8 Signs a Video Ad Was Made With Stock Footage, Not Your Real Site

A video ad made from stock footage or a generic approximation of a website usually contains small, checkable mismatches between what appears on screen and what the actual site shows. Spotting them takes seconds once you know where to look: the interface text, the browser chrome, the logo colour, and the layout order. The same checklist works whether you are reviewing an ad someone is trying to sell you, or checking your own ad before it goes out.

1. Interface text that doesn't match the site's real copy

Play the ad on one screen and the live site on another, then read the actual words inside any "interface" the ad shows. Stock footage and generic mockups often carry placeholder button labels, filler headings like "Your Product Here", or copy that is close but not identical to what the business actually publishes: a slightly different price, a renamed feature, or a call-to-action that reads "Get Started" when the real site says "Book a fitting". A business reviewing its own ad should check every visible word against the live page before approving it. A buyer being pitched an ad should ask to see the exact page the footage claims to represent, because a supplier who filmed the real site can produce that page instantly.

2. Browser chrome or an operating system that doesn't belong to the brand

Some ads place a fake browser window or phone frame around the footage, and that frame often gives away the trick. Look at the scrollbar style, the tab shape, the address bar, and the notification icons: a Windows-style window control on a business whose actual site is a clean, simple booking tool, or chrome that resembles no current real browser, both suggest the interface was drawn rather than filmed. A genuine capture inherits whatever browser actually loaded the page, complete with its real scrollbars and fonts. If the chrome looks slightly too generic, too new, or too old for what a normal visitor sees when they open that exact site, treat it as a sign the footage did not come from the real page.

3. A generic office or hand-model scene standing in for the product

When an ad cannot show the product, it often reaches for a stand-in: a hand tapping a laptop showing an unrelated screen, a stock photo of people in a bright open-plan office nodding at a monitor, or hands typing while the actual result stays off screen. These scenes are a tell because they add motion without adding evidence. If the video never lets the viewer read an actual price, see an actual booking screen, or view an actual finished job, it is illustrating a mood rather than proving a claim. A genuine capture of a site can show the real pricing page or the real gallery, because that material already exists and needs no stand-in performer to represent it.

4. Layout details that drift from the real site

Compare the order of sections, the spacing, and the navigation menu shown in the ad against the live site, section by section. Approximated footage tends to rearrange things slightly: a pricing table appears above the hero when it actually sits lower on the page, a menu shows five items when the real site has seven, or a footer includes links that exist nowhere on the actual domain. These are not artistic choices; they are evidence that whoever built the video was recreating an impression of the site rather than filming it. A real browser capture preserves the actual section order because it loads the page exactly as a visitor would, which is why the simplest check is opening the real site next to the video and following along.

5. The wrong logo, wrong colour, or a colour that's slightly off

Put the ad's logo and background colours next to the brand's actual logo file or website header. A generated or stock-derived version can drift in small ways: a slightly different shade of the primary colour, a logo mark with the wrong proportions, rounded corners where the real mark is sharp, or a typeface substitution that looks close but isn't the brand's actual font. These differences survive review because a person glances at the ad rather than holding it against the source file. A quick check is to sample the colour shown on screen and compare it against the brand's actual palette, or place a screenshot of the real site beside a paused frame of the video. If they don't match exactly, the footage was not taken from the real site.

6. Actors who don't resemble the business's actual customers

Watch who appears on screen and ask whether that person plausibly buys this product. A stock clip of someone in a co-working space doesn't fit a plumbing business whose real customers are homeowners calling about a burst pipe, and a boardroom of actors in suits doesn't fit a bakery whose regulars are neighbourhood locals. This mismatch happens because stock libraries are built around generic lifestyle scenes rather than any specific business, so the closest available clip gets chosen instead of the right one. It matters beyond appearances: an ad that shows the wrong kind of customer can make the right customer feel the ad wasn't made for them. Checking whether the people on screen resemble people who actually walk through the door is a fast, decisive test.

7. Cursor or tap behaviour that doesn't match how the product works

If the ad shows someone interacting with an app or website, watch exactly where the cursor moves or where a tap lands, and whether the screen responds the way the real product would. A faked interface often shows a click landing near a button rather than precisely on it, a page transitioning to a screen that doesn't exist in the real flow, or a scroll that reveals content in an order the actual site never uses. These inconsistencies are hard to fake convincingly because they require simulating real software behaviour, not just its appearance. Anyone who has used the real product, or who can open the real site alongside the ad, can usually catch this within a few seconds by trying to repeat the exact action shown.

8. A "page" that scrolls, resizes, or loads in a way no real browser would

Real websites behave in predictable ways: text wraps at consistent widths, images finish loading before a scroll continues, and a page doesn't resize itself mid-shot for no reason. Approximated or generated footage can break these rules subtly, such as a paragraph that reflows oddly between two frames, a button that changes size without a matching action, or a scroll speed that reveals more content than the page's actual length allows. None of this is obvious on a single frame, but it shows up when the video is watched at normal speed against the live site in another tab. If the browsing shown in the ad couldn't actually happen on the real page, no matter how convincing it looks, the footage wasn't captured from that page, a point explored further in why generated video struggles with real product UI.

sizzledraft avoids all eight of these because it films the actual site in a real browser and builds the ad from that capture, so the interface, copy, colours, and layout shown are the ones already live on the page. Before filming an ad from your own site, check what's worth screenshotting first, or make one from your URL.