You add a bunch of overlays to a VideoAd. You preview the VideoAd and everything looks great.

Then, you publish the VideoAd at the 300×250 size and embed it as a banner ad in an online publication. When you play the VideoAd you notice that some of your overlays break at odd places and look pretty unprofessional.

Here are some tips for resolving these overlay problems and avoiding them in the future.

First, lets look at an example.

Suppose you created this lead capture overlay in a VideoAd for a Japanese restaurant.

Overlay in the Studio

It looks fine when you preview the VideoAd. However, when you actually publish the VideoAd as a banner ad, the overlay looks, lets face it, ugly and unprofessional:

Overlay in published banner ad

The key to making overlays look good regardless of VideoAd embed size is to give the overlay text room to breathe and expand.

Compare these two overlays:

Constrained overlay

Overlay with breathing room

Overlays with room to breathe look good at any embed size:

Overlay with room to breathe

This same principle applies to plain text overlays. Just make sure you give them room to breathe.

Constained overlay

Overlay with breathing room

I’d like to know more about lead capture overlays.