MARKETING
How to Create a Writing Style Guide [+Free Guide & Examples]
A writing style guide is essential for any business — especially if there are multiple content writers on the team.
As you create more and more content on your website and blog, inconsistencies are bound to creep in. One reason? Lack of clarity about the style in which you’d like to write in. Disjointed communication across the multitude of content creators in your organization can be a culprit, too.
Either way, failure to decide upon accepted editorial guidelines is a recipe for inconsistent messaging. That’s why at some point, most companies will need to develop a writing style guide.
What is a writing style guide?
A writing style guide is a document that sets standard writing, grammar, and punctuation conventions for a particular organization in the effort of maintaining a consistent tone and style regardless of how many content contributors are on the team.
A writing style guide indicates the basic rules of writing everyone agrees to follow to ensure consistency across all content, like whether you should capitalize the “a” after the colon.
Note: If you write content for HubSpot, you should not capitalize the “a.”
But wait… if that’s the case, why would I capitalize the “If” in that last parenthetical? Because “If you write content for HubSpot, you should…” is a complete sentence, thus warranting the capital “If.”
These conventions are specified in our writing style guide.
If you found that train of thought terribly banal, you might think writing style guides are the most boring things in the world and have a burning desire to click away right about now. Au contraire, mon frère.
Why Writing Guides Are Important
A writing style guide saves you from finding yourself embroiled in a debate about whether there should be spaces before and after an ellipses, whether you capitalize “for” in a title, or when a number must be written out in full.
If the writing style guide bores you, just imagine how insipid that debate will be. The existence of a style guide means you can simply have the style guide handy as your little writing rulebook without having to sit through debates about blockquotes.
Style Guide vs. Brand Guide
A writing style guide is a set of standards brands use to define how to maintain a consistent tone and voice through written content. A brand guide defines design elements — logos, typography, color palettes — to create consistency in brand image and visuals.
Both guides are different in content but the same in function. They play an important role in how potential consumers view, interact, and remember your company.
In an effort to help you get started with your own style guide, this blog post will walk you through how to create a writing style guide and which essential elements you’ll need to include.
How to Create a Writing Style Guide
- Review your brand’s mission and values.
- Create buyer personas for your target audience.
- Define your company’s voice and tone.
- Outline branded words and phrases.
- Establish guidelines for formatting.
- Use a style guide template.
Before we dive into the important elements you’ll need to include in your writing style guide, let’s talk through the steps of creating one. Your guide should reflect your business, its goals, and your target audience. To start, you’ll need to:
1. Review your brand’s mission and values.
Why did you start your business? What is its purpose? These are two important questions that you ask yourself when you start planning and building your company. If you didn’t, ask them now. Define your mission statement. Outline your brand’s core values. This information will guide how you form your connections with your audience. It will allow you to develop an idea for how you plan to communicate with them.
Your brand’s mission and values should guide your decisions and ensure that you’re actively working towards your goal. They define and influence company culture by guiding your business to make decisions that are beneficial to the company and your customers.
It is important to note that this information can change. In fact, it should. As time goes on and your company evolves, it is necessary to review and update your brand mission and values to accurately reflect your current business model and operations.
2. Create buyer personas for your target audience.
To create your writing style guide, you need to know who you’re talking to. Imagine having one conversation with a baby boomer and another with a millennial. The way you communicate with them will likely be different. Those nuances speak to the importance of creating buyer personas.
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional, research-based representation of your target customer. This information should come from market research as well as actual data from your existing customers. When creating your buyer personas, envision your ideal customer. What are their days like? How do they make decisions? What challenges do they face? Ultimately, your buyer persona should look at customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals.
Once you identify your target audience and their buyer personas, you will have a better idea of how to approach communication.
3. Define your company’s voice and tone.
Establishing your company’s voice and tone can be challenging because the two concepts are easily confused.
Your company voice is how you want to be perceived by your audience. It encompasses how your brand messaging will be delivered. Do you want to come across as witty or friendly? For example, while Starbucks’ brand voice is expressive, Coca-Cola’s is positive. When defining your voice, remember that this will not change throughout your writing. If you establish your company as “friendly,” it should be incorporated into all of your messaging.
Although your brand voice should stay the same, your tone might change. The brand tone refers to how you plan to express your voice. The subtleties in tone lie completely with who your audience is. Imagine a friend asks if you want to join them for dinner, and you reply “Okay.” Cultural cues would likely have them thinking that you’re not too keen on attending. However, if you responded with “Definitely!” they might think you’re excited to go. Even though both responses show that you are willing to eat dinner with them, the connotation changes between words.
As you build your voice and tone, decide what emotion you want your writing to take on. Will it be positive, neutral, negative, or something in between? Again, your choice should mirror your target audience.
4. Outline branded words and phrases.
What are the keywords and phrases associated with your business? To keep consistency throughout your business, identify these words for your style guide. This should include specific spellings and capitalizations.
Take MSNBC for example. The cable channel has two logos, one with lowercase letters and another with capitalized letters. However, when the channel is written in copy form, it is always fully capitalized. This would be something to note in a writing style guide.
This should also carry into any slogans or phrases associated with your company. For their slogan “Betcha can’t eat just one,” Lay’s would need to make sure that their guide specifies the spelling of “Betcha” and that there is no ending punctuation. To look cohesive and professional, it is crucial to keep this consistency throughout all messaging.
5. Establish guidelines for formatting.
In addition to focusing on what is written in your style guide, you will also have to focus on how it is written. Your writing style guide should include guidelines for:
- Headers
- Hyperlinks
- Bold, italicized, and regular text
- Bullet points versus numbered lists
Formatting will allow your readers to skim and digest your content quickly. In addition, as they become acquainted with your style, they will come to expect your company’s organizational breakdown. Every business has the autonomy to choose how it formats its content. Make sure you develop a format that flows effectively for your readers.
6. Use a style guide template.
Download Your Free Starter Template
As you work through the above steps to build your writing style guide, you might draw a blank on how to format it. Use a template. Many companies have their style guides available to the public. Find a company that you’d like to emulate, use them as a starting point, and customize the guide until it becomes a representation of your business. See the “Writing Style Guide Examples” section below for style guides from companies like Mailchimp, Google, and NASA.
What to Include in Your Writing Style Guide
There are a few key sections to include in your style guide.
1. Style Manual
Style manuals are reference books that tell writers how to handle grammar, punctuation, and any special use cases. Most businesses adopt either the AP Stylebook or the Chicago Manual of Style. It’s up to you to decide which manual you’d like your company to follow.
You can purchase online subscriptions to these manuals for your employees to reference, the login for which you should also include in this section of the editorial style guide to make access simple. You might find employees are more likely to reference these tools when provided with an online subscription that contains a search function instead of a paper book through which they have to flip to find their answers.
While these style guides provide a good reference point for basic grammar rules, you’ll probably want to make some exceptions to the rules for the sake of branding, tone, and style.
Use this section of your editorial style guide to outline those exceptions and also to highlight some of the rules that commonly arise when writing for your company. Ideally, your writers would commit these rules to memory, regardless of whether it is aligned with or against house style. For example:
- What do you capitalize? Do you capitalize the name of your product? Are there certain prepositions you want capitalized in your title despite your stylebook’s recommendations?
