By Editorial TeamThere’s a lot of bad advice floating around about video ad formats, and it’s costing marketers real money. People are still working off an old playbook for what works in video advertising for 2026, and they don’t get the difference between an interactive experience and a straight-up linear ad.
Key Takeaways
- When you give users some control with interactive video ads, you can see engagement rates shoot up by as much as 12 times compared to passive formats.
- Linear video ads still work great for big brand awareness plays, especially on platforms where people are just leaning back and watching.
- If you’re going to use interactive elements, you better have a plan that gives the user something valuable in return, otherwise you’re just creating frustration.
- The data you get from interactive ads is gold. It gives you much deeper audience insights that let you build way smarter retargeting and content personalization.
Myth 1: Linear Video Ads Are Dying
I keep hearing that linear video ads are dead, like they’re some fossil from an era when we all just sat and stared at a screen. That’s just wrong. The way people watch media has definitely gotten more complicated, but linear video is still a powerhouse for big branding campaigns. Just think about how many people still watch live sports, the news, or even streaming services that have old-school ad breaks. That’s all prime real estate for linear. A recent Nielsen report (https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2025-media-trends-report) actually showed that even with all the on-demand options, regular TV and connected TV (CTV) still take up a huge chunk of daily viewing hours, especially for people who like having their content scheduled. The real strength of a linear ad is its simplicity. You don’t have to do anything but watch, which is perfect when you just need to get a consistent message in front of a ton of people. A car company launching a new SUV, for example, will blanket every platform with linear video to hammer home the brand and the new model. The immediate goal isn’t a click, it’s to get that car lodged in people’s brains. When you try to shoehorn interactive stuff into a place where people just want to watch passively, you just annoy them and create a bad feeling about your brand. You have to know the platform and what the user is there to do. YouTube’s skippable in-stream ads are a perfect example of a linear format, and their success is measured by things like completion rates and brand lift, not how many people clicked.
Myth 2: Interactive Video Ads Are Just Gimmicks
A lot of marketers write off interactive video ads because they think they’re just shiny objects that don’t add real value. That’s a shallow take that misses the entire strategic point of these ads. When you do it right, an interactive ad turns a one-way message into a two-way conversation, which generates way more engagement and gives you incredibly rich data. The IAB (https://www.iab.com/insights/interactive-video-ad-spend-report-2025) found that interactive ads can get click-through rates up to 5 times higher than linear ones, and I’ve seen campaigns where the engagement was 12 times greater. The “gimmick” reputation comes from lazy execution. Of course an ad that makes you click on pointless buttons or offers nothing for your time feels like a gimmick. But think about a good one: a fashion ad where you can tap the different outfits a model is wearing to get product details and add something to a wish list, all without leaving the ad. Or a travel ad that lets you pick a destination to see specific deals and build out a quick virtual itinerary. Are those gimmicks? No. They’re smart personalization and qualification tools. The user is literally telling you what they’re interested in, handing you valuable first-party data on a silver platter. You can then use that information for razor-sharp retargeting. If someone interacted with a specific pair of boots in your ad, your next display ad can show them those exact boots, which makes a conversion far more likely.
Myth 3: More Interactivity Always Means Better Performance
The hype around interactivity can lead you to believe that just piling on more clickable hotspots, quizzes, or branching stories will automatically make your ad work better. That’s a trap. Throwing in too much interactivity without a clear purpose or good design just confuses people and makes them frustrated, which tanks the ad’s performance. Often, less is more. The point isn’t to be interactive just to say you are. It’s to create a real value exchange for the user. Think about it from their perspective. If an ad hits them with a bunch of choices before they’ve even processed what the product is, they’re just going to tune out. The cognitive load is too high. A well-made interactive ad guides the user through choices that actually help them understand the product or tailor the experience to their needs, instead of just giving them more work to do. For example, a software company could have an ad that lets you pick your industry to see a demo that’s actually relevant to you. That’s purposeful. An ad that asks five random trivia questions about a product you just saw for two seconds is a recipe for abandonment. Good user experience (UX) design is everything here. You have to remove friction and make the reason for interacting obvious from the start. It’s absolutely critical to test different levels of interactivity and watch your analytics to see exactly where people are dropping off inside the ad itself.
