How Much Does Hulu Advertising Cost 2023?

Popular Ad-Based Subscription Service

With a wide selection of television series, reality shows, movies, and animated shows, Hulu is available on various devices, including smart TVs, smartphones, tablets, and streaming sticks such as Roku and Amazon Fire.

Through a subscription, Hulu viewers have an extensive library of TV shows and movies in addition to live and on-demand programming from various networks and studios. Hulu also provides multiple add-on options, including premium channels and unlimited access to the entire library, for an additional extra fee.

Subscribers can view Hulu with two plans: the free version containing adverts, and the premium paid subscription plan, which is advert free. Like traditional cable television, the free version runs commercials during ad breaks in episodes, movies, and shows being streamed.

Hulu has many subscribers using both versions, with a pretty even split.

Cable Cutting Phenomenon

In America, a new phenomenon known as cable cutting has been steadily on the rise, with millions of consumers 'cutting the cable' and ditching traditional cable in favor of the vast amount of premium network streaming services available currently. With this rise, an advertising shift is also taking place, with billions in revenue each year now heading away from TV advertising and into the realm of streaming TV advertising campaigns.

With good reason, too. Streaming TV advertising allows advertisers to find a vast and almost perfect target audience at competitive rates while being able to measure results more precisely through a clever ad platform.

Is It Worth Advertising with Hulu?

In our opinion, Hulu ad campaigns are the new big thing in the advertising world and very much worth considering. 

Hulu has become the third most popular streaming service in the world, and with the backing of the financial juggernaut that is Disney, the chances are pretty good that they will eventually evolve into an international brand equal to, if not bigger than Amazon and Netflix.

But there is something about Hulu ads cost in particular that makes it quite special, in comparison with TV ads: choice-based advertising, which is currently unique to the Hulu advertising platform.

Due to the popularity of ad-based streaming TV, Hulu has been forced to identify new ways of reaching a target audience who are used to watching uninterrupted Netflix or Amazon shows without ads. It poses intriguing difficulties, but with it, a new type of advertising is taking flight in which viewers only see ads that are in some way relevant to their interests.

The great thing about Hulu ads is that they are incredibly creative about how to push them in front of the right type of Hulu users. With their 'choice-based' advertising, known as the Hulu ad selector, viewers only see the material they want to watch and can skip the rest.

The ad selector option is advantageous for advertisers since, although receiving fewer overall views for an advertisement, those who do see it are more likely to find it beneficial. For example, you can choose automobile ads when looking for a new vehicle or new movie advertisements if you enjoy watching movies.

Statistics Don't Lie

Hulu claims that its ad selector is 24% more effective at generating a desire to buy in viewers and is 150% more effective than regular TV ads at generating recall.

Actually, numerous statistics back up Hulu ads statistics. With the help of their Branded Entertainment Selector (BES), viewers may decide whether to watch a protracted ad at the start of their show or frequent breaks throughout it.

According to Hulu ads, this is almost twofold more effective at raising awareness. When it comes to attracting viewers, Hulu ads do seem to be much more effective than traditional TV ads in many aspects.

How Do Hulu Ads Play?

With regard to ad formats, the first thing to understand is that Hulu is the only streaming service with commercials. Unlike Netflix and Amazon Video, Hulu has a license from TV networks enabling them to do so.

You can watch as many movies and TV series as you want, whenever you want, thanks to Hulu's ad-supported plan business model. Every time you watch something, you get a brief introduction to some form of advertising. This means that most of the time, Hulu advertising will play for one of its advertisers in one form or another.

If you don't want to see Hulu advertising, you can upgrade to the $12.99/month no-ad version of the service with fewer available commercials. This enables you to view all of Hulu's content without being interrupted or distracted by advertising.

Hulu Ad Formats

Similarly to traditional TV ads, Hulu video ads also play quite frequently through different ad formats. It may be a standard advertisement that any business can purchase, or it may be a more exclusive video ad in conjunction with Hulu.

These Hulu-created advertisements are made to blend in with the current content the firm offers. They are created by the same individuals that produce their shows and are positioned appropriately. If an episode is about vehicles, for example, there is an advert for one played at a specific time during the show.

Second, Hulu returns results that are sponsored advertisements when you search for something relevant. The advertisements themselves are typically live streaming of content like holiday advertorials, movie trailers, or fast-food promotions.

Additionally, you receive non-ad results that you can decide to view if you would like to.

Choice of Durations

Hulu advertising will take care of the ad's encoding, hosting, and streaming - all you need to do is create the advert in MP4 format, under 300MB in size and upload it through the Hulu ad manager.

Initially, there are three durations to choose from which are 7-, 15-, or 30-second-long ads, with 15 seconds being the most popular choice among most advertisers. These ads are played before a show starts or after it has ended (thus, not interrupting the program) and are usually not enabled to skip.

Many new advertisers begin with a cheaper 7-second advert during the testing phase and then scale in duration depending on results.

If you wish to create a longer advert of up to 90 seconds, mid-rolls might be an option. These types of ads play during the show and are usually 30 to 90 seconds in duration. These ads are skip-enabled, providing a certain time period has passed during the show.

In addition to the previously mentioned video ads, there are one or two further advertising options available through the Hulu ad manager, which enable marketers to select different types of ads. Let's take a look at what they are.

Branded Slate Ads

Similar to the traditional television slate advert along the lines of 'this program is brought to you by', branded slate ads are static one-page ads with your brand logo positioned. Usually shown immediately before and after a program, for a few seconds.

GatewayGo

Hulu recently announced a new strategy known as GatewayGo ads, using QR codes and push notifications to present notification messages, mostly on mobile. Advertisers are able to sponsor GatewayGo ads with a static message.

Interactive Ads

Hulu has recently broadened its ad strategy by introducing interactive ads that allow viewers to subscribe to email offers.

How Much Does It Cost?

Overall, Hulu ads are more accessible, in terms of cost, than you might realize. In the past, fees were often between $35 and $45 CPM (cost per thousand views or impressions). More recently, advertisers are reporting a drop in average rates and are reporting averages as low as $25 per thousand.

Obviously, the specific costs vary depending on time, specific audience, spot, and type of video playing. Some of the pre-roll spots can run for as little as $5 - $10 per thousand views, which is useful for acquiring retargeting traffic during in-show spots and running again to the target audience.

We would suggest using an agency like Taradel to launch your Hulu advertising campaign, owing to more stringent ad account management. Dealing directly with Hulu can often (but not always) result in less diligent procedures: it is not uncommon to burn through ad budgets as Hulu sometimes repeat the same ad to the same people, resulting in saturation. Through an agency, you negate this risk through careful account management and establish direct relationships with Hulu ad managers.

Final Word

The advertising possibilities on Hulu are quite appealing, and with the current 'cable cutting' environment, it does seem that streaming platforms are the way forward for savvy advertisers. Unlike TV advertising, Hulu ad measurement allows for a far more measurable campaign through video ads, static ads, and various other types of ad placements.

Hulu's advertising fits the caliber of their current platform, unlike some other sites where your content could be drowned out with inferior ad structures. In other words, Hulu does strike us as advertiser-friendly, with forward-thinking innovations in place to make ads more appealing.

To start advertising with the Hulu advertising channel, please get in touch with Taradel and discuss the various options available for Hulu ads.