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Great video ads don’t just grab attention – they drive action. But what separates a forgettable video from one that converts? Video marketing expert Kevin Anson shares his key ingredients to make your audience stop scrolling, engage, and take action.
The Psychology Behind High-Converting Video Ads: 12 Essential Ingredients
Ever notice how some video ads make you stop scrolling while others barely register? As a digital marketer who’s seen countless video ads come across my desk, I’ve always been curious about what makes the difference between a scroll-stopping success and a forgettable flop.
That’s why I was excited to dive deep with video marketing expert Kevin Anson, who’s spent over 20 years crafting high-converting video ads for some of the biggest names in marketing. What I love about Kevin’s approach is that it’s not about fancy equipment or complex editing—it’s about understanding the psychology that makes people stop, watch, and take action.
The 3-Second Challenge
Here’s a sobering reality: you’ve got about three seconds to capture someone’s attention on social media. That’s why Kevin emphasizes starting with what he calls a “pattern interrupt” or “scroll stopper.”
“When someone’s scrolling on their feed, you need something that catches their attention,” Kevin explains. “It could be as simple as a glitch effect, an unusual camera angle, or even just five words on the screen that make them think, ‘I need to know more about this.'”
Think of it like waving at someone on the side of the road. First, you get their attention, then you can deliver your message.
The Ingredients of a High-Converting Video Ad
Through thousands of successful campaigns, Kevin has identified 12 key psychological ingredients that make video ads convert. Here are some of the most crucial ones:
- The Hook
Your hook should focus on the result your viewer wants. What can your offer deliver? This gives them a reason to stick around and see how you’ll make good on that promise.
- Pain Points and Desires
Address the specific challenges your audience faces and the outcomes they’re seeking. This creates an emotional connection and shows you understand their situation.
- Authority Building
People need to know why they should listen to you. Share your experience, results, or case studies. Even if you’re just starting out, you can build authority by showcasing client successes.
- Objection Handling
Every potential customer has objections. Address them head-on in your video. As Kevin points out, “We all have them. Even with someone like Tony Robbins, you’re thinking, ‘Is he going to talk about business, relationships, or money in this program?'”
The Format Factor
One of the most practical tips Kevin shared was about video formatting. While many businesses struggle with creating different versions for various platforms, Kevin uses a clever hack: start with a 3413×1920 widescreen format.
“When it’s time to make the vertical video, all we have to do is duplicate that sequence and it’s already tall enough,” he explains. “We don’t have to stretch the shots up or down.” This approach can cut your formatting time from hours to minutes.
Length Matters (But It’s Not Everything)
The ideal video length depends on your platform and audience. For Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram), aim for 45-90 seconds. YouTube viewers typically have more patience since they’re actively seeking content rather than just scrolling to kill time.
But here’s the key: it’s not about cramming in all 12 ingredients every time. “Nine times out of ten, we’re not building out complex campaigns with multiple videos,” Kevin admits. “We create really good video ads, put out a bunch of them, and see which ones work.”
The Call-to-Action Sweet Spot
Your video’s ending is crucial. Kevin recommends including your website address on screen, even if there’s a clickable button below the video. Why? “Sometimes people won’t click on the ad right then, but they’ll remember the website address later.”
Here’s a pro tip: make sure your video’s branding matches your landing page. “If your video has red text and they go to a landing page with green text and different fonts, they’ll be confused,” Kevin warns. “That affects your conversions a lot.”
Getting Started Today
Feel overwhelmed? Start small. Record some practice videos on your phone. You don’t have to show them to anyone, but it helps you get comfortable on camera and find your style.
Remember, the key is understanding marketing psychology. “Humans are hardwired,” Kevin explains. “There are certain things that trigger our emotions and make us want to take action. When you touch on those things in your video, you’re unconsciously checking off boxes in their head.”
Ready to create more engaging video ads? Focus on these psychological triggers, start with a strong pattern interrupt, and keep your message focused on your viewer’s desired outcome. The fancy editing can come later—what matters most is connecting with your audience in a way that drives action.
Create High-Converting Video Ads Episode Transcript
Rich: My next guest has been producing videos for over 20 years. He’s worked with some of the biggest names in marketing and he developed a specific set of direct response video ad frameworks and has taught thousands of entrepreneurs how to create high converting video ads online.
