By Manish Mishra, Vice President (Sales)
BuzzCity has launched a new in-house rich media platform to make it easier for advertisers to serve video ads to mobile consumers across the globe.
As I mentioned in my last two columns ("The Rise of Mobile Video Ads" and "What the World Cup Tells Us About Mobile Video Ads"), video advertising is becoming increasingly popular on mobile. By one estimate, consumers spend nearly 1 hour a day watching digital video, while video ad spend rose 55% in the first quarter.
With the BuzzCity platform, mobile video advertising starts with a banner which expands into a video window with one click by the consumer. On a PC the banner expands when the cursor hovers over the banner (below)
Getting Started
First, you'll need to contact your BuzzCity Account Executive to enable Rich Media. If you're not sure who to write, you can call or email the office nearest you. Here's a list of contacts.
After video has been enabled, log into your account at buzzcity.com.
Step 1: Create New Campaign
Under Advertiser (in between Home and Publisher in the menu bar), click on “My Campaigns” then click “Create New Campaign”.
Step 2: Initial Set Up
A. Campaign Information
Fill in your Campaign Information in the top box on the page, just as you would for other campaigns. Questions here include the Campaign Title, Campaign Type (CPC or CPM), Dates and Times that the ads will run and your Daily Budget.
B. Creative and Landing URL
The next box on the page is entitled “Creative and Landing URL”.
- Go to “Device Class” and choose “Mobile Devices”
- In the dropdown menu next to “Banner Type”, choose “Rich Media”.
- In the dropdown menu next to “Provider”, choose “BuzzCity”.
Step 3: Upload Banner Ad
As mentioned above, your video ad will play after users click on a banner. Think about this when designing the banner ads.
In this step, select the banner size, either 320 x 50 or 300 x 50.
Then, upload the banner, either from a file or url.
Step 4: Select “Media Type”
The next item is Media Type. There are three choices here: Image, Video and YouTube Video. Select either Video or YouTube Video.
Step 5: Select Video Size
Enter the width and height of the video. Your video will likely have an aspect ratio of either 4:3 or 16:9. The Internat Ad Bureau recomends 640 x 480. The minimum size should likely be 400 x 300.
Step 6: Insert HTML code for video
In the HTML content box, you'll see a line that says . This is where you insert the video embed code, which you can copy from the hosting provider. For example, if your video is on YouTube, just right-click, then choose “copy embed code”.
Final Steps
- Check that you agree to the Terms and Conditions.
- Choose a Tag. This is optional, but if you would like the ad to be tagged as 'adult', 'info', 'game' etc., do it here.
- Campaign Targeting. Like all BuzzCity campaigns, you can target the ads by country, device, operating system and channel.
- Submit!
A Note for the Techies Plus Some Other Tips
BuzzCity's rich media platform is built on HTML5 technology and supports MP4 and OGG video formats.
After creating your video, you'll need to host it on a third party platform like YouTube. If you want to avoid having YouTube place an ad before your ad, though, it's probably best to go with a paid service like Wistia. I discuss hosting choices in more detail in this column.
OK, you're all set! Like any 'How To' Guide, this might look more complicated on paper, but once you do it, you'll see it's really quite simple. Any questions, just let us know.