- What do you abbreviate? How do you punctuate those abbreviations? Would you type “a.k.a.” or “aka”? “Okay” or “O.K.”? Or “OK”?
- Do you use an Oxford comma?
Listing answers to common questions like these in the first part of your editorial style guide will give people an easy resource to reference that will save you time and encourage consistency. Feel free to continue adding to this list as more confusions arise and get resolved during the content creation process. You’re creating your own style guide, so feel free to borrow different rules from different style guides. The important thing is that you use the same rules consistently throughout all the content you create.
2. Commonly Troublesome Words
Most companies have terminology that’s specific to their industry, and not all of those terminologies have a universally agreed-upon spelling. For instance, if you write a lot about digital marketing like we do here at HubSpot, you’ll find a lot of inconsistency around the spelling and capitalization of words like these:
- ebook vs. Ebook vs. e-book
- ecommerve vs. e-commerce
- internet vs. Internet
- website vs. web site
- Facebook Like vs. Facebook like
- Retweet vs. re-tweet vs. reTweet vs. ReTweet
Instead of debating how to spell, capitalize, or hyphenate these words, include a section in your style guide called “Commonly Troublesome Words” so writers can easily look up the proper spelling of these words according to your house style guide.
Advice for Global Companies
If you have global readership and create content for specific, same-language markets, you should include notes on whether you change spelling for those markets or retain your house style.
For example, if marketers from HubSpot’s Dublin office write a blog post, should American editors change their spelling of “favour” to “favor”? “Internationalise” to “Internationalize”? These questions should be answered in your style guide, and the “Commonly Troublesome Words” section is a logical location to do that.
Similarly, if you are creating content in various languages, style guides should be created for each language.
3. Voice and Tone
This section of the editorial style guide should address something less concrete than grammar rules but arguably more important, and that is how your content should sound to the reader.
Can writers use the first person? How do you feel about the use of industry jargon? Think about the words you would use to describe your content in an ideal world. Which adjectives do you want your content to evoke? Conversational, educational, academic, funny, controversial, or objective?
You might think you want your content to be all of the above, but force yourself to prioritize just a few. Explain why it’s important to achieve this style and tone in your content, and provide examples of content (excerpts are fine) that are successful in doing so, particularly if those excerpts exist on your own site already.
If there are stylistic characteristics your content absolutely should not have, include that information, too. Again, examples of what not to do are helpful here for the sake of comparative illustration.
When deciding on style and tone, be sure to consider your target audience and buyer personas in the process. Which style and tone would resonate best with them? This brings us to our next section.
4. Personas
Buyer personas are inextricably tied to style and tone, so it’s important to include this section either before or after the “Style and Tone” section of your style guide. Why is it so important to include personas? Because the style and tone you adopt should be informed by your target audience, i.e. the people that will be reading all this stuff you’re writing.
That being said, the personas in your editorial style guide don’t need to go as in-depth as the personas created by your sales and marketing teams. (Those might include detailed information like objections that arise in the sales process and how to overcome them, or tips on identifying these personas “in the wild” or when you get them on the phone.)
The personas in your editorial style guide should be more brief, simply pulling out the highlights that concisely explain who your target audience is, their pain points, how they like to be communicated with, the value your company provides, and a picture to give writers a visual to keep in mind when creating content.
Including personas in your style guide really comes in handy when you’re working with freelance writers. If you’re doing a good job with freelance writer management, you’ll provide ample context to inform the content they’re writing. A persona, and how that informs tone and writing style, should always be included when kicking off a new freelance writer project.
5. Graphics and Formatting
I know, I told you earlier not to get into the nitty-gritty with visual guidelines. This is still true. Your design team or agency should create a separate brand design style guide that addresses more nuanced visual things. (Can you tell I’m not a designer?)
You should, however, add a little information to your written style guide if your writers are ever responsible for creating visual assets and/or copyediting visual assets created by designers. Here are some common questions that may come up that will impact writers or editors:
- Where can writers source images, and how do they properly attribute them?
- When should images align to the right, to the left, or in the center?
- Should text wrap around images?
- What are the RGB and hex codes for your text and headers?
- What typefaces can be used?
- Can writers use italics, bold, or underlining? If so, is usage limited to certain occasions, like bolding headers and hyperlinks?
- Which kind of bullets should be used (square, round, or other), and how should they align with the rest of the text?
- How should numbered lists appear: “1”, “1.” or “1.)”?
Many of these graphical elements can be present in your content management system, but they can be easily overridden when writers copy and paste content from elsewhere with formatting attached, or by an overzealous writer with a flair for design. Outline these expectations in your editorial style guide, and refer those with more advanced needs to your brand style guide.
6. Approved and Unapproved Content
Great content often cites research and data from third party sources. Make your writer’s job easier by providing approved industry resources from which they can draw, and even more importantly, resources from which they cannot draw. Break up this section of your editorial style guide into two sections: recommended and approved industry resources, and “do not mention” resources.
The information in the “do not mention” section should include competitors and unreliable resources, and it should also mention controversial topics and opinions that should be avoided at all costs. For example, many companies strictly prohibit any mention of politics or religion in their content, or have provisions that explain when it is acceptable to include and how to frame the discussion. Similarly, many companies work within certain legal restrictions, in which case this section of the style guide might provide instructions for receiving legal approval before publishing a piece of content.
This is the section of your editorial style guide to explain the intricacies of such controversies as they relate to your brand so you can prevent reputation management catastrophes.
7. Sourcing
With great research comes great responsibility… and a lot of choices, unfortunately. Clear up the confusion around how to properly cite research by deciding on one methodology and documenting it in your editorial style guide. Explain how to create footnotes, references, links to external sites, or even bibliographies if they are relevant to your company.
This section of your editorial style guide doesn’t need to be long. Just write down the rules and provide some examples of proper citations so writers can easily attribute their sources properly.
8. Examples to Show What’s Right and Wrong
Image SourceEvery section of your editorial style guide can benefit from real life examples of the concepts you’re explaining, whether you include those examples on the same page or as an appendix at the end of the guide.
For example, when talking about proper formatting, include a visual example of a well-formatted blog post with callouts that detail why the elements are successful. If you’re discussing grammar usage, provide an incorrect example, and then mark it up to show how a writer could fix it to align with your editorial style guide.
Bridging your requirements with proper executions from your actual website will help illustrate these concepts more clearly and cut down on follow-up questions and instances of exceptions to the rules you’ve laid out.
What Not to Include In Your Style Guide
It can be tempting to create the most comprehensive style guide of all time. But when documents get incredibly long, it can become a little hard to use on a day-to-day basis. Aim for “comprehensive, yet usable” by intentionally cutting some sections. Common sections you should omit from your style guide include:
Content Operation Notes
While content operations are the backbone of your content creation process, detailed information on the processes should not be included in a writing style guide. The action of submitting content to your editorial team is an irreplaceable step in getting content published; however, this does not add value to the style your writers will use in creating. Additional content operation notes that can be left out of your style guide include requesting slots on the editorial calendar or revision cycles.
