What is Video Advertising?

Video advertising is an ad format: the creative is moving picture, with or without sound — not a static banner or a text ad. Billing is usually per impression (CPM / vCPM) or per view (CPV, cost per completed view). What counts as a “view” is set by the surface: 30 seconds or completion on skippable in-stream, 15 seconds non-skippable, two visible seconds under the MRC bar — those meters do not add up without a caveat.

Keep format and channel apart. YouTube Ads is buying video on YouTube and Google video partners (Video campaigns, Performance Max). CTV is video on a connected television (Roku, Smart TV, AVOD). Both serve video; inventory, targeting, attribution, and CPM differ. This article is about the creative and serving unit (in-stream, out-stream, VAST), not about one ad cabinet.

In-stream

The spot sits inside someone else’s player and shares the viewing session with content:

Pre-roll — before the video; the most expensive and most contact-heavy slot.
Mid-roll — in a long-form break (YouTube, CTV, streaming).
Post-roll — after the content; completion is higher, intent is already spent.

Skippable in-stream (the TrueView class) allows a skip after N seconds; non-skippable and bumper (up to 6s) buy a 100% contact rate at the cost of annoyance. On YouTube, skippable is the main performance slot; on CTV, 15–30s with no skip or a limited skip is more common.

Out-stream

The video spawns its own player outside a content stream: in-article between paragraphs, in-feed in a stream, in-banner inside a display slot. The user did not “come to watch a video” — the file autoplays (often muted) in an article or a native unit. Out-stream is closer to display on intent and to video on creative. Viewability and completion usually trail in-stream: the page scrolls, the tab is backgrounded, audio is off.

Social in-feed video — TikTok, Reels, Shorts as a feed format — belongs here too. The channel remains social, not “YouTube video” and not CTV.

VAST and related specs

VAST (Video Ad Serving Template, IAB) is the XML contract between an ad server / DSP and the player: which file to serve, duration and bitrate, where to fire impression / quartile / click beacons, which wrapper to fetch next. Without VAST, programmatic video (DV360, The Trade Desk, SSPs) does not stitch: the player cannot define start, first quartile, or click-through.

Nearby: VMAP — the break schedule inside content (where pre/mid/post sit); VPAID — the older JS/Flash interactive layer on top of the file, being replaced by SIMID and OMSDK. Practical takeaway: a creative in Meta/TikTok is not a VAST tag; the same cut in a DSP must ship as VAST or as an upload with quartiles. Broken VAST yields zero impressions on a “live” campaign.

Buying and measurement

Models: CPM, vCPM (pay only when viewable), CPV, CPCV (completed view), rarely CPC with video as the asset. In programmatic the bid is per impression; optimization targets a view or a conversion. View-through windows on video are wider than on banners: the user does not click but converts later; the cabinet, not the tracker, sets the window.

MRC video viewable: 50% of pixels in view for at least two seconds. Quartiles (25/50/75/100%) are the VAST default series. Video CTR is below search and often below static social; comparing sources on CTR is meaningless — use CPCV, CPA, and post-view. Frequency without a cap burns the cut: the same 15s file at 8+ weekly impressions.

Channels that are not the format

YouTube Ads — Google Video / PMax as a channel; inside it: skippable, bumper, in-feed, Shorts.
CTV — the screen and household targeting; the creative is still video, measurement is often modeled + QR.
In-app rewarded video — video for an in-app reward; SDK supply, not a publisher-page VAST slot. Adjacent to rewarded traffic.
Yandex Direct and VK — CIS buying of the same format (in-stream / out-stream / clips), separate cabinets and policy.

Use in arbitrage

Video scales cold traffic when static cannot carry a VSL, a review, or a news-style hook: nutra, finance, subscriptions, app UA. Funnel: file → pre-land / landing / store; macros and UTM on the click-through URL; conversions in the cabinet and the tracker. On CTV, click-through is weak — count view-through and QR. Video review is slower than banners; medical claims and gambling die in pre-moderation, not on the first impression.

Creative: the first 3–5 seconds decide the skip; audio must not carry the meaning (most out-stream and mobile plays are muted). 9:16 for feeds, 16:9 for in-stream and CTV — separate files, not one export for every slot.