Today, we’re going to be discussing how you can make more engaging, more rewarding, higher performing videos with Kevin Anson. Kevin, welcome to the podcast.
Kevin: Thank you. It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Rich: My pleasure. So what led you to focus on video marketing, of all the different aspects you could have chosen?
Kevin: I’ve been doing video for, as you said, 20 years. And in about 2017, I started to learn about marketing and getting people to actually click on a video ad, because that’s what you want them to do, or click on a video and take action to buy something or to sign up for something.
And so prior to that from 2004 to 2017, I was a video guy. And I was great at making videos, but I didn’t understand the psychology underneath, the messaging, the copywriting, just the timing and the pacing and the music and the graphics, just all the stuff that makes a really good video come together. And so I started geeking out over that stuff.
I bought the book DotCom Secrets by Russell Brunson. I had no idea who the guy was, saw a video ad on Facebook and read that thing. And then I joined his Facebook group. Next thing he put a post in the Facebook group one night that said, “Hey, we’re looking for a video editor. We have a new project coming up.” And I dropped some links to my work in there, not thinking he would ever reach out to me, because there was over a hundred comments in there. And the next thing you know, he’s messaging me privately on Facebook and I’m like, oh my gosh, this is crazy.
And long story short, that’s pretty much how it got started was around 2017, I started learning about marketing. And ever since then I’ve just devoted my entire career to video advertising and direct response. And it’s been a lot of fun. I’m still learning just like everyone else, but yeah, it’s great.
Rich: So tell me a little bit about your company and what services are you offering your clients today?
Kevin: So we produce video ads for our clients for usually Meta and YouTube. And we develop a set of video ads to deliver to them, so that way they have more than one video ad asset to run. Instead of just giving them one video ad, we give them a set. So the intro hook is a little bit different on each one. And we do the copywriting and give them directions on the shooting. And we pretty much handle the entire process from start to finish so clients don’t have to.
They don’t have to tell us how to edit or tell us how to do our job, we know exactly what we need based on their offer, whether it’s a B2B offer or B2C offer. Typically, we work most with B2B, but we know what they need based on what’s on their landing page, what their offers about, who’s their ideal customer, and we produce a set of ads that’s tailored to that.
Rich: Awesome. So the reason I originally reached out to you is because one of the things that we’ve noticed at our agency is that the platforms, the social platforms themselves have just been really adding more AI into the management of these ads, really forcing people and agencies to use more of the AI rather than their own sense of how to target, how to budget, all this sort of stuff. And it feels like it’s that piece of it’s just continuing to become more automated, which to me means that the differentiator going forward is really going to be in the creatives. And obviously video is a big part of that.
So with that in mind, what makes a video engaging or not? What are some of the psychological tactics that you employ to make a video get someone to stop their scroll?
Kevin: Yeah, we have a set of about 12 ingredients that we’re always looking at before we produce an ad. And one of the most important ones I can tell you right now that a lot of people miss is using something that’s jarring in the beginning. They call it the ‘scroll stopper’ or the ‘pattern interrupt’.
And that’s just something that when someone’s scrolling on their feed, which a lot of us do, something catches our attention. Why did that catch our attention? Be cognizant of that. Be aware of that the next time you see a video that catches your attention. Sometimes it’s just the hook. It’s five words on the screen that caught your attention. You’re like, oh, I need to know more about this. So the pattern interrupt is really important for hooking people in. So you just bought about three seconds of their time, hopefully.
And then after that, then you go into the messaging. And so you just want to get them, it’s like waving at them. You’re on the side of the road, waving at them, getting their attention. They stop their car and okay, what do you want to tell me? So then you get into it.
The hook, which a lot of you have probably heard of, is really important, but you want to make sure that the hook is focused on something that ties in the result that the person wants. That’s one of our most popular hooks that we use. It’s, what’s the result that the person wants that’s watching this right now? Like, what can your offer deliver to them and that will give them a really good reason to stick around and watch the rest of the video to see how that unfolds about how do you deliver on that result that you were talking about in the beginning?