Minor Visual Style Recommendations
Many teams fail to realize that a brand’s logo can affect SEO. For those who know this information, you may be tempted to include rules around logo usage or other visual style guide elements in your writing style guide. Don’t. With some basic exceptions, these would be saved for a separate brand or visual style guide.
Design Elements
As previously mentioned, writing style guides have little to do with the visual design elements of the brand. They affect how the writing looks, but they don’t serve your writers as they create. The following design elements should be left out of your writing style guide.
Typography
This section lists the fonts your brand will use and where they can be accessed. Typography sections also provide detailed information on when and where to use different fonts, as well as acceptable sizes and variations.
Logo & Variations
As important as your logo is to your brand identity, it holds little to no importance in the eyes of your writers. Providing an image of your logo to your writers may help them connect with the look and feel of the brand; however, extra details about variations and when to use them on print or digital content is inconsequential.
Color Palette
When choosing brand colors, they typically align with the feel of the brand. Bright colors are used to symbolize ‘happy’ or ‘fresh’ brands, while darker colors can make a brand seem bolder and more daring. While the color palette can help solidify the tone of the brand to the writer, it is still unnecessary. Everything they need to know should be expressed when you define your company’s voice and tone.
Your editorial style guide will simply guide writers by providing a set of standards to which they must adhere when creating content for your website. It eliminates confusion, guesswork, and debates over what boils down to a matter of editorial opinion among grammar and content geeks.
If you’re ever unsure whether something should or should not exist in your written style guide, fall back on usage to inform your decision. If it’s too long to be usable, cut it down; if it’s too short to answer the most common questions, beef it up.
How to Get Others to Use Your Style Guide
If you put in all this work to create a comprehensive style guide, it’d be a real bummer if no one used it.
Here’s the truth: Some people just aren’t going to use it, no matter how easy you make it for them to do so. So, just accept that. But after you’re done grieving, there are a few things you can do to increase the likelihood of adoption:
1. Involve other people in its creation from the get-go.
Instead of mandating the rules your entire company must use when writing, get a few people together to help create the style guide as a group. Ideally, this little committee will span more than one department to increase the likelihood of widespread adoption.
2. Make it easy to find and use.
Our style guide is available on our internal repository, so it’s easy for people to find, bookmark, and Ctrl+F to get answers to questions quickly. Make yours similarly easy to access and use.
3. Keep updating it.
Your style guide is intended to be a living document. As new questions arise, make it easy for writers to ask questions about proper usage and get a resolution, and make sure that resolution is reflected in an updated version of the style guide.
Writing Style Guide Examples
If you want to see a writing style guide in action, check out the examples below from well-known companies like Apple, Shopify, and Intuit.
1. Google
In Google’s style guide, they are very explicit with its principle to create clear, accurate, concise text. The company offers clear directives to write simply and directly, address users clearly, and more.
They also skillfully demonstrate examples of what employees should and should not do. For example, instead of saying, “Consult the documentation that came with your phone for further instructions,” their writers should write something similar to “Read the instructions that came with your phone.” With this guide, Google ensures that its text is inclusive to anyone, regardless of their cultural or language differences.
2. Intuit
You likely recognize Intuit for programs like TurboTax and Quickbooks. While some companies have their writing style guide formatted as a formal document, Intuit takes a different approach. Their guide appears as a message board.
On one of their most recent updates, they shared new guidelines on when and how to celebrate customer wins. As you scroll through their guide, you will find voice and tone examples, word list updates, and principles on how to identify and replace harmful language.
3. Shopify
The eCommerce platform, Shopify, has an extensive content style guide that walks its writers through voice and tone, accessible and inclusive language, grammar and mechanics, and naming. As it elaborates on its voice guidelines, it reminds writers that when speaking as Shopify’s voice, they should “be real, but not too tough or overly familiar.”
It directs writers to be proactive without being pushy by offering their customers sincere encouragement and practical advice. In addition to these guidelines, Shopify has created a list of acceptable vocabulary and abbreviations to ensure its messaging is consistent and clear for its merchants.
4. Microsoft
Warm and relaxed, crisp and clear, and ready to lend a hand: That is Microsoft’s approach to writing for its customers. Microsoft is another company with a different take on how it presents its writing style guide. With one webpage at the center, it links out to valuable information, including its “Top 10 tips for mastering Microsoft style and voice.”
The page lists other recommended content, such as information on bias-free communication and directives on how to write step-by-step instructions. Whether the content is for an app, website, or white paper, this guide keeps all Microsoft communication clear, concise, and consistent.
5. Apple
In Apple’s writing style guide, they immediately express their mission. Reflecting on the diversity of its customers, they stress the purpose of the guide — to write consciously and inclusively.
The setup that Apple uses is also very on-brand. Its style guide has “previous’ and “next” buttons, which mimics a step-by-step tutorial that one is familiar with if they’re acquainted with Apple products. Apple also encourages its writers to return for updates. Writing changes over time, so its writers need to adapt to the changes Apple makes to its writing style guide as they happen.
6. Mailchimp
Writing copy for a brand can be confusing. As you switch between media, there are certain nuances that you might have to take into account. Mailchimp does a great job breaking down these components in its style guide. It includes principles for writing technical content, legal content, email newsletters, and social media.
To facilitate the process for its writers, the Mailchimp content style guide has a hyperlinked section that allows users to quickly navigate through the webpage.
7. NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is known for the complexities of outer space. In its style guide, it mentions that its purpose is to be consistent in its writing style and usage, so its readers avoid distraction from confusing terms and concepts.
The guide directs its writers to use The Chicago Manual of Style but also provides specific topics, including an overview of their editorial style as well as sections on gender-specific language, abbreviations, and figures and tables.
8. Yokel Local
This example comes from HubSpot Partner Yokel Local. Their writing style guide keeps both their in-house contributors and their freelancers on the same page when writing and editing marketing content for clients.
You’ll notice that they didn’t go too far in the weeds, either. The whole guide is 15 pages in large, attractive lettering, and anything not explicitly stated in the guide is left up to the AP Stylebook and the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The simplicity is effective, and they clearly had fun designing the document to be cohesive with their brand guidelines.
Polish Your Editorial and Content Style
When it comes to running your business, you might assume that your words hold little weight when compared to your products or services. You’d be mistaken. While your products are central to your business, how you share information — the words you use — is critical to gaining new customers and maintaining existing ones.
Consistency is an important factor in managing a successful business. With a writing style guide, you will decrease inconsistent content and communication. You will equip your team with the tools and resources to deliver a strong, cohesive message that draws in your target audience. As you work to create or polish your writing style guide, this article will serve as your guide to get there.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
MARKETING
IAB Podcast Upfront highlights rebounding audiences and increased innovation
Podcasts are bouncing back from last year’s slowdown with digital audio publishers, tech partners and brands innovating to build deep relationships with listeners.
At the IAB Podcast Upfront in New York this week, hit shows and successful brand placements were lauded. In addition to the excitement generated by stars like Jon Stewart and Charlamagne tha God, the numbers gauging the industry also showed promise.
U.S. podcast revenue is expected to grow 12% to reach $2 billion — up from 5% growth last year — according to a new IAB/PwC study. Podcasts are projected to reach $2.6 billion by 2026.
