If you’re new to the concept of promo video marketing, it can feel a little overwhelming (to say the least!). After all, finding the right promo video ideas, followed by shooting or collating the promo content is only half of the work.

The other half is figuring out technical aspects such as where to source professional-looking imagery, how to edit together your video, and how long it should be, assuming you have a top notch promo video maker.

To compete with the top players, the latter usually falls into three categories: short-form, long-form, and animation. Need more help? Not to worry—read on to establish which length is best-suited to your video based on a number of factors.

How Long Should a Promo Video Be? Factors to Consider

Consider the following before you plan and execute your promo video:

Tradition

First things first, because TV ads have traditionally been between 30 and 60 seconds long, many websites are claiming that this is the ideal length of an online promo video.

The truth is, there isn’t a right or wrong answer. Sometimes short-form videos do well and sometimes long-form videos get better results.

Marketing Trends

The latest marketing trends show that the majority of corporate videos are becoming shorter on average.

Why? Well, due to the distractive nature of the digital age, attention spans are shrinking. In fact, in an Animato survey, 59.9% of consumers indicated that a video being too long would put them off watching it.

Plus, certain social media formats favor shorter videos, such as Instagram Stories (15 seconds), Snapchat (60 seconds), and TikTok (15-60 seconds). A lot of users browse these social media channels on their phone, meaning that they’re likely to keep scrolling if they perceive a video to be too much of a time investment.

It all depends on the individual user and the platform involved.

Goals

Generally speaking, between 60 and 120 seconds is fastly becoming the norm for a marketing video. However, it honestly depends on how long it takes for you to convey your information.

Ask yourself:

• What is the purpose of the video? I.e. to build brand awareness, start an online conversation, or boost sales
• Who is your target audience? How are you going to reach them with this video? What content would they like to see?
• What do you need to say and show in the video to communicate your messaging? And ultimately achieve your goal(s)?

That said, don’t oversell your key messages. Deliver them clearly and concisely without any fluff to capture and sustain the attention of your target audience.

Content Type

Some video types warrant longer content than others. Consider which of the following categories would make the most sense for your video.

• Short Form: This style of video is typically up to 60 seconds long and is designed to arouse curiosity and drive traction, such as a teaser, announcement, quick tip, or special offer.
• Long Form: This type of video could be anything from two minutes (a customer testimonial) to ten minutes long (a vlog). Either way, the extra length is needed for the consumer to build trust with your brand, whether it’s through tutorials, user-generated content, or behind-the-scenes footage.
• Animation: This is a moving graphic up to a few seconds long that puts a unique twist on a conventional still image to make it pop on a website or social media feed.

To build all three kinds of videos, consider using a social media video creation app like Boosted by Lightricks. You can choose from a range of modern pre-made templates organized by niche and customize them based on your branding and video goals.

How Long Should My Facebook Promo Video Be?

With Facebook, you can create in-feed promo videos from Ads Manager. You can also sponsor an existing video from your Facebook Page for an in-feed post or Story.

Facebook themselves recommend keeping your video ads short (15 seconds or less) so that users are more likely to watch them until the end. This makes them ideal for mobile viewing.

Having said that, the technical length specification for a Facebook News Feed video ad is anything between 1 second and 31 seconds. Facebook Stories can be anything from 1 second to 2 minutes long split over cards that last 15 seconds each.

Regardless of what you decide for your video ad, Boosted allows you to quickly minimize the length of a frame with our handy “Trim & Fit” tool.

How Long Should My LinkedIn Promo Video Be?

As well as sponsoring videos that you’ve already posted to your profile, you can create video ads on LinkedIn within Campaign Manager.

LinkedIn themselves claim that the length of your video ad should depend on your marketing goals.

For brand awareness and consideration goals (telling people about your brand and getting them to click to find out more), a LinkedIn video should be under 30 seconds.

For conversion goals (getting your audience to take a particular action), a LinkedIn video may be longer. A/B testing would need to be carried out on two video ads of different lengths to figure out which one performs best.

You can easily add or subtract scenes to get your desired video ad length using the Boosted “Scenes” tool.

How Long Should My Instagram Promo Video Be?

Like Facebook, you can produce in-feed promo videos on Instagram from Ads Manager. You can also sponsor an existing video from your Instagram grid or Stories.

In-feed Instagram promo videos can be anything between 1 second and 60 minutes long. Even so, Facebook still recommends keeping them to 15 seconds or less.

Likewise, the recommended length for a sponsored Story is under 15 seconds, given that each Story card lasts 15 seconds maximum.

Keep in mind that you can repurpose a video ad for your grid or Stories in no time at all using Boosted. Simply switch the aspect ratio from square to vertical in one click.

How Long Should My TikTok Promo Video Be?

TikTok allows you to embed a video ad that will automatically play when a user is scrolling through their “For You” feed.

Even though these in-feed ads can be up to 60 seconds long, many experts believe they should be kept short. In fact, keeping the video ad length between 9 and 15 seconds will ensure two things:

• You capture and sustain the attention of your target audience
• The content isn’t trimmed

By using the Preview button in the Boosted app, you can make sure your video ad is within the 15 seconds time limit.

How Long Should My YouTube Promo Video Be?

In-stream video ads on Youtube fall into three categories. 

Skippable video ads allow the user to skip ads after 5 seconds. However, this type of YouTube video ad can be up to 6 minutes long.

Non-skippable video ads must be viewed before a user can continue watching a specific video. This type of YouTube ad can be 15 or 20 seconds long depending on regional standards.

Lastly, bumper ads are non-skippable video ads of up to 6 seconds.

In terms of how long a YouTube promo video should be, use the maximum time for non-skippable (15 or 20 seconds) and bumper ads (6 seconds) to get your marketing message across.

The length of skippable video content will vary depending on your campaign goals. Although, you can hook more people and increase the chances of them watching the entire ad if you limit the time frame to a couple of minutes.

Oh, and did you know that you can pick the 16:9 format that’s fully optimized for YouTube in one click via the Boosted app? Choose a template that works for your niche and then make your selection before editing the template. 

The Takeaway

How long should a promo video be? Well, consider your target audience, content type, and platform of publication.

Simply put, it should be as long as it needs to be to get your key messages across to increase the chances of reaching your desired outcome.