And then there’s a whole series of, other ingredients. I’ll just tick them off really quick. And you guys can, if you’re watching this or you’re listening to this, you can type it in the ChatGPT if you want and be like, “Hey, tell me more about this.” But it’s really just the pain points and desires are really huge. Making sure that those are included in your video.
I already talked about the result, but that’s another way that you can actually tie-in the result or the promise into the video out a little bit later as well. You want to make sure that you’re talking about your authority, because there’s a lot of people who are selling something or talking about something, and the person on the other side is watching it and going, “who is this person and why should I listen to them? Do they have any experience? Have they sold any of these widgets that they’re trying to sell me?”
So talking about your authority is key. And if you’re somebody who’s just getting started, you’re like, I don’t have a lot of authority yet. I’ve only been doing this for a couple of years. You can always, tie in some case studies or we were able to get X, Y, Z person this result. So that’s another way to build in your authority as well.
And then objections are big. Because any person that’s buying something online, we’re over here scrolling and we don’t know we’re about to buy something or sign up for something, we have objections. It doesn’t matter who you’re looking at. Even if you look at somebody like Tony Robbins, like he’s got an ad and you’re like, okay, cool. I know who that guy is, but I’ve got objections about what he’s trying to get me to sign up for. Is he going to talk about business in this thing or is he going to talk about relationships or money or whatever it is.
And so making sure that you talk about the objections that people have inside of the video, it’s crucial. We all have them. And you go on Amazon, you’re about to buy something. What do you do? You go and you look at the reviews that’s addressing your objections. You go on down and you look at some of the testimonials from people to see what are all the one stars, what are those people saying? You’re seeing if you have any objections after reading those. , so objections are big.
And then of course social proof. I touched on that a little bit already, but people want to know, does this thing that you’re trying to pitch to me, has anyone else done it before? Am I the first person? Who else has done this? Have you delivered the results that you’re telling me that you can with other people?
And the last one is the CTA, it’s just the call to action. Just telling people what to do next. Because if you just end your video and you’re like, “Goodbye”, people don’t know what to do next, typically. Yeah, if you’re running a video ad, people know it’s like, there’s a ‘learn more’ button below it, but sometimes you have to say that.
And then adding urgency and scarcity to that. Like, this event is only on this date after that it’s gone. Or we only have so much supply. Or this ad is going to disappear soon. Or we can only take on a select number of clients, things like that, just to get them to click. So that’s all the ingredients right there in one.
Rich: Yeah, that’s a lot of ingredients. I want to go back to some of the first things that you mentioned, hook and pattern interrupt. Are those the same thing, the hook and the pattern interrupt?
Kevin: They’re different, but sometimes they can be used as the same thing. So the pattern interrupt could be something as simple as waving at the camera, or you’re holding your phone at a really high angle or a low angle, or maybe you’re in a pool or you’re swimming, or you’ve got something that’s on fire. So that could be a scroll stopper. It’s something that’s out of the ordinary that people aren’t used to seeing.
But sometimes the hook can act as the pattern interrupt. If you get it in front of them right in the beginning and it’s jarring enough. Like something that we use a lot is a polarization, and that could be like, “Hey, diets are dead, right?” You’re saying something that’s technically it’s not true by all standards, but you’re just calling out something that goes against traditional belief. Like, diets are dead, websites are dead.
Rich: SEO is dead.
Kevin: Yeah, we’ve all seen those things, but it does a good job of getting people to be like, what the heck is this guy talking about? They already know, they’re like, okay, what’s the alternative approach that he’s going to talk about? And so they want to hear it then.
And so there’s a myriad of different ways to talk about the polarization, but that can be used as a pattern interrupt as well.
Rich: With thousands, I’m sure, of videos behind you, what are some of the most effective ones that you’ve created or that you’ve seen out there in terms of getting people to stop the scroll?
Kevin: We use a glitch effect a lot in our videos, where you can go on a website that has stock footage like storyblocks.com, and you could download a glitch. Just type in “glitch effects” and you download that, and you just put it over the beginning of your video.