The growth is fueled by engaging content and the ability to measure its impact. Adtech is stepping in to measure, prove return on spend and manage brand safety in gripping, sometimes contentious, environments.
“As audio continues to evolve and gain traction, you can expect to hear new innovations around data, measurement, attribution and, crucially, about the ability to assess podcasting’s contribution to KPIs in comparison to other channels in the media mix,” said IAB CEO David Cohen, in his opening remarks.
Comedy and sports leading the way
Podcasting’s slowed growth in 2023 was indicative of lower ad budgets overall as advertisers braced for economic headwinds, according to Matt Shapo, director, Media Center for IAB, in his keynote. The drought is largely over. Data from media analytics firm Guideline found podcast gross media spend up 21.7% in Q1 2024 over Q1 2023. Monthly U.S. podcast listeners now number 135 million, averaging 8.3 podcast episodes per week, according to Edison Research.
Comedy overtook sports and news to become the top podcast category, according to the new IAB report, “U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study: 2023 Revenue & 2024-2026 Growth Projects.” Comedy podcasts gained nearly 300 new advertisers in Q4 2023.
Sports defended second place among popular genres in the report. Announcements from the stage largely followed these preferences.
Jon Stewart, who recently returned to “The Daily Show” to host Mondays, announced a new podcast, “The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart,” via video message at the Upfront. The podcast will start next month and is part of Paramount Audio’s roster, which has a strong sports lineup thanks to its association with CBS Sports.
Reaching underserved groups and tastes
IHeartMedia toasted its partnership with radio and TV host Charlamagne tha God. Charlamagne’s The Black Effect is the largest podcast network in the U.S. for and by black creators. Comedian Jess Hilarious spoke about becoming the newest co-host of the long-running “The Breakfast Club” earlier this year, and doing it while pregnant.
The company also announced a new partnership with Hello Sunshine, a media company founded by Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon. One resulting podcast, “The Bright Side,” is hosted by journalists Danielle Robay and Simone Boyce. The inspiration for the show was to tell positive stories as a counterweight to negativity in the culture.
With such a large population listening to podcasts, advertisers can now benefit from reaching specific groups catered to by fine-tuned creators and topics. As the top U.S. audio network, iHeartMedia touted its reach of 276 million broadcast listeners.
Connecting advertisers with the right audience
Through its acquisition of technology, including audio adtech company Triton Digital in 2021, as well as data partnerships, iHeartMedia claims a targetable audience of 34 million podcast listeners through its podcast network, and a broader audio audience of 226 million for advertisers, using first- and third-party data.
“A more diverse audience is tuning in, creating more opportunities for more genres to reach consumers — from true crime to business to history to science and culture, there is content for everyone,” Cohen said.
The IAB study found that the top individual advertiser categories in 2023 were Arts, Entertainment and Media (14%), Financial Services (13%), CPG (12%) and Retail (11%). The largest segment of advertisers was Other (27%), which means many podcast advertisers have distinct products and services and are looking to connect with similarly personalized content.
Acast, the top global podcast network, founded in Stockholm a decade ago, boasts 125,000 shows and 400 million monthly listeners. The company acquired podcast database Podchaser in 2022 to gain insights on 4.5 million podcasts (at the time) with over 1.7 billion data points.
Measurement and brand safety
Technology is catching up to the sheer volume of content in the digital audio space. Measurement company Adelaide developed its standard unit of attention, the AU, to predict how effective ad placements will be in an “apples to apples” way across channels. This method is used by The Coca-Cola Company, NBA and AB InBev, among other big advertisers.
In a study with National Public Media, which includes NPR radio and popular podcasts like the “Tiny Desk” concert series, Adelaide found that NPR, on average, scored 10% higher than Adelaide’s Podcast AU Benchmarks, correlating to full-funnel outcomes. NPR listeners weren’t just clicking through to advertisers’ sites, they were considering making a purchase.
Advertisers can also get deep insights on ad effectiveness through Wondery’s premium podcasts — the company was acquired by Amazon in 2020. Ads on its podcasts can now be managed through the Amazon DSP, and measurement of purchases resulting from ads will soon be available.
The podcast landscape is growing rapidly, and advertisers are understandably concerned about involving their brands with potentially controversial content. AI company Seekr develops large language models (LLMs) to analyze online content, including the context around what’s being said on a podcast. It offers a civility rating that determines if a podcast mentioning “shootings,” for instance, is speaking responsibly and civilly about the topic. In doing so, Seekr adds a layer of confidence for advertisers who would otherwise pass over an opportunity to reach an engaged audience on a topic that means a lot to them. Seekr recently partnered with ad agency Oxford Road to bring more confidence to clients.
“When we move beyond the top 100 podcasts, it becomes infinitely more challenging for these long tails of podcasts to be discovered and monetized,” said Pat LaCroix, EVP, strategic partnerships at Seekr. “Media has a trust problem. We’re living in a time of content fragmentation, political polarization and misinformation. This is all leading to a complex and challenging environment for brands to navigate, especially in a channel where brand safety tools have been in the infancy stage.”
Dig deeper: 10 top marketing podcasts for 2024
MARKETING
Foundations of Agency Success: Simplifying Operations for Growth
Why do we read books like Traction, Scaling Up, and the E-Myth and still struggle with implementing systems, defining processes, and training people in our agency?
Those are incredibly comprehensive methodologies. And yet digital agencies still suffer from feast or famine months, inconsistent results and timelines on projects, quality control, revisions, and much more. It’s not because they aren’t excellent at what they do. I
t’s not because there isn’t value in their service. It’s often because they haven’t defined the three most important elements of delivery: the how, the when, and the why.
Complicating our operations early on can lead to a ton of failure in implementing them. Business owners overcomplicate their own processes, hesitate to write things down, and then there’s a ton of operational drag in the company.
Couple that with split attention and paper-thin resources and you have yourself an agency that spends most of its time putting out fires, reacting to problems with clients, and generally building a culture of “the Founder/Creative Director/Leader will fix it” mentality.
Before we chat through how truly simple this can all be, let’s first go back to the beginning.
When we start our companies, we’re told to hustle. And hustle hard. We’re coached that it takes a ton of effort to create momentum, close deals, hire people, and manage projects. And that is all true. There is a ton of work that goes into getting a business up and running.
The challenge is that we all adopt this habit of burning the candle at both ends and the middle all for the sake of growing the business. And we bring that habit into the next stage of growth when our business needs… you guessed it… exactly the opposite.
In Mike Michalowitz’s book, Profit First he opens by insisting the reader understand and accept a fundamental truth: our business is a cash-eating monster. The truth is, our business is also a time-eating monster. And it’s only when we realize that as long as we keep feeding it our time and our resources, it’ll gobble everything up leaving you with nothing in your pocket and a ton of confusion around why you can’t grow.
Truth is, financial problems are easy compared to operational problems. Money is everywhere. You can go get a loan or go create more revenue by providing value easily. What’s harder is taking that money and creating systems that produce profitably. Next level is taking that money, creating profit and time freedom.
In my bestselling book, The Sabbatical Method, I teach owners how to fundamentally peel back the time they spend in their company, doing everything, and how it can save owners a lot of money, time, and headaches by professionalizing their operations.
