Commercial video delivery: every cut, every format, one link

Commercial video delivery is the final step of an advertising project. The approved versions go to the client, the media agency, and the platforms, so everyone can find their file, watch it before downloading, and get the exact master.

It sounds like “just send the files.” But think about review first. Nathan ran review in Frame.io, and it went smoothly. Frame.io has version stacks: a new version goes on top of the old one, and the player opens the latest right away. That’s ideal for editing—version 7 sits on top of version 6, and no one watches an outdated cut. Vimeo has a similar tool even on its Creator plan: “Unlimited review links, with custom expiration dates and customizable appearance.”

But once someone says “approved,” the stack turns into a grid. The twenty-four finals aren’t versions of one video; they’re twenty-four different files, each with its own destination. The six-second bumper goes to YouTube. The subtitled vertical goes to TikTok. The 30-second 16:9 goes to local TV.

That’s why Nathan has three delivery pages in his VodSpot project. The first is for the client’s marketing director: every version, preview only, no downloads. The second is for the media agency: the same 24 files with all the masters. The third is for the Spanish-speaking market: the page interface in Spanish and a Spanish caption track. Each page has its own link, password, and expiry date, and you can close one without touching the others.

VodSpot has no frame-by-frame comments, so Frame.io stays for the edit. Commercial video delivery starts where review ends. We walk through the whole process, from export to handoff, in video delivery workflow for freelancers.

Review is a stack. Delivery is a grid.

Cutdowns often get edited on the last night, after all the energy has gone into the hero spot. And it shows. But treating them as an afterthought is a mistake, and a costly one.

Kesten Newstead and Jenni Romaniuk of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute compared 15- and 30-second TV commercials from Australia, the US, and the UK and published their results in the Journal of Advertising Research in 2010. A 15-second spot costs 60–80% as much airtime as a 30-second one. Yet it delivers about 80% of the longer spot’s recall and likability. And viewers identified the brand equally well with both. So every dollar spent on the short spot works just as hard, and often harder.

Nathan’s client knows this without any research: on local TV, the 15-second spot airs more often than the 60. For most viewers, the short version is the campaign.

In commercial video delivery, the short version doesn’t sit at the bottom of the list or in an “other” folder. It sits right next to the hero spot, with its own name, its own thumbnail (picked right in the player with “Pick a frame”), and its own master. If the client wants to compare the 30 and the 15, they open them one after the other on a single page, not in two tabs from two emails.

A cutdown isn’t a cut-down version. It’s the one that airs most.

In 2023, YouGov asked 1,000 American adults whether they turn on subtitles when watching TV in a language they know. Among those under 30, 63% preferred subtitles, and 23% always turned them on—versus 11% of those over 30. The reasons are telling too: a third of subtitle users (33%) watch somewhere noisy, and 22% don’t want to disturb others. The survey was about TV, not ads, but the habit carries over. People scroll their feeds on the bus and in line, surrounded by other people.

So a subtitled version isn’t a just-in-case extra. On VodSpot, each video can have up to 20 caption tracks in SRT or VTT: English, Spanish, and one for each market. The client switches them on in the player on the page, and the master stays clean. If a platform needs burned-in text, that’s a separate version and a separate line on the same page. How to prepare captions, and why they matter beyond accessibility, is covered in accessible video hosting and captions.

The same goes for vertical video. Mulier, Slabbinck, and Vermeir published a field study and two experiments in the Journal of Interactive Marketing in 2021. Vertical ads on a phone drew more interest and engagement than horizontal ones. The explanation is simple: you don’t have to turn the phone, so the ad is easier to take in. The effect was strongest among Gen Z.

So 9:16 isn’t a social media afterthought; it’s a full campaign format. In commercial video delivery, it belongs on the same page as the 16:9: the same order, the same kind of description, the same Download button for the exact original.

Your viewer holds the phone upright. Deliver the way they watch.

How long should a link stay live? That’s a question for the contract, not taste. If a spot uses performers under the SAG-AFTRA commercials contract, it has a Maximum Period of Use. The 2025 contract raised it to 24 months (from 21), and it now runs from a clear date: 10 business days after filming with on-camera performers begins. That’s how the Joint Policy Committee, the advertisers’ side in negotiations with SAG-AFTRA, explains it. And the JPC’s contract FAQ states plainly that unpaid use after the expiration date is “unauthorized use.”

Nathan’s spot uses SAG-AFTRA performers, and he shot in early March 2026. So the usage term ends in March 2028, and that’s the expiry date he sets on the media agency’s page. VodSpot will remind him three days before. That gives Nathan a reason to email the client: “If you renew the rights, I’ll renew the link.”

An expiry date won’t claw back masters that are already downloaded: the page closes, but the agency keeps its files. What you do get is a record of which master was downloaded and when, and with viewer email sign-in, exactly who. That’s the difference between “sent” and “we know they got it.” How to combine a password, an expiry date, and viewer email sign-in is covered in the password-protected video guide.

One more practical detail: commercial video delivery for two years means two years of subscription, because the link works only while the plan is active. On Solo, that’s $240 a year, or $480 for the whole campaign.

The usage term lives in the contract. The link expiry date lives in the page settings. Make sure they match.

Before you trust a service with a campaign, ask it eight questions:

• Does each version get its own title and description? Or does the client guess from the file name?
• Does the download give you the exact master or a recompressed copy? And is the original file name kept?
• Do 16:9, 9:16, and 1:1 all fit on one page?
• Can you add captions for each market? As separate tracks, without touching the master.
• Can you make separate pages for the client, the media agency, and each market? Each with its own password and expiry date.
• Is there a link expiry date, and an unpublish that stops players that are already open?
• Do you get an email for every download? And can you tell who downloaded?
• Do you pay for storage, or for views and bandwidth?

With commercial video delivery on VodSpot, the first seven answers are “yes,” and the last one is “storage.” For campaigns where a pre-launch leak is expensive, the Studio plan overlays the viewer’s verified email on the video on the page, though not on downloaded masters. When that helps is covered in what is a video watermark. What VodSpot doesn’t have: frame-by-frame comments, a “download all” archive, DRM, or a public API. Prices are on the pricing page.

A good handoff is one after which no one follows up with “So where’s the final?”