Hulu Ad Manager Guide

Digital and advertising marketing can be the most effective way to reach more potential customers and get the branding message in front of the right target audience at the right time. In this case, Google, Facebook, and Instagram are still the number one channels in digital marketing. However, many new platforms are available that help you reach large numbers of consumers. Here, if you are trying to find out ways to increase your brand’s awareness among your customers and reach more potential customers, advertising on streaming services may be a perfect choice for you. In today’s guide, we are going to examine one of the most popular ones in the US: Hulu Ad Manager, also known as the Hulu self-service ad platform, launched in 2020.

We are going to tell you everything you need to know about this ad management platform. We are going to introduce you to what it is, what it offers, its advantages and disadvantages, and how it is used. If you are ready to learn more, let’s dive in!

What Is Hulu Ad Manager?

Hulu Ad Manager is defined as a self-service advertising solution for streaming TV. It gives you the ability to reach your potential customers and track and analyze your ads’ performance on the platform. The best side of this ad management service is that it allows you to manage your ad campaign much more easily and quickly, even if you are an owner of a small and medium-sized business. 

Since consumers’ habits of traditional TV have shifted to the internet, marketers may be worried about reaching this new kind of audience. This is exactly how Hulu’s Ad Manager helps. If you have a plan to include streaming ads in your marketing strategy, this great tool helps you launch, manage and analyze your own streaming ad campaigns in an affordable way.

Hulu Ads Vs. Traditional TV Advertisements

• When you run your ad campaign on TV, you are targeting everyone who is currently watching TV. On the other side, when you run your ad on Hulu, you can target specific individuals based on their interests, locations, and even certain demographic characteristics like gender or age.
• Since television advertising services and platforms are complex for small and medium-sized businesses, you may need a sales team in order to purchase and place your ads. On the other side, Hulu’s Ad Manager is easy to use, easy to set up, and easy to manage. Because of this reason, even if you are not knowledgeable about streaming services, you can easily use this ad management service. 
• You must have thousands of money to run your ad on TV. On the other side, Hulu’s Ad Manager allows you to run your ad campaigns with a minimum spend of $500.
• If you run a small business locally, Hulu allows you to ensure that your ad video will only run the areas you want it to. On the other hand, you can’t target local customers when you use traditional TV advertisements. 

Advantages of Hulu Ad Manager

• While setting up your ad campaign on the platform, Hulu’s support team helps you whenever you need it. 
• Hulu gives you the ability to filter your audiences before running your ad campaign. For example, you can filter them based on location (state, city, Zip code, or DMA), gender, interests, and show genre on the platform. Thus, you can reach ideal customers in the right way. The service also lets you exclude certain locations that you don’t want to target.
• In order to use Hulu Ad Manager, you do not need to pay subscription fees, membership fees, or sign-up fees.
• If your ad campaign is not working as expected, you can pause or cancel at any time. 
• Once you pause or cancel your ad campaign on the platform, you will only be charged for delivered impressions.
• Depending on your needs, there are a lot of ad campaign options, such as banner ads on programs, custom videos, or pre-recorded commercials.
• Hulu’s Ad Manager is a perfect option for businesses of all kinds and sizes to create awareness for their brands or to improve their business on the internet.
• You will not be billed until your ad campaign has run on the platform, so you can save your money from going to waste.
• Hulu’s Ad Manager has a user-friendly dashboard, so you can easily oversee every aspect of your ad campaign from beginning to end based on up-to-date analytics.
• Whenever you need, you can contact Hulu’s customer support center.

Disadvantages of Hulu Ad Manager

• Hulu does not accept a business bank account, debit card, or other forms of payment for payments. For this reason, you can only use a credit card on the platform.
• Hulu does not allow you to select a specific show for your ad campaign to run on.
• Your ad video must match specific requirements. For example, your video must be between 15 to 30 seconds in length or be in either MP4 or MOV format. If the video doesn’t meet the requirements, you will not be able to run your campaign.
• The approval process of your ad campaign can take up to 72 hours. 
• The more ad impressions and clicks you want, the higher cost it would be to advertise on Hulu. So, we can say that the platform adjusts its ad cost for each advertiser. 

How to Use Hulu Ad Manager 

Now that you know much more about Hulu’s Ad Manager, it’s time to learn how to use it. Even if you do not know the platform, you don’t need to worry about it; it is quite easy and flexible to use this manager. 

