Bumper ads

What a bumper ad is

Six seconds, no skip, bought on CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Unlike skippable in-stream ads, there is no view threshold to argue about. The bumper plays. The question is whether the six seconds carried anything.

Let's take a drink brand as an example. They sell a low-sugar sports drink for active women over 50, mostly from their own website. The drink brand buys ads on Meta, TikTok, and YouTube. Bumpers sit under the longer YouTube work, not instead of it.

What six seconds can do

Land one idea and the brand. That is realistic. Bumpers work best as a layer, not a campaign: pair them with longer video so the short spot triggers something the viewer already saw.

Let's take a drink brand as an example. They sell a low-sugar sports drink for active women over 50, mostly from their own website. The drink brand spent $8,000 on bumpers at about an $8 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). That is 1,000,000 impressions ($8,000 / $8 × 1,000). Frequency (how many times the same person sees the ad) averaged 4, so about 250,000 people saw it. The line was Electrolytes without the sugar crash. Brand in the first two seconds. No URL, no three claims. The 20-second skippable ad carried the $36 pouch and the site. People who had seen both were more likely to search the brand that week than people who had only seen the bumper. The bumper was the reminder, not the pitch.

How to build a bumper

If you are cutting a 30-second script down, you already have too much. Shoot the six seconds as six seconds. Let's take a drink brand as an example. They sell a low-sugar sports drink for active women over 50, mostly from their own website. The drink brand's first bumper was the last six seconds of the TV cut. It opened on a logo nobody had context for. The native bumper opened on the walking shoes and landed the line. Same spend band, clearer recall in a small brand-lift question the drink brand ran on YouTube.

• One message. If you are cutting a script, you already have too much.
• Brand within the first two seconds, not on the last frame.
• Design for silent playback as well as sound-on.
• Shoot the bumper natively rather than trimming a 30-second edit down to its worst six seconds.

Common bumper mistakes

Cramming three claims and a URL into six seconds is how you get none of them. Letting frequency run unchecked is how a non-skippable reminder becomes an annoyance. Let's take a drink brand as an example. They sell a low-sugar sports drink for active women over 50, mostly from their own website. The drink brand caps bumper frequency and judges the format on reach and branded search, not on the same completion rate sheet as a 20-second story. Completion on a bumper is nearly 100% because nobody can skip. That is not a creative win. That is the format.

• Cramming three claims and a URL into six seconds.
• Letting frequency run unchecked, so a non-skippable reminder becomes an annoyance.
• Expecting direct response from a reach format, then judging it on the same sheet as your completion rate work.