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Follow this TrueView video ads guide to learn how to drive the best possible performance for your video ads. 

Introduction

Video consumption has gone from primetime to ‘all-the-time.’ From teens to adults, people now spend as much time watching online video as they do watching TV¹. Reaching almost 1 in 3 people on the Internet², YouTube is one of the best places to connect these consumers to compelling video.

It’s no secret people spend a lot of time researching a purchase with online video. In fact, almost half of the U.S. population, 47%, says that YouTube helps them when making a decision about something to buy at least once a month.

While many advertisers use TrueView ads to drive branding, we’ll show you some of the key ways you can use TrueView ads to support your overall performance goals. That means driving customers to take a specific action, whether that’s signing up for a lead form or purchasing a product on your website.

As you get started with TrueView ads, it’s important to link your Google Ads and YouTube accounts to gain access to more reporting metrics and interactive video elements. Make sure you understand how TrueView ads work, where they appear and how to measure success.

Get ready to press play on TrueView video ads for performance.

Use TrueView in-stream and video discovery ads in the right contexts

TrueView In-stream and video discovery ads appear in different contexts and come with their own interactive elements. You’ll want to take that into account when developing creative, interactive elements and bids.

TrueView in-stream ads are YouTube ads that play before, during or after a video on either YouTube or the Google Display Network (GDN). Since people can choose to skip the video ad after the first five seconds, you want to catch your viewer’s attention quickly. These ads are designed to build initial engagement so shorter creatives are recommended here. Note that in-stream ads also drive many more views than video discovery ads.

TrueView video discovery ads are YouTube ads that appear on YouTube search results, related YouTube videos, as YouTube overlay ads and across partner sites like the GDN. They direct people to your channel page or video’s watch page. You should pick interesting image thumbnails and ad headlines to give users a reason to click on your ad to watch. These ads are designed to turn engagement into action so longer creatives are recommended here.

Given the differences, you’ll want to have a unique strategy for each format.

Move beyond last-click attribution

Today’s customer journey is complex, but last-click attribution only looks at the channel that drove the final click before a conversion. When you move beyond last-click attribution, you can better understand your customer journey and how to make the right optimizations for your business. It will help you set better bids and budgets, which can in turn drive a higher volume of conversions.

There are many ways to gauge success with TrueView ads. First, you need to establish clear success metrics to prove its value. Look at metrics such as lift in brand search, presence in conversion path or influence on a conversion.

Next, you can try the below methods to measure the value of a TrueView ad:

• Run A/B split testing to assess how many more visits or conversions occurred as a result of your video ads. You can apply your findings directionally when making budgeting decisions.
• Review view-through conversions performance. View-through conversions measure when a person sees your YouTube video, then later completes a conversion on your website. Note that view-through conversions are automatically de-duped against YouTube, Search and the Google Display Network campaigns in the same account. Consider separating YouTube campaigns from other campaign types to measure any conversions where YouTube was present. Since your estimates will be conservative, you should use this data as directional guidance.

If you have a Google rep, you can reach out to them on eligibility and next steps for the below methods:

• Use Brand Lift to measure the impact of TrueView campaigns on key metrics, like branded search volume. Use brand interest reports to measure how your campaign drives branded searches, which you can use as a proxy for revenue. First, assign an economic value to branded search. Next, analyze whether you can drive that value in a cost effective way through YouTube. This should help determine which ads and targeting are working for your campaigns.

• Run a user-based Lift Experimentif you want to understand how many more website visits or conversions occurred because people saw your TrueView ads.

Keep in mind that YouTube ads aren’t just about driving last-click attributions. It’s about supporting an overall marketing strategy to create and convert demand. When used in conjunction with your other channels like search, YouTube can assist in driving more overall conversions for your marketing campaigns.

 

 

 

¹ Millward Brown Study, Video Creative in a Digital World, 2015.
² YouTube Press Statistics, 2016.

* Nguồn: Google