Because when people are scrolling on the internet, the thing that they’re used to seeing the most is starting off with just somebody’s talking head. So instead you just started off with a glitch effect, and that’s probably the one that we use more than anything. Because yeah, it works and it’s quick and it’s easy,
Rich: Sounds good. Now some of the you, you listed off, I think it was like you said, 12 ingredients. I wrote down a bunch of them. How long are these videos supposed to be? Because we’re always told things should be as short as possible. And yet it feels if we’re going to work in authority and social proof and case studies that we’re talking about a much longer video.
Kevin: Yeah, it depends on the on the offer and where your customer is and their journey. If they’re problem unaware, they’re problem aware, they’re solution aware or solution unaware. So you have to look at that and decide which of those ingredients that person at that stage would need to see in order to move forward.
And so when you’re working with colder audiences who don’t know who you are, they don’t know anything about the solution that you offer, it does take a little bit more convincing. So in that case, you might have all 12 ingredients in there. Sometimes if it’s just, we’re talking about an event that we’re putting on or whatever, and people already know who we are, they’re following your let’s say Facebook page, then you can leave out some of that stuff. Like, you don’t need to talk about authority because it’s like, they already know who you are, right? So you can drop some of this out.
But to answer your question, the length is 99% of the time we’re sitting in between 45 seconds to 90 seconds. That’s sort of the sweet spot. Now if you’re going on YouTube, it’s a little bit different. The watch times, they’re just different than Meta, and people are more willing to invest more time when they’re on YouTube because they’re there for different reasons. People on Facebook are killing time. People on YouTube are going on YouTube on purpose to sit and watch a video, so you have more time to explain your offer to them on there. So just totally two different platforms there.
Rich: Speaking of different platforms, how do you prepare the videos for the multiple platforms? Obviously, some platforms traditionally have more of a landscape view. Others, especially social media, it’s more of a portrait view. Some people have opted for just going with the square 1×1 aspect ratio. Do you create different versions for each platform or for each ratio, or do you just go with one?
Kevin: So we do a couple of different sizes for Meta, and then usually just one size for YouTube. But for Meta it’s three actually, 16×9, 1×1, and 9×16. So that’s basically widescreen, square, vertical. And the size that we see that works the best right now is square. It’s just because it takes up most of your feed.
And if you can compare that to a vertical video, and you see a vertical video on your feed in Facebook, it crops it because the platform is cropping it. So as the viewer, you have to click into the video in order to see the whole thing expand. And so a lot of people don’t do that. So the messaging gets missed. Because if you have captions at the bottom, it’s not showing it below the window unless you click in on it on the vertical video. So the square works really well because it has all the information inside of that square, and people can see it all on their feed without having to click into it.
I’ll tell you another really good hack that I don’t share with a lot of people. I share this with my private consulting clients and stuff sometimes, is that the way that we make videos is we always make a widescreen video, regardless of what size it’s going to end up being. We edit as a widescreen video. And so we do 3413 by 1920. So that’s 3413 wide in pixels by 1920. And the reason that we do that is because when it’s time to make the vertical video, all we have to do is duplicate that sequence and it’s already tall enough. We don’t have to stretch the shots up or down or whatever.
It’s literally just, sometimes you just have to slide shots over left or right, and then you just resize the graphics in there. And then you’re able to produce the vertical and the square videos within 20 minutes to an hour. Whereas before, if you’re doing that and you’re rebuilding that whole widescreen video into a vertical, it takes hours and hours to redo all that stuff.
So that’s a little hack for you guys. Some of you might be like, that’s way over my head. But if you’re an editor and you understand this stuff, or if you’re getting into editing, or you want to start learning how to edit your own stuff, it’s a really good format to use edit in a widescreen and then just condense down from there.
Rich: That makes a lot of sense. Now, a few times you’ve talked about having a video series, or you talked about putting together a campaign. So as you’re sitting there working with some clients or strategizing with a client on how to do this, what are some of the different aspects or considerations that you’re taking in so that you can create a successful series of videos that might lead somebody from a cold lead into something that’s more warm, more engaged with your brand?
Kevin: So usually it’s like I mentioned earlier, with making sure that you know where, obviously, where your customer is in their journey. Whether they’re problem aware, unaware, solution aware, unaware. And so if they’re completely just ice cold, they have no idea who you are. They don’t even know what this offer is. They didn’t know they needed it until 30 seconds ago. It takes more explaining.
