If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a video worth for your brand? With Twitter Video Ads, it can be worth even more than you think.

Why? Simple: Because it works. We recently analyzed 3.7 million accounts and discovered that Tweets with video attracted 10x more engagement over Tweets without video. In addition, Promoted Tweets with videos saved more than 50% on their cost-per-engagement, helping their ad budgets stretch further.*

Whether you’re making your first video or already have a strategy in place, here are a few video tips to help you get the most out of your video advertising on Twitter.

Save the hard sell for later

As the legendary copywriter Howard Gossage once wrote, "People don't read ads. They read what interests them and sometimes that's an ad." By the same token, people don’t come to Twitter to find ads. They come to find something interesting. Sometimes that can be your ad. 

Seek out ways to make your video feel like an organic piece of content and relevant to the reason people go to Twitter. News, information, explainers, how-to videos, and comedy all play well on Twitter and should be the basis of your video content.

Experiment with video length

While 93% of video views on Twitter take place on mobile devices, that doesn’t mean people are in a hurry. While most of the videos we analyzed were shorter than 30 seconds, the videos that were 60-90 seconds long actually had the best engagement.* Don’t be afraid to experiment with the length of your video to see what works with your message and your audience.

Keep your Tweets short

No matter how long you make your video, keep the Tweet copy short. Videos with minimal Tweet copy had a 13% higher brand and message recall and overall view time compared to longer Tweet copy.*

Be mobile friendly

Since the vast majority of views take place on smartphones, plan your content accordingly. Use closed captioning or subtitles so your mobile video ads still deliver the message even if the viewer has the sound off. In addition, make sure your video is uploaded using the proper ratio size so it looks good in the feed.

Match your video to your purpose

Keep the purpose of your video in mind when selecting your video ad format. For brands looking to drive awareness, In-Stream Video Ads let you run an ad before a publisher’s video on Twitter. This ad format has been shown to increase ad recall by 70%, resulting in a 6% higher purchase intent compared to people who weren’t exposed to video ads.

On the other hand, a Video Website Card can drive conversions by using your video ad to immediately lead people to your landing page. The Video Website Card has been shown to attract a 2x higher clickthrough rate compared to the mobile video ad benchmark.

Download the Twitter Playbook for Agencies to learn why Twitter is the perfect video advertising platform for you and your clients.

*Twitter Internal Data