6 tips for great TV ads, published straight from Canva

How to design great TV ads

Whether it's your first TV ad or you're refreshing creative for a campaign that's already live, here's your creative cheatsheet.

Time it to your marketing goal

Aim for something short and sharp for cost-effective, attention-grabbing streaming ads. If you’re aiming for top of the funnel, looking for reach, traffic, and an efficient campaign, Vibe recommends 15 seconds. If you’re going for middle or bottom of the funnel and you need to explain a little more to get people purchasing or are only planning to run one piece of creative – go for 30 seconds.

It’s all about the first 3 seconds

It’s not so different from designing digital ads: Like online, you've got about three seconds to earn someone's attention, so those opening frames need to give them a reason to stay.

Try starting with a person or on a problem your viewer can relate to – and at the same time, try to get your brand in the first few frames. From there, keep the edit moving. A good 15-second ad usually has three or four scenes in it rather than one long take.

Design for sound off...and on

Put your key line on screen as text so it lands whether or not the sound’s on. Size it up, go for strong contrast, and give it space in the frame. If you'd squint at it from the other side of your office, it's too small.

It's also worth checking the edges, since TVs and streaming apps don't all display the frame identically. Keep your logo and anything you can't afford to lose well inside it.

Your ad does need an audio track, though. Plenty of living rooms will hear yours loud and clear, so mix it on regular speakers rather than headphones.

Say one thing – and say it warmly

The TV doesn’t always have our full attention. One clear idea travels further than three, so pick your strongest and build the whole ad around it. You haven’t got a lot of time – so to make sure it lands with your audience, it’s safer to ensure this one lands, instead of working through separate features and overloading your audience.

Keep the tone warm while you're at it. A friendly, familiar scene is easy to sit with, and real people usually feel more believable than polished stock footage.

Keep your call to action on screen

There's nothing to tap on a TV, so the next step needs to be easy to act on from the couch. Pick one thing you want people to do, whether that's scanning a QR code or heading to a short URL, and ask for that alone.

Then leave it up for the whole ad rather than saving it for the final seconds, so someone who looks up eight seconds in gets the same instruction as someone who watched from the start. QR codes make that about as easy as it gets, since people can scan from where they're sitting without getting up or writing down a web address.

Make a few versions

One ad on repeat can wear out fast – making a small set keeps things feeling fresh and shows you which opening is earning the most attention.

It’s easy to roll out in Canva: Just duplicate your design, change the hook or the first scene, and publish each version separately. Give it a week and you'll see which one people are responding to, then put your budget behind that one.

Get your ads seen by a whole new audience

And the design you make in Canva is the file that goes to air, straight from the same tab you built it in.

Vibe helps marketers run their own streaming TV campaigns, also called Connected TV, or CTV. Your ad shows up on apps from Disney to HBO Max, with over 500 apps and channels to choose from, live sports included, and you decide who sees it — bring your own customer list, or let Vibe find new households that look like your best buyers.

Because advertising on TV opens up a different kind of audience:

• Streaming TV ads play full screen, with the sound on, and often in front of more than one person. So every time your ad plays, you’re already reaching more people, with around 1.5 viewers per impression.
• Ads aren’t skippable, which means they play all the way through most of the time – completion rates are around 95%.
• Fewer ads play per hour, so there’s less crowding for attention, so your ad gets more breathing room, and more of a chance to land.

Publish your ad in three steps

Step 1: Get your ad ready

Open the video design you want to publish to CTV, or start a new one.

• Set your canvas to 1920 x 1080 pixels – that's 16:9, the shape of every TV screen, and the resolution Vibe needs for its premium channels.
• Make sure your ad has audio on the timeline – Vibe won't run silent ads.
• Keep it between 5 and 90 seconds (15–30 seconds is the sweet spot for cost-effective performance).
• If your design doesn't meet Vibe's requirements, Canva stops the upload and tells you what to fix, so you'll know before it goes anywhere.

Step 2: Connect to Vibe

You'll find Vibe where you'd find any other way of sharing a design.

1. Select Share, then select and tap the three dots.
2. Go to More options, then choose Vibe.co
3. Select Open.
4. Sign in to your Vibe account.
5. Choose the account you want to connect, then select Next.
6. Choose which advertisers to connect.
7. Turn on the toggle if you'd like new advertisers connected automatically as you add them.
8. Check your selections, then select Connect.

Step 3: Publish

Pick the advertiser this ad belongs to from the dropdown, give your ad a name, and publish.

What happens after you publish

• Your ad lands in your Vibe library, which means it's made the trip from Canva. It'll show as pending while Vibe checks it against their content guidelines – ads that follow the guidelines are usually approved within 30 minutes. If something does get flagged, someone at Vibe takes a closer look.
• To view your ad, open your Vibe dashboard and go to the Library page. Your ad will show as pending while it's being checked.
• From there, the rest happens in Vibe: choosing your audience, your channels, your budget, and your campaign goal — whether that's awareness, retargeting, or sales, the same objectives you'd set on search or social.

You don't need a big campaign to find out if it works. Make one ad, publish it, and see how it lands in the living room.

Open the Vibe app in Canva to make your first, or next, TV ad.