noted, social media platforms generally favor short-form video advertisements because they generate higher user engagement. These commercials perform exceptionally well on YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok. 

Short-form e-commerce video ads keep users on various social platforms for longer. The hosting websites respond by assigning the shorts higher search engine rankings, increasing your brand’s visibility further. 

Short-form advertisements are also preferable for their ease of scrolling. 

When social media users spend less time on your videos, they can quickly proceed to other content on the platform. This increases the total time spent on the respective social channel. 

As a reward, algorithms respond by ranking your video ads higher for maximum visibility. 

8. Optimized for Mobile Consumption

Over 90% of social media users access the various platforms via mobile devices. That underscores the significance of optimizing videos for mobile devices. 

Shorter, vertical video advertisements fit perfectly within the limited screen size of mobile devices. Besides, the ads align with the fact that most people use their mobile devices on the go and while holding the phones vertically. 

Coupled with the short attention spans of the average social media user, it’s understandable why mobile ads should be particularly short yet punchy. 

Using a professional online video maker, you can generate bite-sized advertisements that appeal to mobile users. 

Some AI tools will even recommend the perfect aspect ratio depending on your ads’ preferred hosting platform.  

9. Improving Overall Viewer Experience

One of the biggest drawbacks to long-form videos is that viewers may choose to skim through them, looking for relevant content. And depending on a clip’s length, searching for useful information may feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. 

Now, social media users may have a diminished attention span. But they’re intelligent enough to know that video ads typically pack important information at the start and towards the end. 

With short-form video ecommerce, viewers don’t have to scan through the clip searching for the featured products or calls-to-action (CTAs). 

You can pack all essential information into a few seconds of watch time, enhancing the viewer experience.

10. Less Resource-Intensive

Shorter videos are unsurprisingly easier to create. The emergence of AI-powered video makers has streamlined the video generation process further, cutting production time and cost significantly. 

Marketers can rely on AI-driven video makers to reduce the need for larger production crews. A leaner creation team reduces labor-associated overheads, enabling brands to achieve their marketing goals with minimal expense. 

What makes short-form commerce advertising even more cost-effective is that it’s easy to repurpose larger content into multiple, bite-sized portions. 

Using the right AI video generator, you can split a 10-minute clip into 60-second videos while maintaining the tone, style, and messaging. 

Tips for Creating Impactful Short-form Video Advertisements

1. Hook fast

Despite their limited lengths, short-form video advertisements require a punchy hook to grab viewers’ attention. Use a YouTube intro maker to generate captivating introductions for your short video ads. 

Here are some hooking techniques to get you started;

• Leverage eye-catching, dynamic, and relevant graphics
• Ask a thought-provoking question in the first second
• Highlight an intriguing fact, important statistic, or relatable problem within the first few seconds
• Front-load value, reserving CTAs at the video’s tail end 
• Use bold, authoritative statements
• Incorporate popular sound effects or voiceovers

2. Ride the trend

We cannot overstate the significance of riding the trend. 

Use market research tools like Google Trends to uncover short-form video marketing insights. Pay particular attention to trends on hashtag use, user-generated content (UGC), and sustainable shopping. 

To wage an impactful ecommerce promotion, don’t just wade into a trend headlong. Analyze if the momentum will hold and then jump at the right time. 

Remember to also add your own twist to each trend.

3. Optimize for silence

75% of video advertisements are watched with the sound muted. So, your short-form video advertisements should make sense even when silent. 

Incorporate relevant visuals. These will make your videos self-explanatory, even while muted. 

Besides, use bold captions to amplify the information. Integrate transitions strategically to hook your viewers throughout the storyline. 

Remember to also keep the file sizes small enough. 

Using editing tools to automatically suppress noise allows your audience to determine if they should unmute your video ads or not, improving the overall viewing experience. 

4. Incorporate UGC 

User-generated content is a video marketing trend you shouldn’t ignore. Although popular with long-form videos, you can creatively incorporate UGCs into 60-second advertisements. 

Using UGC in ecommerce website advertisement entails featuring clients advertising your products or brand. For instance, you could film a genuine customer narrating an emotional product hunt story. 

The narrator typically begins by highlighting their experience with substandard products or services. As the video progresses, the customer reveals that their frustrations ended after they discovered your brand.  

The advertisement then winds up with a compelling recommendation for viewers to check out your store.

Wrap Up

Out of the numerous social media marketing trends, short-form video advertising stands out for its ability to connect emotionally with the target audience. 

Short-form commercials let you pass your messaging across while taking care of the shrinking attention span of online users. Besides, you can leverage this e-commerce advertising technique to ramp up engagement, increase conversions, and drive overall sales. 

Short-form video marketing aligns with current consumer preferences, too. The fact that social media algorithms prefer limited-length commercials makes this advertising technique all the more preferable, giving your content higher visibility. 

To make the most of short-form video advertisements, it’s prudent to start with the end in mind. 

Always craft a compelling introduction to hook your viewers within the first 2 – 3 seconds. Then, inject stunning visuals to improve the average watch time. 

Remember to also incorporate relevant voiceovers, edit out unnecessary noise, and align the messaging with your campaign’s overall goals.