Create Winning Video Ads for YouTube, Meta, and TikTok in 2025
In the competitive digital landscape, video advertising is an essential marketing strategy for businesses and brands looking to capture audience attention and drive engagement. More than 90% of businesses are expected to utilize video marketing strategies in 2025, and it is estimated that short-form video ads will account for 82% of all internet traffic this year.
Whether you’re a tech start-up looking for leads and feedback or a local furniture company promoting a new product, video content leads to higher engagement rates and is highly effective for increasing brand awareness. If you want to energize your business and reach more potential customers, check out the latest trends and best practices for creating compelling video ads across YouTube, Meta platforms, and TikTok.
The Power of Video Advertising
As we move into 2025, video content continues to dominate social media and paid advertising channels. With attention spans shrinking and competition for clicks intensifying, businesses and marketers must adapt their strategies to create impactful video ads that resonate within seconds.
Platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok offer unique opportunities for brands to showcase their products and services through compelling videos. With its own set of best practices and audience expectations, each platform requires a skilled and tailored approach to connect with customers across the user journey.
Crafting Compelling Video Ad Content
Hook Viewers in the First Few Seconds
The initial moments of your video ad are crucial. Grab attention quickly with visually striking imagery, intriguing questions, or unexpected scenarios. This approach is especially important on platforms like TikTok, where users can swiftly scroll past content. A great example is the Dollar Shave Club's YouTube ad "Our Blades Are F***ing Great" that captured attention in the first five seconds with bold humor and directness that led to viral success and brand recognition.
Customize your Story Arc for Your Platforms
Storytelling remains a powerful tool in video advertising but the way people consume bite sized video content (think YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, TikToks) has turned the traditional way to build a story arc on its head. The traditional video story arc of connecting with viewers with an emotional hook, presenting the problem, introducing your solution and paying it off with some ‘reasons to believe’ still works for longer form YouTube videos where the primary goal is to drive brand engagement and recall.
However, on social media platforms you have two seconds (at most) to present a reason for someone to stop scrolling down their feed or swiping furiously through their reels. When the goal of a social media video is to get someone to take an action, the story arc completely changes: you have to start with a visually stimulating hook (think bright blocks of color, bold typography, fast moving frames), quickly entice them to invest time to explore your product or service further a core value prop and close it with an enticing CTA.
Build Empathy and Credibility with User Generated Ad Content
UGC is a huge trend in video advertising; if you can have a happy customer sell your product or service, your target audience will trust your brand instantaneously. Who likes to be sold to by a brand, right? For short from video ads on TikTok and Instagram, UGC videos perform better when the content is raw and direct from the user versus a high production user interview.
Check out this user generated video ad that drove incredible performance with its relatable message despite the low production quality.
Creative Efficiency: Resize, Reuse, Repeat
To make the most of creative budget and resources, it’s possible to re-purpose the same video footage into several versions, each optimized to the platforms in your media plan. For example, this long form, brand video for HoneyBook features a real customer. The primary platform was YouTube, so the footage was produced for a horizontal, 16:9 aspect ratio and the primary metric of success was brand engagement and recall.
The production crew were briefed to shoot footage that could also be used for shorter versions for all social media platforms. This cut-down version created in a 4:5 aspect ratio for Meta Ads dives straight into a single core benefit to grab attention and converts with a clear CTA to start a free trial on the HoneyBook website.
Optimize for Sound-Off Viewing
Many users browse social media with their sound turned off. Design your video ads to be effective even without audio. Use captions and subtitles to convey your message clearly, and ensure your visuals can stand alone if necessary.
A strong example is this performance focused video for HoneyBook’s Meta campaign that uses bold typography and bright colors to communicate the brand’s core benefits and value propositions in lieu of audio.
How to Create Channel Specific Ads that Rock
YouTube Ad Best Practices
YouTube offers various ad formats, including skippable in-stream ads, non-skippable in-stream ads, and bumper ads. For skippable ads, front-load your message to capture interest before the skip option appears. Geico's "unskippable" ads cleverly used the first five seconds to deliver their message, making the ad effective even when viewers chose to skip. Here’s a fun video that we created to launch a telecommunications app called Sideline where we present the simple value proposition and jokingly encourage the viewer to skip the video:
Meta Platforms (Facebook and Instagram) Video Ad Tips
Meta's platforms favor native content that blends seamlessly with user feeds. Create video ads that look and feel like organic posts to increase engagement and use vertical video formats for Stories and Reels to maximize screen real estate.
For example, Airbnb's Instagram Stories ads utilize user-generated content and vertical video to showcase destinations, blending naturally with organic content. Meta’s ‘Branded Content Ads’ were designed to look more like an organic post from a real person (versus a business). This video made for HoneyBook is posted from the user’s account and not the brand’s, creating more credibility and authenticity.
TikTok Video Ad Strategies
TikTok's fast-paced, trend-driven environment requires a unique approach. Embrace the platform's creative tools and music trends to create ads that feel authentic to the TikTok experience. Many brands are leveraging user-generated content and original songs to capture views and increase brand awareness. Success on TikTok lies in blending organic content with humor, relatability, and creativity to capture attention in the first few seconds.
As TikTok continues to evolve its advertising offerings, marketers are experimenting with features like shoppable videos and augmented reality to create immersive brand experiences that resonate with the platform's Gen Z and Millennial audience.
Future Proofing Your Video Ads in 2025
Creating effective video ads for social and paid channels requires a blend of creativity, strategy, and technical know-how. By staying ahead of platform-specific best practices and emerging trends, marketers can craft compelling video content that resonates with their target audience and drives meaningful results.
As the digital landscape is ever-evolving, success lies in the ability to innovate and get creative. Continually measure, test, learn, and iterate on your video ad strategies to ensure they captivate, engage, and convert across YouTube, Meta, and TikTok.
ABOUT US
Big Up Consulting is a collective of highly experienced growth marketing experts, providing strategic marketing services, including paid media, video ad creative, content and website development, SEO & GEO, brand positioning and performance tracking. For more information on how we can help you create video ads that achieve high performance results, please contact Toby Skinner at toby@bigupconsulting.com.
MEET THE AUTHORS
Meet Toby Skinner, Co-founder, Big Up Consulting
Big Up Consulting’s Principal, Toby Skinner, has helped launch or grow brands in the SaaS, Fintech, D2C, e-Commerce, Climate Tech and Healthcare industries. Working from pre-launch to pre-IPO, Toby has helped numerous startups and businesses exceed their marketing and growth goals always with a laser focus on revenue optimization. He is also a speaker and contributor on several podcasts and panels, including topics like AI enablement in marketing.
Robin Leigh Kessler, Co-founder, Big Up Consulting
Robin Leigh is a content creator, writer, editor, strategist, and digital marketing expert. With 25+ years of marketing agency experience, she creates engaging and impactful content for people, brands, and search engines across the digital universe. Robin’s superpowers include content development, writing, editorial leadership, UX strategy, SEO, product building, AI enablement, design collaboration, communications, and branding. From websites and SEO content to articles, blogs, social media, books, and presentations, she tells the right story and helps businesses and brands make deeper connections with their audience. Robin Leigh is a curious and fearless content expert who weaves technology, creativity, and bold ideas into compelling narratives that break through the chatter.