What is a bumper ad?

What fits in six seconds

Google's help pages describe bumper ads as non skippable ads of up to six seconds that use Target CPM bidding, so the advertiser pays per thousand impressions rather than per view. In practice that time holds three things at most: something visual that stops a glance, one message in a handful of words, and the brand. Spoken copy has room for about a dozen words at a natural pace. That rules out explanation, comparison and multi step offers. What survives is a name, a single benefit or price, and a reason to remember it the next time the viewer sees a longer ad or searches.

What bumpers are good for

They are a reach and frequency tool. A viewer who has seen the same six second message several times across a week is more likely to recognise the brand in a later, longer ad or at the point of purchase. That makes bumpers useful for launches, seasonal offers, local businesses that want to become the familiar name in a suburb, and as a follow up to a longer skippable ad. Google's video sequencing lets an advertiser show a longer ad first and a bumper afterwards to the people who saw it, which is a common pairing. Because the cost is set per thousand impressions, the price of reaching each person once is predictable, which makes bumpers easy to plan against a fixed awareness budget.

When they are the wrong choice

A bumper cannot carry anything the viewer needs to think about. A new product category, a service with conditions, or anything that needs a demonstration will be misunderstood at that length. Bumpers are also a poor fit when the goal is a measurable action from the ad itself, because six seconds leaves no time for a considered click and the viewer is waiting for the video they chose. If the campaign is judged on sign ups, a skippable in-stream ad or an in-feed video ad usually serves it better.

Writing and designing for the format

Put the brand on screen in the first second as well as the last, since impressions are counted whether or not anyone pays attention to the ending. Make the single message legible without sound; a large line of text beats a voiceover that carries the offer alone. Use one scene change at most, because every cut in six seconds costs recognition time. Keep the offer permanent enough to run for the length of the flight, or plan several versions. Finally, build a bumper as part of a set with a longer ad, reusing the same visual and line, so the frequency adds up to one memory. A still frame of the finished ad, viewed at phone size, is a quick test: if the message cannot be read in one glance there, it will not land at full speed either.

Common mistakes

Cutting down a thirty second ad by speeding it up is the classic error; the result feels rushed and says nothing clearly. Another is spending the first three seconds on a logo animation, leaving three for the message. A third is a call to action that needs a web address to be read and remembered. A fourth is judging bumpers on click through rate, which will look poor next to formats built for clicks. The fairer measures are reach, frequency, and whether branded searches or later ad results rise while the bumper runs.

Where it shows up in the product

The video generator makes no ad buying or placement decisions and has no bumper preset. The short length setting targets about ten seconds across three to six scenes, and Promotional scenes run 2.5 to 4 seconds each, so a six second bumper is roughly two scenes: generate a short video, then delete or retime scenes on the timeline until it runs six seconds. The countdown offer example shows the kind of single line, high contrast scene that survives the cut. An export of thirty seconds or less that needs no new narration is free to start, and the MP4 is uploaded to Google Ads separately.

Questions people ask