Keep video ads under 10 seconds

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Mobile attention is collapsing.

In 2018, mobile ads held attention for 3.4 seconds on average.

Today, it’s just 2.2 seconds.

That’s a 35% drop in only 7 years. And a massive challenge for marketers.

The State of Advertising 2025 shows what’s happening and how to adapt.

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📝 Context

Topics: Ads
For: B2C. Can be tested on B2B
Research date: June 2025
Universities: Indiana University, Texas Christian University, Sungkyunkwan University.

As marketers, we often hear “the shorter the better”. 

People’s constant drop in attention spans is well documented, so - the thinking goes - shorter messages have a better chance of being seen or of holding attention.

New research on video ads confirms this, and more, giving us a clear target length that will both reduce costs and increase effectiveness.

P.S.: Trying to maximize how much your ads are shared on social media? Delivering a social message (e.g. connecting with or helping others) increases the chances people will share your ad on Facebook.

📈 Recommendation

Keep your video ad length to 10 seconds or shorter, and mention your product or brand early in the ad.

Your ad will drive more clicks and engagement, and similar sales to longer ads, for a lower cost.

🎓 Findings

• On both TV and social media, video ads of 10 seconds or less deliver better results with lower media spend. They lead to higher engagement, click-through rates and website visits than longer ads, and similar sales.

• As part of an analysis of over 50,000 TV ad airings in the US and an A/B test of 25,000+ Facebook ad impressions, ≤10 second ads:

  • Generated 3x the engagement of longer ads (10 second ad vs 17 second ad) on Facebook

  • Had higher clicks than longer ads

  • On TV drove up to 40% more traffic to the brand’s website in the five-minute window post-ad

  • Did not immediately lead to significantly different direct sales compared to longer ads. The increased website traffic may indirectly lead to more sales in the long-term

  • Would save $285,300 in airtime costs and generate nearly 192,000 more site visits on average, if aired 100 times on TV, compared 15 second ads

• The effect is stronger if the ad immediately identifies the product or brand, with 34.1% more traffic directed to the website compared to waiting until the end of the ad.

🧠 Why it works

• Our attention spans, particularly for content we’re not choosing to see (like an ad before a Youtube video or during a break in a TV show) decline over time. When we’re looking at ads, our attention is its highest in the initial seconds, before dwindling.

• We also get impatient when an ad appears in the middle of content we’re watching, with this impatience intensifying the longer we have to wait for the ad to finish.

• When we see a shorter ad, we’re less likely to want to avoid it by skipping the ad, changing the channel, or switching our attention to something else.

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✋ Limitations

• The Facebook ads portion of the study was limited, featuring a campaign for a single nonprofit, with some people seeing the ad multiple times.

• The study didn’t look at whether other factors in the ads (e.g. products being advertised, the ad content, style) apart from length impacted how people responded to the ads. Other research shows that different types of ads work better for pleasurable vs practical products. For example, an emotionally evocative ad would likely sell a chocolate bar more effectively than an ad explaining its ingredients, sourcing and packaging.

👀 Real-life example

Website hosting and domain registry Namecheap uses 20 second ads on Youtube to highlight their WordPress hosting plans.

❌ Issue: At 20 seconds, the ad is twice the recommended ad length, wasting budget and below optimal effectiveness. 

✅ Solution: Some of the changes Namecheap’s team should do to their creatives include:

• Decreasing the length of their ad to 10 seconds. This can be done by increasing the pace of the ad, which should also make it more likely to be seen by people. Fast-paced ads are also best for talking about features or prices, like in this case.

• Mentioning Namecheap and their services in the first seconds of the ad. For example, the ad could start with “Namecheap’s internet hosting services are low-cost and let you set up your site in minutes.”

• Showing one of the people in the ad using a mock-up of Namecheap’s portal to build their own website. This increases conversions by helping the audience imagine themselves doing the same.

• They correctly focus on informational messaging, which is more effective for practical products and services than emotional messaging.

🔍 Study type

Market observation (analysis of 59,988 national primetime TV ad airings, and ecommerce traffic and sales using Kantar Media and Comscore) and field experiment (with 26,162 Facebook ad full video ad playthroughs for a non-profit).

📖 Research

The Impact of Ad Length on Ad Effectiveness: Do Micro Ads Work? Journal of Marketing (June 2025).

🏫 Researchers

• Beth L. Fossen.Indiana University

• Philip Kim. Texas Christian University

• Inyoung Chae. Sungkyunkwan University

Remember: This is a new scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

🎁 Bonus mini-insight

Check your knowledge from previous insights (for paid Platform members only). Read the full insight here if you are already a member.

🎓 Insight: When ad frequency goes from effective to annoying, and backfires

📈 Recommendation: Cap how many times you show the same online ad to a specific person. Show the ad a maximum of 3 times per person to create interest and raise awareness. You can increase the frequency cap to 6 times per user for people who’ve already shown interest in your product.

✋ Careful: If someone sees an ad too many times, it’s likely to annoy them, making them less likely to pay attention to you and your ads. People are more likely to be annoyed by animated ads (GIFs or videos), and more likely to be annoyed by ads the wealthier, younger and more educated they are.

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