The tough part about being a digital agency owner is that you likely started your business because you were great at something. Building websites, creating Search Engine Optimization strategies, or running paid media campaigns. And then you ended up running a company. Those are two very different things.
How to Get Out of Your Own Way and Create Some Simple Structure for Your Agency…
- Start Working Less
I know this sounds really brash and counterintuitive, but I’ve seen it work wonders for clients and colleagues alike. I often say you can’t see the label from inside the bottle and I’ve found no truer statement when it comes to things like planning, vision, direction, and operations creation.
Owners who stay in the weeds of their business while trying to build the structure are like hunters in the jungle hacking through the brush with a machete, getting nowhere with really sore arms. Instead, define your work day, create those boundaries of involvement, stop working weekends, nights and jumping over people’s heads to solve problems.
It’ll help you get another vantage point on your company and your team can build some autonomy in the meantime.
- Master the Art of Knowledge Transfer
There are two ways to impart knowledge on others: apprenticeship and writing something down. Apprenticeship began as a lifelong relationship and often knowledge was only retained by ONE person who would carry on your method.
Writing things down used to be limited (before the printing press) to whoever held the pages.
We’re fortunate that today, we have many ways of imparting knowledge to our team. And creating this habit early on can save a business from being dependent on any one person who has a bunch of “how” and “when” up in their noggin.
While you’re taking some time to get out of the day-to-day, start writing things down and recording your screen (use a tool like loom.com) while you’re answering questions.
Deposit those teachings into a company knowledge base, a central location for company resources. Some of the most scaleable and sellable companies I’ve ever worked with had this habit down pat.
- Define Your Processes
Lean in. No fancy tool or software is going to save your company. Every team I’ve ever worked with who came to me with a half-built project management tool suffered immensely from not first defining their process. This isn’t easy to do, but it can be simple.
The thing that hangs up most teams to dry is simply making decisions. If you can decide how you do something, when you do it and why it’s happening that way, you’ve already won. I know exactly what you’re thinking: our process changes all the time, per client, per engagement, etc. That’s fine.
Small businesses should be finding better, more efficient ways to do things all the time. Developing your processes and creating a maintenance effort to keep them accurate and updated is going to be a liferaft in choppy seas. You’ll be able to cling to it when the agency gets busy.
“I’m so busy, how can I possibly work less and make time for this?”
You can’t afford not to do this work. Burning the candle at both ends and the middle will catch up eventually and in some form or another. Whether it’s burnout, clients churning out of the company, a team member leaving, some huge, unexpected tax bill.
I’ve heard all the stories and they all suck. It’s easier than ever to start a business and it’s harder than ever to keep one. This work might not be sexy, but it gives us the freedom we craved when we began our companies.
Start small and simple and watch your company become more predictable and your team more efficient.
MARKETING
Advertising on Hulu: Ad Formats, Examples & Tips
With the continued rise in streaming service adoption, advertisers are increasingly turning to OTT (over-the-top) advertising, which allows brands to reach their target audiences while they stream television shows and movies. OTT advertising is advertising delivered directly to viewers over the internet through streaming services or devices, such as streaming sticks and connected TVs. One of the most popular streaming ad-supported streaming services today is Hulu.
At just $7.99 per month (with ads) and $17.99 per month (without ads), Hulu is a great deal. And where the deals are incredible, the subscribers follow…
The formula itself is one we’re all familiar with, and it appears to be working out quite well for Hulu.
- Low prices attract more viewers
- More viewers brings more eyes to Hulu ads
- More eyes on ads brings more interested advertisers
- Advertising revenue climbs alongside impressive viewer growth
In this particular scenario, everyone wins! And the proof is in the pudding considering Hulu generated $11.2 billion in revenue in 2023.
In the following article, we will cover everything you need to know about Hulu including how to advertise on Hulu, ad types available, advertising cost, best examples of Hulu ads, and more. Let’s dive right in.
What is Hulu Advertising?
Image Source: https://www.emarketer.com/content/disney-will-become-streaming-heavyweight
Hulu is a service that offers subscription video on demand. Hulu currently has more than 50.2 million subscribers across their SVOD (ad-free subscription video on demand) and AVOD (advertising-based video on demand) plans, translating to nearly 100 million viewers in 2021. eMarketer predictions estimate that number will grow to 115.6 million viewers by 2024.
Hulu notes on their website that their ad-supported offering is their most popular. Previously shared statistics showed that in 2023, 58% of total Hulu subscribers opted for the ad-supported plan.
Hulu subscriptions can be purchased on their own, or as part of a bundle with other services. One such popular option is The Disney Bundle. The new Disney Bundle brings together the extensive Disney+ and Hulu libraries – including beloved characters, award-winning films and series, and 100 years’ worth of inspiring stories – all in one place.
Hulu’s ad-supported and ad-free plans offer subscribers a vast streaming library, inclusive of thousands of movies and TV episodes. Hulu Originals are also included in both plans, as is the ability to watch on the internet-enabled device of your choosing—TV, mobile, tablet, or laptop. As the first platform to introduce viewer-first advertising innovations, like the industry’s first interactive ad formats, Hulu continues to give viewers choice and control over their ad experience.
Outside of the primary differentiators between the two options—ads or no ads, and cost—the only additional distinction to be made is that the ad-supported version does not allow subscribers to download and watch titles on-the-go.
Hulu offers a popular option with an ad-supported tier. This utilizes OTT advertising, meaning ads are delivered directly to viewers over the internet through the Hulu platform, rather than traditional cable or satellite TV. Unlike a typical TV buy where you get a set amount of ad space, these OTT ad buys allow for granular targeting based on demographics, location, and interests, similar to what you might experience on other digital platforms. While these ads are strategically placed before, during, and potentially after your chosen content, they are not skippable. It’s also worth noting that even ad-free tiers might show a few promotional spots for certain shows or live TV events.
Hulu has its very own ad platform that includes a robust set of options for bidding, targeting, and measurement, as well as different ad experiences.
Why Advertise on Hulu?
In today’s media landscape, reaching your target audience effectively is crucial. Hulu offers a compelling advertising platform with a variety of advantages:
- Massive Reach – Tap into a vast audience of engaged viewers. Hulu boasts over 50.2 million subscribers, with their AVOD tier reaching a staggering 109.2 million viewers per month.
- Targeted Engagement – Go beyond traditional TV’s limitations. Hulu’s targeting capabilities allow you to zero in on specific demographics, interests, and even geographies. This ensures your message reaches viewers most likely to resonate with your brand.
- Cost-Effectiveness – Hulu has many buy options, which makes it accessible for any size client to run a campaign on Hulu. Hulu offers campaign minimums as low as $500, which creates a low barrier to entry for most clients. Especially, when partnering with an agency like Tinuiti, where brands can anticipate 2-3x more efficient CPMs when compared to the general market. This makes it accessible for businesses of various sizes to test and refine their advertising strategies.
- DRAX – Disney’s Real-Time Ad Exchange establishes direct connections to major media buying platforms for streamlined ad buying across Disney+ and Hulu. This integration increases automation, allowing advertisers easier access to Disney’s inventory. Partnerships with Google and The Trade Desk provide direct paths to Disney’s inventory, offering greater reach, flexibility, and transparency.