And so there’s a series of pretty much you could do two videos, or you could do three videos as you’re moving people up that ladder and warming them up. But that first video needs to be a lot of explaining, probably more educating on what your offer is and how it can solve their problems. Because they’ve never heard of you, and they didn’t even know that they had this problem.
Or sometimes they do know that they have this problem already. An example like diets, losing weight. Or a software that they already know. That there’s a website building software out there, but they didn’t know about your solution. But anyways, you can create different videos in that series just to give people the information that they need at the different stages. And without getting into a whole 15-minute analysis on exactly what ingredients we would put in each of those.
But even to step back from that, plenty of our clients, they don’t have that series of videos where it’s like warming people up, taking them through a site, a funnel. It’s just one video ad, and they all have similar messaging. And whether it’s going to cold, whether it’s going to warm, it doesn’t matter. As long as you do a good job inside the video of explaining what this thing is, how it’s going to solve the problem, how it’s addressing some of those objections, those videos right there can do a really good job all the way through the process.
I’d say nine times out of ten, we’re not building out those campaigns that have all of those videos and thinking about all those different touchpoints. It’s just, we create really good video ads and we just put out a bunch of them and we see which ones work and which don’t. Which ones drive people through.
Rich: All right. So let’s cut to the chase, and that being the calls to action. So you’d mentioned this is one of the last things you need to get to. And obviously, a lot of these videos are going to be seen on platforms like Facebook or YouTube more often than not, I’m guessing that we want to send somebody to a website or to a landing page.
What are some of the ways that you work in effective CTAs into your videos, or do you not put them in the videos, and you put them say in the description or the button, or do you do all three?
Kevin: So you’re talking about the CTA that goes at the end of the video?
Rich: Yeah. And it could be something you say out loud or maybe it’s in the text, like you tell me, what have you found to be most effective to drive people to take a desired action?
Kevin: So yeah, we’re usually just putting the website address on there. And the reason that we do that is because there are times when people will not click on the ad at this point in time, but they’ll remember the website address later. So having the website address and having ‘click to learn more’ or ‘free for a limited time, register now’, or, something about just clicking, like whatever it is that you’re getting them to do.
And then one of the most important things that we do is to make sure that the branding on the CTA, as well as throughout the whole video ad, is congruent with the landing page. Because if your video has a bunch of red text, and then they go to the landing page and it has green texts, a different font, they’re going to be confused and they’re not going to know if they’re in the right place. And so that will affect your conversions a lot.
So we always make sure that stuff is fluid all the way through the video ad into the landing page. And sometimes we’ll even tie in the landing page into the CTA. So we’ll take a screenshot of the landing page and then we’ll put that inside of a small, little laptop graphic and we’ll put that on the CTA. And so that way when they see that they go, “Oh, okay, cool”, and then they go to the landing page and then subconsciously…
Rich: They know they’re in the right place.
Kevin: They’re comfortable. Yeah.
Rich: Yeah. Brilliant. So you obviously work with a lot of different companies and video ads all the time. What are some of the common mistakes small to medium sized businesses are still making when it comes to their video creatives and ads?
Kevin: I see a lot of videos that they just don’t focus on the ingredients, the psychological ingredients inside of the video ads that I see. It’s just them talking on camera. Sometimes they waste the first five seconds of the video talking about something that’s not important. Like, “Hey, I’m, John Anderson and I’m with so and so software.” It’s like, people are already gone. It’s no, you got to get right into the meat of it fast, otherwise you lose people. So I see that a lot.
And yeah, I mean, I don’t want to say that editing is important because there’s a lot of you out there who maybe don’t know how to edit, and you just want to get some videos up there. But at the very least, you want to make sure that you are putting captions on the video. Because a lot of people do watch videos without captions. They won’t even turn the sound on at all. So make sure that you include those.
There’s really easy to use captions apps out there nowadays. Three years ago, the stuff didn’t even exist. There’s, I think it’s captions.com, or captions.ai, and they have a desktop software that you can use. You just upload your video to it, and boom, it’s ready to go. And there’s a bunch of others.
