Pre-Roll
Video ads that play before video content starts.
Pre-Roll is a ad formats & placements concept that ecommerce teams touch every week, usually without agreeing on a definition first. This page sets out what it means, how to apply it at catalog scale, what to measure, and where it breaks.
Definition
Pre-roll ads run before a piece of video content. Formats include skippable (TrueView on YouTube) and non-skippable (bumpers, mandatory pre-roll on connected TV).
Why it matters
Pre-roll captures attention at peak — the user is committed to watching something. But if the ad drags, the skip is one click away.
Pre-Roll in practice
Pre-roll ads run before a piece of video content. Formats include skippable (TrueView on YouTube) and non-skippable (bumpers, mandatory pre-roll on connected TV). A format is a set of constraints — ratio, duration, safe area, sound expectation and user intent. The same message performs very differently across two placements because the viewer's posture is different. Building for the placement rather than resizing into it is most of the difference between fine and good. Read it next to YouTube Ads, Video Ad, Hook.
How to get it right
Design for the dominant placement first, then adapt deliberately: reframe rather than letterbox, keep key content clear of overlays, and assume sound is off until proven otherwise. Where a placement has a distinct native language, respect it instead of exporting one master everywhere.
What to measure and watch
Report by placement, not just campaign. A blended cost per result hides the placement subsidising or draining the set. Watch early-view retention for video placements and thumbstop for feed placements, then adjust the creative rather than only the bid. Why this matters commercially: Pre-roll captures attention at peak — the user is committed to watching something. But if the ad drags, the skip is one click away.
Where Pre-Roll sits in an agentic creative workflow
Xeli renders each concept into every placement's spec in one pass — correct ratio, correct safe zone, correct file requirements — so a campaign ships complete instead of arriving in fragments as resizes trickle in. In the context of ad formats & placements, that means the concept stops being something a person re-applies by hand every campaign and becomes a rule the system enforces on every asset it produces.