1. Go to the https://home.admanager.hulu.com page.
2. In order to run an ad campaign on Hulu, you must first submit an RSVp form with your business information. So, click on the RSVP For Beta button on the page.
3. Type first name, last name, business email, business phone, business name, your website URL, business address, city, state, and Zipcode. In the ‘Tell us more about your business’ part, you should choose ‘I am an Advertiser representing my own brand(s) or ‘I am an Agency and represent other brands.’
4. Click on the ‘I have read and agree to the Hulu’s Ad Manager Beta Program Terms.’ 
5. Click on SUBMIT RSVP. Once you are accepted, then follow the next steps.

1) Manage your schedule: 

After getting approved, you can select when you want your campaign to run by managing your schedule.

2) Target your audience: 

After creating your schedule, you can start to target your audience based on their ZIP codes, interest, program genre, demographics (age, gender, etc.), or lifestyle. In this case, you will face a lot of options, from family travel and frequent travelers to luxury travel to travel. So, you can narrow it down by typing the name of a state, city, designed market area (DMA), or a ZIP code of the Hulu viewers you are trying to reach and select it from the list. You can even exclude the states you don’t want to target.

Hint: If you are not sure about the genre where your ads will run, you can take a look at the current show selections to get an idea. 

3) Set your advertising campaign budget: 

Now, it’s time to set your budget to run an ad on the platform. At this point, Hulu’s budget starts as low as 500 dollars for each advertising campaign. In other words, you can start running your campaign on Hulu if you have 500 dollars. Compared to other streaming platforms like Amazon’s, the cost is considerably less, isn’t it?

4) Upload your ad campaign:

If there is no problem up to this point, you can now upload your ad campaign. In this step, there are a few requirements you should pay attention to in order to be approved by the Hulu team. 

Hulu Advertising Specs 

Your video should be; 

• between 15 to 20 seconds in length,
• be in MP4 or MOV format,
• be in high definition (HD) with stereo sound,
• comply with Hulu’s advertising policies.

After uploading your ad campaign, you should wait for getting approved. It takes up to 72 hours (three business days). 

5) Make a payment: 

If your ad campaign is approved, you can now add your credit card to the system to pay fastly and securely.

Hint: Hulu does not accept debit cards or business bank accounts. For this reason, you can only use a credit card for your payments on the platform.

6) Track the performance of your ad campaign: 

Once your ad campaign has been approved, you will be able to reach your potential customers and track and analyze the performance of your ad campaign by getting up-to-date data. Here, you can see click rates and impressions of your campaigns. If needed, you can make easy adjustments based on the performance of your campaign. 

If you like this article, you may want to take a look at our How to Use Facebook for Business? article.

What Does Hulu Ad Manager Offer?

There are numerous reasons why you should use Hulu Ad Manager. Let’s list a few of them!

• You only need $500 to run your ad campaign using this ad management platform.
• Hulu allows you to filter customers based on ZIP code, gender, and interests, so you will be able to reach more and true potential customers.
• You can figure out if the campaign is working because Hulu helps you easily track and analyze your campaign status and impressions. 
• Based on your campaign performance, you can feed the campaigns and reach more people, or you can stop or cancel whenever you want.
• Since Hulu’s Ad Manager is a flexible and easy-to-use tool, businesses of any size can use it. 

Our Final Thoughts on Hulu Ad Manager

Hulu Ad Manager service helps small and medium-sized businesses reach thousands of potential customers without spending too much money. This ad management service describes itself as a self-service advertising solution that allows advertisers of companies to target and reach specific audiences, upload ad campaigns and then track, measure, and analyze the performance of each ad campaign based on the up-to-date campaign status, impressions, and clicks.

In today’s guide, we have talked about this ad management service, its advantages and disadvantages, and how it can be used. Since the platform is designed for small and medium-sized business owners, you do not need to be a marketing or advertising expert in using this service. All you need to do is create an account, submit the necessary information about your business and send the ad campaign you want to run. That’s all. Once your account and ad are approved, it is time to reach thousands or even millions of potential customers!

If you liked this article, you may also like our advertising tips for businesses as well. There are so many articles about digital marketing and advertising, be sure to check them our too.