- Engaging Ad Formats – Hulu offers a variety of ad formats beyond standard video ads. Explore interactive elements to capture viewer attention and create a more immersive brand experience with Shoppable ads, pause ads, takeovers, and more.
- Brand Safety – Hulu prioritizes brand safety, ensuring your ads appear alongside high-quality content. This minimizes the risk of your brand being associated with inappropriate content.
By leveraging Hulu’s advertising solutions, you can target engaged viewers, deliver impactful messaging, and ultimately reach your marketing goals.
How Advertising on Hulu Works
Hulu offers brands of all sizes a chance to advertise on their platform. And since Hulu falls under the Disney umbrella, advertising opportunities extend beyond the Hulu platform itself. There are opportunities to buy into inventory cross ESPN, Disney+, ABC and more.
It’s important to keep in mind, the method through which you purchase ads plays a role in the measurement insights you’ll receive. Below are the three primary ways to buy ad placements on Hulu, with additional details regarding programmatic buys, and Hulu’s self-service platform.
- Purchase ads directly from Hulu sales teams
- Programmatic ad buys
- Through Hulu’s self-service platform (currently invite-only, but brands can request access)
If you’re not ready to pick up the phone and collaborate with Hulu’s sales team on a large ad buy, you’re probably going to end up using Programmatic Guaranteed ad buys or purchase ad space through the Self Service Platform. Here’s a little more information on each option:
Programmatic Guaranteed (Reserved Buys) and Private Marketplace (Auctionable)
Ads purchased through a programmatic sales team that works directly with platforms and streaming agencies, like Tinuiti. This offers advanced local and national targeting and measurement capabilities, enhanced reporting, and suite of targeting options at fixed or biddable rates.
Whether you want to target lookalike audiences, specific demographics, interest or behavioral segments, or leverage audience CRM matching for a customized group, you’ll know exactly when and where your ads showed, and be provided with robust reporting that helps measure what’s working best, and where you should continue to invest for optimal performance. You’ll also enjoy guaranteed media buys that ensure you get the expected visibility and reach.
There are certain Hulu ad types that can’t be purchased programmatically, including sponsored placements, pause ads, and ad-selector ads, among other standout units. For these types, Tinuiti makes reserved buys for our clients from opportunities that are only available through Hulu directly.
Not sure which ad types make the most sense for your business and advertising goals? Our team works with clients to determine which campaign initiatives are best for them, and help ensure their creative meets Hulu’s requirements.
Self-Service Hulu Ads (Beta) – Must RSVP and Be Approved as a Brand
Hulu’s self-serve ad platform allows brands to access ad inventory directly, with a modest $500 campaign minimum. These ads are ideal for smaller businesses that don’t have a sizable streaming ads budget, or are just getting started with OTT and want to test the waters.
The Self-Service Ads beta program offers a glimpse into the future of advertising on Hulu. With features like budget management, targeted audience selection, and ad format flexibility (to some extent), businesses can craft impactful campaigns tailored to their specific needs. However, remember the current limitations and the need for approval before getting started.
Reporting Limitations: Notably, when purchasing through the self-service platform, your reporting will only include impression data; you won’t have insights into where your ads actually ran.
While this offering is still in beta, Hulu has already shared some early success stories. Learn more here about how Hulu self-serve ads work.
How Much Does Hulu Advertising Cost?
Unlike traditional ad buys, Hulu advertising utilizes a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) model. This means you pay each time one thousand viewers see your ad, with estimates ranging from $10 to $30 CPM. Factors like targeting specifics, competition, and ad format (pre-roll vs. mid-roll, length) can influence the final cost.
Hulu advertising costs are structured to allow for advertisers of all sizes and budgets, but the total costs, you’ll realize, will largely depend on a number of factors, including:
- Whether you’re buying directly through Hulu or a DSP (demand-side platform)
- Any restrictions you place on Hulu regarding where your ads display. Specific audience or genre targeting, and/or frequency caps, may incur a premium as well
- Which ad types you choose
- How much creative you will need to generate for your ads (production costs)
- Seasonality—Q4 advertising costs are higher than other quarters
- Whether you’re buying through an up-front agreement (advertising commitment for a full TV season), or the scatter market (ad buys that run month-to-month, or quarter-to-quarter)
How to Advertise on Hulu
Here’s what you need to know to advertise on Hulu, from buying and targeting to measurement and optimization.
Hulu offers several advertising reach options for brands:
- National: Reach viewers across the US
- Local: Reach a localized target audience
- Advanced TV: Automated, data-informed ad buys
Within the Advanced TV category, Hulu has 3 different bidding options:
- Programmatic Guaranteed: Automated, guaranteed buy with advanced targeting.
- Private Marketplace: Non-guaranteed buy with increased targeting control.
- Invite-Only Auction: Find your audience, set your price, and optimize from within your DSP
In Hulu’s invite-only auction, advertisers select their target audience, determine their bid price for that audience, and control and optimize their ad campaigns in real-time based on results and performance. You can learn more about Hulu’s advanced targeting options here.
When it comes to executing Hulu ads, at Tinuiti, we can take on all the heavy lifting for you.
Ad Types Available on Hulu [With Specs]
In today’s streaming world, capturing viewers’ attention is more important than ever. When it comes to Hulu ads, pre-roll placements (those shown before your chosen content) are proven to be highly effective, especially earlier slots within the pre-roll sequence. This is prime real estate for grabbing viewers before they settle into their show.
But don’t be limited! Hulu offers a variety of ad formats to suit your needs, including pre-roll, mid-roll (shown during commercial breaks within the content), and even 7-second bumper ads for quick, impactful messaging. Whether you choose a short and sweet 7-second spot or a more detailed 15 or 30-second video ad, Hulu offers the flexibility to tailor your message to your audience and campaign goals.
When creating your Hulu video ad, it’s important to follow their specifications including:
- Video Duration: 15 to 30 seconds
- Audio Duration: Must match video duration
- Dimensions: 1920×1080 preferred; 1280×720 accepted
- Display Aspect Ratios: 16:9 preferred; Hulu will accept videos shot with 2.39:1, 1.375:1, 3:4, or 4:3 dimensions, but you must make the video fit a 16:9 ratio by inserting matting on the top and bottom of the video.
- Video Format: QuickTime, MOV, or MPEG-4
- File Extensions: .mov or .mp4
- File Size: 10 GB maximum
- Audio Format: PCM, AAC
- Frame Rate: 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, or 30 fps
- Frame Rate Mode: Constant
- Video Bit Depth: 8 or 16 bits
- Video Bit Rate: 10 Mbps – 40 Mbps
- Audio Bit Depth: 16 or 24 bits (for audio channel 2)
- Audio Bit Rate: 192-256
- Chroma Subsampling: 4:2:0 or 4:2:2
- Codec ID: Apple ProRes 422 HQ preferred; H.264 accepted
- Color Space: YUV
- Scan Type: Progressive Scan
- Audio Channels: 2 channel stereo
- Audio Sampling Rate: 48.0 kHz
Hulu offers what they call “a viewer-first ad experience” made up of an extensive variety of different ad products and solutions, including:
Video Commercial
This is the most ‘standard’ ad type available from Hulu, with your video playing during any “long-form content commercial breaks.” Hulu allows 7-, 15- and 30-second video commercials, and “does not accept stitched Ads.” This simply means that if advertisers want to display a 30-second commercial, they will be required to have an asset of the correct length, and can’t ‘stitch together’ two separate 15-second ads.
