It has been awhile since we touched on Online Display Advertising, with the previous topic on the Display Ad Network – How to target by Topic Targeting. Today, let’s retain our focus on yet another area of display advertising, Video Ads. Our discussion would be specific to Google Video Ads, and its latest innovations.
We all know that online viewership is growing. It was reported on YouTube that “over 3 billion videos are viewed every day by over 800 million visitors every month” and “more than 48 hours of video is uploaded every minute”. This leads us to the question – So how can we then effectively target and engage these online users?
The answer? Google Adwords Video Advertising. The platform not only enables you to reach out to your customers via the Google Display Network, but also on YouTube, as well as on TV with Google TV Ads.
Click-to-Play Video Ads (via Google Display Network)
Unlike pop-ups or video ads that play immediately upon mouseovers, Click-to-Play ads are non-intrusive as users are able to choose whether or not they would like to view the ad by clicking on them.
Here are some tips provided by Google, and we do strongly advocate as well, that you can follow when creating an effective Video Ad:
- Similar to text ads, it is important to attract users first with a clear and strong call-to-action. As these are click-to-play ads, the ad will display a static opening image before it starts playing upon being clicked on. It is important to impress and entice your audience with a clear and high-quality image accompanied with a simple and strong message.
- Draggy and long-winded messages tend to put viewers to sleep after 45 seconds. Hence, it is vital to capture their attention within the first 30-45 seconds with an interesting storyline/message.
- Use colours, animations and images that are pleasing to the eye. In other words, using bright colours may attract (or distract) your audience, but it may also cause them to find the ad blinding or annoying. Thus, choose them appropriately and ensure that these points are taken into consideration while creating the video ad.
Above is an example of a Click-to-Play Video Ad being targeted on the Google Display Network for a 2010 City Chain Singapore campaign that Clickr had previously managed.
For DIY/self-serve purposes, Google Adwords has a “Display Ad Builder” tool, which allows marketers to create professional-looking image and video ads to showcase their businesses online. View the following video on an Introduction to the Display Ad Builder tool:
You can also follow the Online Tutorial on how to create ads within minutes:
Promoted Video Ads (via YouTube)
Apart from being able to target on the Google Display Network, you can also choose to target YouTube by leveraging on the pool of users and viewers that stream in to view videos every day.
Google’s new YouTube Video Advertising enables marketers to grab customer’s attention with Promoted Video Ads and this can be done in 3 simple steps:
- Upload a video, choose a thumbnail picture and write a clear description/message.
- Target your specified audience by keywords and categories. Similar to Google Search campaigns, set a budget and bid for your targeting options.
- View results and optimize the campaign.
To better target your video ads on YouTube, Google also has a YouTube Video Targeting Tool to help find the right channels, videos and categories for your campaign. Only 2 steps are required:
1. Select the geographic region to target and format of the ads
Image courtesy of Google AdWords
2. View the various categories, videos and channels available on YouTube or filter your search by Audience/Keywords and choose the placements to target. Save these placements to your AdWords campaign.
Image courtesy of Google AdWords
Full length video tutorial as follows:
The benefits of Promoted Video ads are that they are well targeted, relevant to what users are searching for and that you only have to pay when someone clicks on your promoted video link, not by impressions. By setting a comfortable budget and bid, you are not only in control of where your ads will be seen on YouTube, but also how often they can be displayed daily.
To find out more about how Clickr Media would be able to help create and manage your Google Video Campaigns, contact us now!
