Cut one strong version
The best single edit, at the primary duration and format for your campaign.
Video · Delhi NCR & remote
You are paying for the first five seconds.
A promotional video that runs as an ad has a specific job with a specific economics. Every second before the point is a second of media budget spent on people who are about to leave.
Short answer
Promotional video editing produces video intended to run as paid advertising. That changes the brief from a corporate film: the message is front-loaded into the first few seconds, there is one action rather than several, and separate versions are cut for each placement and duration the campaign will use.
Front-loaded message
Cut to ad durations
One action only
Versions per placement
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01 The premise
Advertising, not filmmaking.
A promotional film and a video ad are different products that look superficially alike. The film is watched by people who chose to — on your website, at an event, in a meeting. The ad interrupts somebody watching something else, costs money per view, and is judged on whether enquiries increased.
That economics changes every editing decision. There is no room for an atmospheric opening, because you are paying for those seconds and most viewers leave during them. There is no room for three messages, because an interrupted viewer retains one. And there is no room for a vague ending, because the entire purpose is a specific action.
The other practical difference is that one ad is never one video. A campaign needs a six-second version, a fifteen, a thirty, vertical and horizontal, with and without subtitles, and usually two or three different openings to test. Those are edit decisions made once from the same footage, and planning for them changes how the footage is cut.
02 Ad rules
What an ad edit has to do.
Each one derived from paying per view rather than from craft convention.
Ad rules
- Message in the first three seconds. Not the brand, the message. What this is and who it is for.
- One idea only. An interrupted viewer retains one thing. Three messages produces none.
- Legible with sound off. Text carrying the message, because a large share of views are muted.
- One action, stated clearly. Call, visit, message, buy. Said once, plainly, at the end and ideally on screen throughout.
- Brand present but not first. Visible enough to be remembered, never occupying the opening seconds you paid for.
- Cut to the platform’s durations. Six, fifteen and thirty second versions from one edit. Not one file trimmed carelessly.
- Vertical and horizontal. Cut natively for each, not cropped. A cropped ad frequently loses the subject entirely.
03 Versions
Versions a campaign actually needs.
Planned from the start, cut from the same footage.
| Version | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Six seconds, vertical | Bumper and short-form placements. One idea, one image, one line. Surprisingly effective for reinforcement. |
| Fifteen seconds, vertical | The workhorse for Reels, Stories and short skippable placements. |
| Thirty seconds, horizontal | YouTube in-stream and longer placements where there is room to build slightly. |
| Silent loop, square | Website and landing page use, autoplaying muted without delaying the page. |
| Alternative openings | Two or three different first-three-seconds from the same body, for testing. The cheapest meaningful test in video advertising. |
Free ad video review
What happens in your first three seconds?
Send me the video you are running as an ad. I will tell you honestly what a paying viewer gets in the seconds you are being charged for, and whether the message survives being muted.
- Judged as paid media, not as film
- You keep the findings either way
- Version plan included
- Same-day reply, all 7 days
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Four details, and a real reply today.
04 Testing
How ad video gets tested.
The opening is the variable worth testing. Almost nothing else is.
Make alternative openings
Two or three different first three seconds attached to the same body. Cheap to produce, and the biggest lever.
Run them against each other
Equal budget, same audience, same placement. Let the data decide rather than the room.
Judge on the right number
Cost per enquiry, not view count. A video with more views and fewer enquiries lost.
Cut the rest from the winner
Once an opening wins, produce the other durations and formats from it.
— Video
Related services.
These sit next to promotional video and are usually bought with it. Same person doing the work in each case.
Video Editing
Cut for the platform it runs on.
Read moreSocial Media Video
Sound-off, subtitle-first.
Read moreReels Editing
The first second is the whole job.
Read moreYouTube Editing
Retention, not just polish.
Read moreCorporate Video
Profile, plant, people.
Read moreMotion Graphics
Explain what film cannot.
Read more— Questions
promotional video — your questions.
Straight answers, including the ones that cost me work. If yours is not here, ask it — I reply the same day.
Six to fifteen seconds for most social placements, up to thirty on YouTube where there is room to build. What matters more than length is that the message lands in the first three seconds, because that is when most viewers decide.
Rarely without re-editing. Corporate films are watched by people who chose to, so they open slowly and cover several messages. Cut down to an ad, they need a new opening, one message and a clear action — which is a genuine edit rather than a trim.
At minimum a vertical and a horizontal at your primary duration, plus two or three alternative openings for testing. Planning those from the start costs little; producing them later from footage that was not cut for it costs considerably more.
The opening three seconds, almost exclusively. Attaching different hooks to the same body is the cheapest meaningful test in video advertising and produces the largest differences. Testing music or colour grading at typical budgets measures noise.
Yes. A large share of views are muted, so a video ad whose message depends on audio is failing for most of the people you paid to reach. Text on screen carrying the message is standard rather than optional.
Cost per enquiry, not views or view rate. A video with high view-through and no enquiries has entertained people expensively. Judge video creative on the same number you judge the rest of the campaign on.
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Front-load the message. Test the opening.
Send me the video you are running. You will get a straight read on the first three seconds and a version plan for the placements you actually use.
- Judged as paid media, not as film
- Alternative openings for testing
- Cut natively per format and duration
- Project files always handed over
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