Ad Selector
This ad type gives the viewer greater control over their ad experience. Viewers will be given the option to choose between two or three different video ads to watch from the same advertiser. This can increase the chances that viewers will be engaged with your ad as they had some degree of choice in watching it. If no ad selection is made within 15 seconds of being presented with the options, one of the two or three available ads will be selected at random and played automatically.
According to Hulu Brand Lift Norms, 2020, products like these that “give viewers choice and control” have “result[ed] in 70% higher lifts than the average campaign on Hulu.”
Branded Entertainment Selector (BES)
Choice comes into play with Hulu’s BES ads as well, but in this scenario, they are choosing not just their ad experience, but their viewing experience as well. Viewers are given the option to watch their programming of choice with the typical commercial breaks, or to enjoy their programming uninterrupted by first watching a longer ad. We like to think of it as finishing your dinner before eating dessert! This is a popular choice for advertisers who want to tell a story with their ad—or advertise a movie or upcoming event—and need more than 15 or 30 seconds to do so.
Binge Ad
Want to reach viewers dedicating some of their downtime to an hours-long binge session, but don’t want to risk hitting them with the same ad, delivered in the same way, episode after episode? Hulu’s Binge Ad placements are designed with brand safety and a positive watching experience in mind. These “enable marketers to deliver contextually and situationally-relevant messages at the right time and place – during a viewer’s binge session.”
According to the Kantar Brand Lift Study, 2020, ads like these have been shown to “increase[ing] unaided brand awareness by 24% and ad recall by 25%.”
Interactive Living Room
These ads are designed to “foster greater affinity with a brand” through “customizable interactivity” focused on whatever elements of your brand you would like to promote. Whether you want to get the word out about a new product launch, enhanced features of an existing product, a new line of services, a company announcement, or more, these ads make it engaging and easy. Hulu notes that they offer “select functionality via third-party producing and hosting partners,” and that the production lead time is quite a bit longer than for most ad types at “four to six weeks from the receipt of the final assets.”
Max Selector (Beta)
In this ad type, viewers are given a choice over how they would like to learn about the product or service being advertised. Interactive templates are designed to create “a more engaging and immersive choice-based ad experience.”
Branded Slate
Advertisers are given the opportunity to reach audiences before the show has even begun with Branded Slate custom title cards. These brief, static video ads feature your logo with “Presented by” text, with voiceover audio that identifies your brand as the sponsor. Hulu also offers Branded Slate ads specifically tailored to entertainment clients.
Premium Slate
This 7-second ad type is similar to the aforementioned Branded Slate ads, but allows for advertisers to include “their own video, dynamic visuals, and sound” as opposed to a static video with voiceover. If preferred, you can still opt for the voiceover to be handled by Hulu talent, but it is not required as it is with the Branded Slate ads. Hulu also offers Premium Slate ads specifically tailored to entertainment clients.
GatewayGo
These unique ads are designed with conversions in mind, bringing together “Hulu’s traditional living room video ads with action-oriented prompts and personalized offers.” GatewayGo ads harness “second screen enablement technologies such as QR codes and push notifications” by “shifting conversion actions from the TV to mobile devices.” Viewers who wish to learn more can simply scan the QR code using their phone—which is likely within reach, if not in their hand—or choose to receive notifications.
According to a 2020 Hulu Internal Study, “6 in 10 viewers like that they can discover and act on deals with GatewayGO.” For these ad types, Hulu strongly recommends 30-second placements “to increase engagement,” though the minimum required length is just 15-seconds.
Pause Ad
Pause ads are unique in that they reach viewers who have decided they are ready for a break by pressing the pause button, with the ad serving as a screensaver of sorts. These offer an ideal opportunity to reach viewers in the least intrusive way possible, and give you significant opportunity to increase brand awareness—particularly for viewers who pause often, and for longer periods of time.
Poster Marquee Ad
Want to entice viewers to watch a specific series or theatrical release? This ad type makes it possible by leveraging “existing coming soon design components to promote a trailer for an upcoming title.” Hulu recommends that these should ideally be an “extended trailer,” with 15-second and 30-second ad spots not recommended.
Cover Story Brand Placement
Image Source: https://advertising.hulu.com/ad-products/cover-story-brand-placement/
For this ad type, the only thing Hulu requires is your logo, which will be showcased directly within the Hulu homepage alongside the “Presented By” notation, as shown above. Thanks to their prominent placement, these ads are ideal for increasing exposure, and enhancing brand recognition.
Sponsored Collection Brand Placement
Image Source: https://advertising.hulu.com/ad-products/sponsored-collection-brand-placement/
This placement offers “advertisers extended ownership of a collection sponsorship through logo placement adjacent to content in Hulu’s UI across devices.” As shown in the above example where “Newly Added TV” programs are “Presented by LOGO” (your logo here!), your sponsorship displays in a highly visual location that naturally draws in viewers’ eyes.
Promoted Content Marquee Ad
This unique advertising option “mimics the existing Hulu UI design and only supports long-form full-length episodes or feature films.” Because “Hulu viewers already recognize this design to promote content that is available for them to watch,” they may not even realize what they’re seeing is an ad.
*Note: The ad units mentioned are almost exclusively available via guaranteed IOs (national or local) and not the audience-driven methods.
Best Practices for Hulu Advertising Campaigns
Whether you’re promoting a new product, driving subscriptions, or raising brand awareness, these best practices will help you maximize the impact of your Hulu ads and connect with your target audience effectively. Let’s explore the essential tactics and insights for creating high-performing Hulu ad campaigns.
Follow Creative Best Practices for Video Campaigns
Adhere to Ad Specs – Always adhere to the platform’s ad specifications to ensure your video displays correctly across different devices and platforms. This includes guidelines on resolution, aspect ratio, file format, and maximum file size.
Build a Strong Hook – Grab the viewer’s attention within the first 3-5 seconds. This can be achieved through visually striking imagery, compelling storytelling, or posing a thought-provoking question. The key is to pique curiosity and entice viewers to continue watching.
Consistent Branding is Key – Maintain consistent branding across your video campaigns to reinforce brand recognition and recall. This includes using your logo prominently at the beginning and end of the ad, as well as incorporating consistent color schemes, fonts, and messaging that align with your brand identity.
Stick with Simple Messaging – Focus on communicating a single, specific idea or message in your video ad. Avoid overcrowding the ad with too much information, as this can overwhelm viewers and dilute the effectiveness of your message. Keep it simple, clear, and memorable.
Use Text for Emphasis – Use text overlays strategically to highlight key messaging or calls to action in your video ad. This ensures that important information is conveyed effectively, especially for viewers who may be watching with the sound off.
