Video Ad Specs

Video Ad Specs is a community skill for creating video advertisements that comply with platform specifications, covering format requirements, aspect ratios, duration limits, file size constraints, and platform-specific guidelines for digital advertising campaigns.

What Is This?

Overview

Video Ad Specs provides guidance on producing video advertisements that meet technical requirements across advertising platforms. It covers format requirements that specify video codecs, containers, frame rates, and bitrates accepted by each platform for ad delivery, aspect ratio guidelines that define dimensions for feed placements, story formats, and widescreen positions across different ad slots, duration limits that set minimum and maximum video lengths for pre-roll, mid-roll, and standalone ad formats, file size constraints that define upload limits and recommended compression settings for optimal quality at acceptable file sizes, and platform-specific rules that cover safe zones, text overlay limits, and audio requirements for each advertising network. The skill helps advertisers produce compliant video ads across all major platforms.

Who Should Use This

This skill serves video producers creating ads for multiple platforms, digital marketers managing cross-platform advertising campaigns, and creative teams ensuring technical compliance before ad submission.

Why Use It?

Problems It Solves

Each advertising platform has different technical requirements for video format, dimensions, and duration. Ads rejected for specification violations waste production time and delay campaign launches. Optimizing video quality within file size limits requires balancing bitrate, resolution, and compression. Safe zone requirements differ across platforms and ad placements making consistent creative design challenging.

Core Highlights

Format validator checks codec and container compatibility. Dimension guide specifies aspect ratios for each ad placement. Duration checker verifies video length against platform limits. Compression optimizer balances quality within file size constraints.

How to Use It?

Basic Usage

// Video ad specifications
// reference
{
  "meta_feed": {
    "aspect_ratios": [
      "1:1", "4:5"],
    "duration": {
      "min": 1,
      "max": 241
    },
    "resolution": {
      "min": "600x600",
      "recommended":
        "1080x1080"
    },
    "file_size_mb": 4096,
    "formats": [
      "mp4", "mov"],
    "codec": "h264",
    "frame_rate_max": 30,
    "audio": "AAC, 128kbps+"
  },
  "youtube_instream": {
    "aspect_ratios": [
      "16:9"],
    "duration": {
      "min": 12,
      "max": 180
    },
    "resolution": {
      "recommended":
        "1920x1080"
    },
    "formats": [
      "mp4", "webm"],
    "codec": "h264"
  }
}

Real-World Examples

ffmpeg -i source.mp4 \
  -vf "crop=ih:ih,\
scale=1080:1080" \
  -c:v libx264 \
  -b:v 8M \
  -c:a aac -b:a 128k \
  -t 60 \
  meta_feed.mp4

ffmpeg -i source.mp4 \
  -vf "scale=1920:1080" \
  -c:v libx264 \
  -b:v 12M \
  -c:a aac -b:a 192k \
  -t 30 \
  youtube_ad.mp4

ffmpeg -i source.mp4 \
  -vf "crop=ih*9/16:ih,\
scale=1080:1920" \
  -c:v libx264 \
  -b:v 6M \
  -c:a aac -b:a 128k \
  -t 60 \
  tiktok_ad.mp4

Advanced Tips

Encode with two-pass encoding for better quality at target bitrates when file size limits are tight. Place key messaging within safe zones that account for platform UI overlays on mobile devices. Export multiple versions from a single source using automated FFmpeg scripts to ensure consistency across platform variants.

When to Use It?

Use Cases

Export a product video in five platform-specific formats for a cross-platform ad campaign. Verify that a completed ad meets Meta, YouTube, and TikTok technical requirements before upload. Create an automated export pipeline that produces compliant video ads from master footage.

Related Topics

Video production, FFmpeg, digital advertising, social media ads, video encoding, aspect ratios, and ad creative.

Important Notes

Requirements

FFmpeg or equivalent video processing tool for encoding and transcoding video to platform-required formats. Source video footage at sufficient resolution and quality for cropping to multiple aspect ratios without degradation. Current platform specification documentation since requirements change periodically with platform updates.

Usage Recommendations

Do: check platform documentation for updated specifications before each campaign since requirements change frequently. Export at the highest recommended resolution to ensure sharp playback across devices. Include captions and subtitles since many users watch ads with sound muted.

Don't: use a single aspect ratio across all platforms since vertical and square formats significantly outperform landscape on mobile feeds. Exceed file size limits by using unnecessarily high bitrates that platforms will re-compress. Place critical text or logos near video edges where platform UI elements may overlap.

Limitations

Platform specifications change without notice requiring regular documentation checks before production. Automated cropping may cut important visual elements when converting between aspect ratios. Compression artifacts become visible at lower bitrates especially in videos with fast motion or detailed textures.