Video ads and product videos

Video ad specs by platform

Every platform has its own shape and lays its own buttons over your video. As of November 2026, their help pages said this:

These are the platforms' numbers. Check your file against each platform's page under Sources before you upload.

Plan the vertical 9:16 version first

Reels, Stories, TikTok and Shorts are all 9:16. TikTok recommends vertical for its feed ads, and Google says vertical is the shape that suits Shorts. If your ad will run in more than one of them, plan the vertical version first.

A vertical ad is more than a horizontal ad cropped. A product on a table reads well in 16:9, but in 9:16 it needs to fill the middle of the frame, close enough to read the label.

So tell Domi where the video will run in your first message. The placement decides how every shot in the plan is framed.

How to brief Domi for a video ad

Brief Domi the way you'd brief a person making the video for you. One message can carry most of it.

• The product arrives as one or more clear photos, which Domi uses as her reference for its label, color and shape.
• One idea makes an ad easier to plan and to remember, such as a launch, a use or a feeling.
• The audience and the placements go together. Say who it's for and whether it runs on Reels, TikTok, Shorts, YouTube or all of them.
• A style sets the look. Video Studio makes product commercials, cinematic drama, animation drawn by hand, stop motion, music videos, documentary, 3D animation and 1960s fashion films. Name one, or describe a video you like.
• What you already have is where Domi starts, whether that is a script, a rough storyboard or footage to edit together.
• What must not happen belongs in the brief too, like claims you can't make, a competitor's colors or the product used in a way it never is.

A first message might read “SOLEN vitamin C serum, photos attached. A vertical video ad for Reels and TikTok, three shots. A slow push in on the bottle in morning light, a hand turning it to the light, then the bottle by a sunlit pool. Calm and clean. Keep the label as it is in my photo.”

Below are short clips in eight of those styles.

Why the shot plan comes before the filming

Many problems in a video ad start in the plan. The opening shot is wrong, the message comes too late, or the product is barely on screen. A shot plan you can read in a minute catches these before anything is filmed.

In Video Studio, Domi writes the plan first and you approve it. Change the order, cut a shot or ask for a closer shot of the label, all in words while it is still a plan. Then she films what you approved.

The same product and the same cast are held across the shots. The bottle in the third shot is the bottle in the first, and a person who appears twice looks like the same person.

A plan is ready to film when it passes four checks:

• The first shot shows the product or gives people a reason to keep watching.
• The message is one idea, and it lands before the end.
• Each shot adds something the one before it didn't.
• The last shot leaves the product and its name on screen.

What to check before you publish a video ad

• The ad in motion shows what a still hides, like a label that shifts or a hand that changes partway through a shot. Watch the whole ad at full size, then on a phone.
• The product in every shot should match your photo in label, color, shape and cap. If one shot drifts, tell Domi what's wrong in that shot.
• Sound off and sound on both need to work. Meta recommends captions, so make sure the ad makes sense on mute and add captions before you upload if your placement needs them. Google recommends sound for Shorts ads, with music, voiceover or both, and Meta calls sound strongly recommended for Reels.
• The safe zones keep your words visible. Leave the top 14%, the bottom 35% and the outer 6% of a Reel clear, and check a TikTok frame against TikTok's safe zone file.
• Claims and rights are yours to confirm. Each platform reviews ads against its own policies, so make sure what the ad says about the product is true and that you have the rights to any footage, music or logos you bring.
• The file size has limits. Meta takes video files up to 4 GB, and TikTok feed ads take files up to 500 MB.

Common mistakes with video ads

• One horizontal cut everywhere shows with blurred bands on Shorts and as a small strip in a tall screen on Reels and TikTok.
• A late message misses everyone who scrolls away early. Put the reason to care near the start.
• A video that doesn't match the stills makes the campaign look like three brands. Start your product photos, ads and video from the same look.

From one product photo to a whole launch

From the same product photo, Domi also makes product photos for your store in Image Studio, and ads in every size and posters with real text in Design Lab. One brief keeps the product, the look and the message the same everywhere.

For something longer than an ad, such as a short film from a script, a short drama or a music video, Domi starts the same way, from a storyboard you approve.

If you make videos with other people, invite them to the project to work with Domi there. Notes are drawn on the work and go to whoever made it, your client watches through one link, and a team wallet can give each project its own budget. More on teams.