Provide Variety and Freshness – Rotate your video ads regularly to prevent audience fatigue and maintain engagement. Experiment with different creative strategies, visuals, and messaging to keep your ads fresh and appealing. This also allows for A/B testing to determine which creatives resonate best with your target audience.
Utilize Audience Targeting – Tailor your creative content to resonate with the specific interests, preferences, and demographics of your target audience. This may involve customizing the storyline, imagery, and messaging to appeal to different audience segments and maximize relevance and impact.
By incorporating these best practices into your video campaigns, you can enhance their effectiveness and drive better results in terms of engagement, conversion, and brand awareness.
Use Hulu’s Targeting Capabilities Wisely
Hulu Ad Manager empowers you with a robust suite of targeting options to reach your ideal audience. Here’s how to leverage them effectively:
Audience Targeting:
- Demographics – Reach viewers based on age, gender, income, and parental status. This allows you to tailor your message to resonate with specific segments.
- Lifestyle Interests – Target users based on their interests and hobbies. For example, target fitness enthusiasts with ads for your activewear line. (Explore the full range of interest categories within Hulu Ad Manager).
- Behavioral Targeting – Go beyond demographics by targeting viewers based on their past purchase behavior or browsing habits. This can significantly increase campaign relevance.
Content Targeting:
- Genre Targeting – Place your ads within specific genres (e.g., comedy, sports, documentaries) relevant to your product or service. This ensures your message reaches viewers actively seeking content aligned with your offering.
- Programmatic Targeting – Target specific shows or programs on Hulu where your ideal audience is likely to be watching. This allows for highly focused ad placement.
Location Targeting:
- Geographic Targeting – Reach viewers within specific cities, zip codes, Designated Marketing Areas (DMAs), or regions. This is ideal for promoting local businesses or service-based offerings with a geographical focus.
Pro Tips for Smart Targeting:
- Combine Targeting Methods – Utilize a combination of audience and content targeting for maximum reach and relevance. For example, target viewers interested in fitness (audience) while placing your ads within workout-related shows (content).
- Leverage Lookalike Audiences – Expand your reach by targeting audiences similar to your existing customers.
- Test and Refine – Don’t be afraid to experiment with different targeting combinations and monitor performance metrics to optimize your campaigns for better results.
By strategically using Hulu’s targeting options, you can ensure your ads reach the right people at the right time, maximizing campaign effectiveness and ROI.
Measure and Optimize Campaigns Based on Performance
Data is king when it comes to optimizing your Hulu ad campaigns. Hulu offers advertisers varying measurement and attribution insights for their campaigns, which depend in part on how the ads were purchased. Hulu’s attribution capabilities let advertisers measure brand lift and direct ROI, and business outcomes across QSR, retail, ecommerce, tune-in, automotive, and CPG categories. Third-parties like Tinuiti offer more omnichannel campaign analysis options.
Here’s how to leverage Tinuiti’s expertise to achieve peak performance:
Set SMART Goals and Benchmarks
It’s crucial to begin by defining your objective with a clear SMART goal that aligns with your overarching marketing strategy. This goal should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Once your objective is established, it’s essential to establish benchmarks by leveraging historical data from past campaigns or industry averages. These benchmarks will help set realistic expectations and guide your efforts in tracking key metrics such as impressions, clicks, and conversions throughout the campaign.
Continuous Optimization
At Tinuiti, our omnichannel campaign analysis allows us to compare your Hulu campaign’s performance with other marketing channels like social media and email, giving you a holistic understanding of how customers engage with your brand across different platforms. But it’s not just about data – our team of experts dives deep, uncovering hidden patterns within the data and translating them into actionable insights.
These insights then fuel data-driven recommendations for optimizing your Hulu campaign. We might suggest adjustments to your targeting strategies, ad creatives, or even budget allocation to ensure you achieve the best possible results. We can also analyze viewer fatigue and recommend A/B testing new ad variations, keeping your audience engaged and maximizing the effectiveness of your Hulu advertising.
Putting it into Practice
After a few weeks of your campaign running, revisit your initial benchmarks to evaluate progress. Don’t just rely on surface-level data, leverage omnichannel analysis to understand what elements are resonating and which areas need improvement. This comprehensive analysis allows you to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of your targeting, ad creatives, and budget allocation.
By taking a data-driven approach and utilizing Tinuiti’s expertise, you can continuously measure, optimize, and refine your Hulu campaigns, driving maximum impact and achieving your marketing objectives.
Best Examples of Hulu Ads
Let’s dive into some of the most memorable and effective Hulu ad campaigns that have left a lasting impression on audiences.
Filippo Berio Interactive Ads
Image Source: https://advertising.hulu.com/brand-stories/filippo-berio/
Filippo Berio is a brand best known for their selection of olive oils and vinegars, with a legacy tracing back more than 150 years. Their thoughtful use of interactive ad formats helped them in connecting with potential customers, with their Hulu ad campaign resulting in a “2x lift in brand favorability”, and a “3x lift in brand consideration.”
- Filippo Berio’s use of the Interactive Living Room ad type “was especially impactful as an awareness-driver, highlighted by a +44% lift in brand awareness and +64% lift in message association”
- Other ad types were included in the campaign as well, including standard and situational ads
ThirdLove Contextually Relevant Original Sponsorships
Image Source: https://advertising.hulu.com/brand-stories/thirdlove/
ThirdLove is a lingerie and loungewear company that focuses on body positivity and inclusivity in their marketing, and importantly, their range of products and sizes. The brand crafted a Hulu advertising strategy that aimed to enhance “awareness and overall consideration for their products across women of all demographics” with ads that ran “alongside premium and contextually-relevant Original content.”
ThirdLove saw results that outperformed “both industry and Hulu retail norms,” in part by advertising during women-produced content, and content that focuses on themes and issues that are of importance to women. This Hulu campaign included:
- Co-branded ads at the start of every episode of Mrs. America
- Creative that included a CTA and a discount code that could be accessed by “visiting a unique URL tied to the Hulu Original series, Little Fires Everywhere”
Best Strategy for Hulu Advertising [from the experts]
Experimentation is at the heart of all statistically-significant data, and Hulu makes experimentation easy and affordable. With more than a dozen distinct ad types to choose from—and an array of ad lengths to suit all advertising needs and goals—you are provided with all the necessary tools to find the ideal methods to reach new and existing audiences.
With Hulu ads, there is no shortage of innovative options to choose from, and we encourage you to experiment extensively, but also strategically. No matter how sizable your streaming ads budget, no brand can afford to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. But you can thoughtfully design combinations of differing visual components, and ad lengths, to see which resonate best with viewers.
These learnings can then be applied across similar streaming platforms as well, many of which won’t have the same robust inventory of options to experiment with.
According to a Nielsen CTV Analytics study, 62% of Hulu viewers never saw a brand’s ad campaign on linear TV, making Hulu a critical partner to brands trying to reach new audiences or their full target audience. And with Hulu’s ability to audience-target based on CRM matching or behavioral segments, Hulu is an important partner in delivering addressable TV at scale.
If you’re interested in advertising on OTT/Streaming TV, check out Tinuiti’s TV & Audio advertising services.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published by Tara Johnson in July 2020 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.
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