For any business, producing a video commercial is a bold and expensive way to announce your presence/product/service to a wide audience. It only takes a few minutes of a cleverly executed spot that can explain what a business does and engage viewers in a way static advertisements cannot.

YouTube videos can be produced and broadcast for a much lower cost than pricey TV commercials, and don’t need to follow to the same time constraints. Businesses can connect with their audience in the right way – by making them laugh, touching their hearts, or encouraging them to action – and the video can generate instant brand awareness with many new customers.

The flip side, however, is the possible embarrassment and damage to the brand that can be caused with an ill-conceived advertisement. Touching the wrong nerve can be devastating, espeically when the audience can voice their disapproval so easily in YouTube’s comments section and share the video clip across social media platforms.

For tips on how to avoid the pitfalls, one must turn to Adam Lisagor, founder of Sandwich Video, who is arguably the preeminent director of video ads for startups in Silicon Valley. His company has produced over 140 videos for clients including Flipboard, Airbnb and Square. His recent ad for Coin, a company that makes universal payment cards, has got about 8 million views on YouTube till date. Below are his 5 tips for making an effective video ad.

1. Length is flexible, but keep it brief.

Compared to advertisements in other media, online video commercials provide some freedom to tell a story of the business or product in greater depth. “Humans receive and retain information at a certain pace and in a certain linear order,” Lisagor says. “So the longer Web format allows us the space to receive new information without having it shoved in our eyes and ears.”

His recommendation is to keep videos in the 90 to 120 second range; and if the product is relatively straightforward, 60-seconds or less can be enough. One must be careful not to abuse the relative lack-of-time constraints, however, he warns.

“If you have [viewers’] attention, don’t squander it. It’s the most valuable thing.”

2. If You’re Not Funny, Do Not Make a Jokey video.

Most videos go viral because of a smart, well-timed joke. It is therefore tempting to come up with a funny concept for a commercial or at least try to inject humor into it. That can be a brilliantly smart strategy or a disastrous one.

“If funny comes natural to you as a storyteller, then tell a funny story,” Lisagor advises. “If it doesn’t, then forcing it is a huge mistake.”

3. Use Clear Language.

As natural as your business’s terms are to its employees, viewers may be confused by it.

“Marketing people often make the mistake of using industry jargon and buzzwords as shorthand for describing value,” Lisagor says. One example he cites: “global solutions,” a term businesses in all manner of industries say they provide to customers, without providing any specifics in plain English. Unpack acronyms in the video as well, he says, or they will all “jumble together into gobbledygook.”

4. Make viewers envision using your product.

“If you can allow the viewer to project him or herself into a mental state of experiencing the product and having a positive reaction, it can go a long way toward convincing them that they should take the next step toward having it,” Lisagor says.

Not only does that require a careful match of language and images, it also requires you to state the scope of your product’s benefits.

“If you try to make the response to a product seem more grand or have a larger impact than people intuit what it would, it’ll have an adverse effect on your brand,” Lisagor warns. “People don’t like to be lied to.”

5. Understand the limitations of what a video can do.

Just as a good movie requires a solid script and a strong cast, the effectiveness of a video ad ultimately rests on the quality of the product. “The biggest mistake to make when making on a video ad is to assume that a video can answer questions that the product can’t on its own,” Lisagor says.

Businesses should try to produce as smart a video as they can, but should not expect it to succeed entirely on high production values. If it doesn’t explode and get millions of shares, the problem might not be the ad per se, but the business it’s representing.