North of a billion people are subscribed to at least one streaming service. Most people have more than one. And all of those services offer a cheaper tier that leverages advertising. Though, the real question should be, what’s more affordable: spending money or spending time? Alas, that is not our topic for today. Today we focus on being an advertiser on a streaming service. Specifically, Hulu.
- Why Advertise on Hulu?
- What Types of Ads Are on Hulu?
- Ad Placement on Hulu
- How Much Does It Cost To Advertise on Hulu?
- How Mad Genius Advertises on Hulu
- Advertising on Hulu Allows You To Find Your Target Audience With Precision
Why Advertise on Hulu?
Hulu is one of the largest streaming platforms in the world, with more than 53.6 million subscribers. No, those numbers aren’t as high as Netflix’s, but there’s something here that makes Hulu unique. Over 55 percent of Hulu subscribers use ad-supported plans. Netflix just got into the ad-supported content game. Meanwhile, Hulu has offered ad-supported plans since its launch, which means they have more experience supporting advertisers.
Brand-Safe Content
With a substantial library of content, you’re guaranteed to find content that aligns with your brand. No matter how niche your industry, one of the 2,500 shows and movies will align with your brand.
Precise Audience Targeting Options
Hulu has a pretty comprehensive ad managing interface that allows advertisers to target based on:
- Location (filter by zip code, city, and state)
- Gender
- Age
- Audience (advertising your product to people who have a history of buying that particular product)
- Platform
- Genre
Along with finding content that aligns with your brand, you’ll easily be able to key in on your target audience. The ability to advertise by location along with the variety of pricing options has made Hulu in particular a great platform for small businesses who just want to advertise to a local customer base.
Utilize Advanced Analytics To Measure Results
If you absolutely love data (we do)–if you’re the type of person who puts on a thick pair of glasses with some tape wrapped around the bridge of the nose (we are)–the type of person who puts their khakis on one leg at a time before sitting down to a fulfilling day of Microsoft Excel (we have)—then you’ll love Hulu’s reports.
They have two kinds of reports: campaign reports, and detailed data reports. The first is relatively self-explanatory. By the time you get to the point where you’re looking at ad performance, you will have already selected the ads you’re running on Hulu and categorized them into one or multiple campaigns. The campaign report is a summary of how a given campaign is performing. The detailed data reports, on the other hand, organize the data by the targeting options listed above, like age or gender.
What Types of Ads Are on Hulu?
Video Ads
These are your more traditional thirty-second and fifteen-second commercials you’re probably already familiar with. Advertising video ads on Hulu gives you options for ad placement. But we’ll talk about that later.
Binge Ads
Though not particularly new at this point, Hulu created an innovative ad medium that considers exactly how people consume streaming content. The days of waiting a week for a new episode are largely gone and have been replaced by binging, so Hulu created “binge ads,” which play at the end of episodes.
Binge ads offer exclusive sponsorships that can run at the beginning of a series. This lets viewers watch the series mostly ad-free. This also means you aren’t forced to compete with other advertisers for those precious views.
Pause Ads
These are ads that play when the content is paused. An ad like this works perfect with viewers binge-watching content and pausing throughout the series. This type of advertising lets you use QR codes, animation, and other visually interesting elements to engage viewers before they restart their show.
Interactive Ads
Unlike normal ads, these ads allow viewers to interact directly with your landing page and offer information on your product, its features, and your company.
Ad Selector
This is more of a feature than an ad type itself, but its flexibility makes it a bit more engaging than other ads. An ad selector ad lets viewers engage with the content they want to. It offers a selection of different ads from the same company.
Ad Placement on Hulu
Another bit of flexibility that Hulu offers non-streamers is different types of ad placement.
Pre-Roll
Ads here are played before the start of the show. Aside from getting the “pride of place” in terms of positioning, your ad is not interrupted. Ads here are integrated with connected television (CTV) advertising.
Mid-Roll
The ads here are placed in the middle of commercial breaks and provide a break from the action. The placement here is more akin to what viewers are used to from traditional broadcast television.
How Much Does It Cost To Advertise on Hulu?
There are a few factors that influence the cost of advertising on Hulu, but there’s a $500 minimum ad spend per campaign. Not the priciest when it comes to streaming services, but here are a few things that can also cause that minimum price to quickly add up.
Ad Formats
Different ad formats have different price structures. For example, all else being equal, a pre-roll ad is going to cost more than a mid-roll ad. The advertising space at the start of an episode is more valuable because the amount of people who keep watching until the mid-rolls will be less than the number of people who started the episode.
Audience Targeting
The more precise you get with your targeting, the more effective your ad will be and, of course, the more it’ll cost.
Campaign Duration & Frequency
Longer campaigns and higher frequency can quickly add cost to your overall campaign cost.
Bidding Competition
There’s always competition for the best time slots and highly viewed content, so be prepared to possibly bid on the available advertising space if you’re looking to advertise during a hit show or live sporting event.
Buying Method
Advertising costs vary depending on whether you use Hulu Ad Manager (self-serve), programmatic buying, or direct deals for guaranteed ad placements.
How Mad Genius Advertises on Hulu
When coming up with concepts and writing scripts, ever-present is the idea that this idea has to be viable in six, fifteen, and thirty-second ads. (Really we’re thinking well beyond that because it’s usually a campaign that also has to live in static print, digital, and billboard ads, but let’s stay focused on video.)
Advertising on Hulu Allows You To Find Your Target Audience With Precision
If Americans are watching TV, most of them are doing so via streaming services, which means advertising on them is a must in 2025. Hulu’s robust suite of advertising options make them the ideal partner. Speaking of ideal partners…
Mad Genius knows all when it comes to advertising on streaming platforms. And if you’re looking for information, why not fill out the form below and let us know what time works best for you? Speak with a genius and let’s get started on getting your brand seen on everything from a 70-inch TV to a phone screen of someone who dozed off while watching Hulu in bed.