But I’m trying to think of what else, what other mistakes I see people make. But it’s really just talking about too much fluff, and stuff that doesn’t relate to the viewer. Their pains, their objections, the result that they want. And they just talk too much about features and benefits and things that just aren’t important. Because people are like, cool feature, but how is that going to make me more money, or how’s that going to solve my relationships, or whatever it is.
Rich: They’re really keeping the focus on the audience and not about your products or your company, necessarily.
Have you started to see AI become a bigger part of your process as you’re developing out these different video components for your clients?
Kevin: Yeah, absolutely. AI has helped us a lot with getting us our first draft of a script, whereas before it would take a lot longer than that. And I haven’t yet asked GPT or some other AI to write me a script, and then it wrote one and I was like, cool, we’re done here. Like that just hasn’t happened yet. And I’m sure there’s plenty of folks that have their AIs trained in a certain way that maybe they can pull that off. I know one guy who does.
But for video ads, our process is we use a custom GPT that we built, that it asks us a series of 12 questions about the offer, the thing that you’re selling, your product or service, and then the avatar, which is the customer. So a series of 12 questions, you just give it as much information as you can and then it spits out a pretty good script.
And then we have different ad types that we use. So there’s different combinations of those ingredients. There’s not one type of video ad with 12 ingredients every time, right? There’s just different ones. There’s one where the ad just solely focuses on objections, or it focuses on polarization or education.
But with AI, it helps us a lot. It’s not there yet. And I hope it doesn’t get there to where it’s scary and it’s doing everything for us. Because then that’ll just snowball, and it’ll just affect every industry to where no one’s going to know what’s genuine or not anymore. But we use it quite a bit.
Rich: Awesome. Kevin, what’s one actionable step you could recommend listeners do today to get started in creating more engaging video content for ads?
Kevin: I would say do some studying on marketing psychology and what are the different things that people really care about inside of a video. It’s all about persuasion and psychology. You can look those two things up as they relate to marketing. Because humans are hardwired. We’ve always been the same way, nothing’s going to change. There are certain things that trigger us, that trigger our emotions, that trigger us to want to take action on something. And so when you touch on those certain things inside of a video, you’re unconsciously checking off boxes in their head as they hear each one.
And next thing, you’re building trust with them even though they don’t realize it. And you’re building rapport with them. And then by the time the CTA comes, they’re more likely to click.
So another thing I could say too, is really just if you are not somebody who’s comfortable with being on camera, you’ve never done it before, just record some videos on your phone. You don’t have to show them to anybody just because you recorded a video on your phone. Just do some practice when you’re in your car next time and write down a couple key bullet points that you want to cover in your video. And just try to get through like a 30 second ad. If you have to do it 20 times, who cares, just delete them all. But eventually, you’ll get one that you’re comfortable with and you’ll be like, “I could maybe add captions to this and run this thing.” Or maybe I’ll take this video and hire an editor on Fiverr for $20 bucks and they can put some B- roll on there. And yeah, you got to start somewhere.
Rich: All right. So just get started. Love it. Kevin, if people want to learn more about you, more about your company, where can we send them online?
Kevin: Yeah, I have courses on this stuff on my website. So kevinanson.com, and you might have to enter some W’s in the front of that. I don’t know what’s going on with that. Something happened with GoDaddy anyways, but yeah, kevinanson.com. And then there’s a link on there for some of the courses that I have.
And then also the agency is adsoffire.com, if you want to go over there and see some of our work or hit me up. But yeah, and you can reach out to me on Facebook, add me as a friend.
Rich: Great. Excellent. We’ll have all those links in the show notes, with and without the W’s. Kevin, thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it.
Kevin: Thanks, Rich.
Show Notes:
Kevin Anson is a video marketing expert and the founder of Ads of Fire, where he helps businesses create high-converting video ads. Kevin also offers courses and consulting to help brands master video marketing strategies that drive engagement and sales. Be sure to connect with him on Facebook.
Rich Brooks is the President of flyte new media, a web design & digital marketing agency in Portland, Maine, and founder of the Agents of Change. He’s passionate about helping small businesses grow online and has put his 25+ years of experience into the book, The Lead Machine: The Small Business Guide to Digital Marketing.