Myth 4: Interactive and Linear Ads Exist in Separate Silos
It’s a mistake to treat interactive video formats and linear video ad formats as an either/or decision. The best video campaigns I’ve seen actually use both, deploying them at different stages of the funnel where their strengths can really shine. This integrated approach works because it understands that people come at your brand with different levels of intent. Think about running a campaign in stages. You could start with broad-reach linear video ads on CTV or in social feeds to just build awareness for a new product. The goal there is to get attention and communicate one core idea. Then, once someone’s been exposed to that message, you can retarget them with an interactive ad. For example, a user who watched 75% of your linear ad about a new phone might later get served an interactive ad that lets them compare models, customize the color, or book a demo right there in the player. You’re moving the user from passive awareness to active consideration. Platforms like Google Ads and the Meta Business Help Center have more and more tools that help you set up this kind of sequencing based on user behavior. A recent eMarketer case study (https://www.emarketer.com/content/video-ad-strategy-2026) showed a beverage brand that got a 25% bump in purchase intent when they ran linear brand ads first, followed by interactive ads that let people “mix” their own virtual drinks. Using the formats together tells a much better story. It’s about building a complete experience, not just picking a format.
Myth 5: Measuring Success for Both Formats Is Identical
Too many marketers are using the same KPIs for both interactive and linear ads, and it’s giving them a completely warped view of performance. When you do this, you end up putting your budget in the wrong places because you don’t really understand what each ad accomplished. Sure, they both need to drive business, but their immediate goals and the kind of data they produce are totally different. For linear video ads, you’re looking at metrics like reach, frequency, video completion rate (VCR), and brand lift (things like ad recall and brand awareness). These KPIs tell you if you successfully got your message out there and changed people’s perception. A high VCR on a linear ad is a great sign that your creative and targeting are on point, because it means people actually absorbed the message. They’re built for scale, not for clicks. On the other hand, interactive video ads need a whole different scorecard. Reach and VCR are still part of the picture, but you should really be focused on engagement rate (what percentage of viewers actually interacted), click-through rate (CTR) on the interactive parts, time spent interacting, in-ad conversion rate (like filling out a lead form or adding to a cart), and the quality of the preference data you captured. If your interactive ad asks users to pick their favorite product color, the real win isn’t just the click, it’s that you now know their color preference for all future marketing. For example, an interactive ad for a movie service might ask what genres you like. Success isn’t just that they engaged, it’s that you now have that genre data for personalization. If you don’t separate these measurement strategies, you’re comparing apples and oranges and you’ll completely misread your campaign’s performance. Getting a handle on today’s video ad formats means getting past these old myths. You have to understand the specific job of both interactive and linear ads and measure them correctly to build campaigns that actually work in 2026. Knowing your CMO Video Metrics is critical to proving the real impact of these strategies.
What is the primary advantage of linear video ads?
Their biggest strength is getting a simple, consistent message out to a huge audience for brand awareness and recall. People don’t have to do anything but watch, making it super effective for top-of-funnel campaigns.
How do interactive video ads provide better audience insights?
They capture what users are interested in by tracking their choices right inside the ad. This gives you concrete data on what individuals want, which you can then use to build much more effective retargeting and personalized content.
Can interactive and linear video ads be used together in a campaign?
Absolutely. It’s one of the most effective strategies. You can use linear ads to build broad, initial awareness and then follow up with interactive ads to engage people who showed interest more deeply.
What are key metrics for measuring the success of interactive video ads?
You need to track things like engagement rate, click-through rate on the interactive buttons or choices, how long people spent interacting, any conversions that happened inside the ad, and the actual preference data you collected from their choices.
Why is it important to avoid excessive interactivity in video ads?
Because adding too many choices or buttons without a clear purpose just overwhelms people. It creates a frustrating experience, which causes them to abandon the ad and in the end hurts your performance.
