10 Tactics for Optimizing Your AdWords for Video Ads

While considering optimizing your AdWords for video ads, there are a lot of things you need to consider in the procedure.

A video ad campaign launch can be a significant idea, but consider few things before you start; invest for views to make the most of your budget and get the best return for your customer.

1) Define your metrics and goals

Defining the metrics and goals are quite necessary when you’re optimizing AdWords for your video ads. Thus, when you’re assessing the results, there are four key metrics that can be tracked for measuring the strength of the video.  These metrics are placed under the “column” drop-down in the campaigns interface.

Views

“Views” enable you to know the percentage of views and also see that how the ad gained has earned views or view on other videos of the brand.

Audience

Audience category helps in checking the numbers of likes and shares for each video ad.

Branding

In branding category, the view rate should notify whether the creative and message of the video is enticing or entertaining enough for users to watch it. By enhancing the view-through rate (VTR), you will be to minimize the cost per view.

Conversions

Conversions help you letting know if your ad is getting leads and offering back a high ROI for your brand.

Among the goals set up for the brand, you should find out some objectives relying on these metrics and prepare a plan that optimize your creative and also try numerous targeting factors to improve results. Your objectives should also focus on finding the kind of content you will add in the advert. Some of the metrics would do better for branding goals and others will get leads and conversions.

2) Track low performing placements

In the second step of AdWords optimization for video ads, you need to follow low performing placements.

If you’re running in-display ads which are YouTube video ad formats appearing in search results, related videos and GDN sites as a thumbnail image and promotion text,   and you can see their appearance by navigating to-

Video Targeting > Placements > Where ads were shown > Display network from your Google AdWords Campaigns dashboard.

Go through the list and explore; is there any particular sites leading to under performance for your metrics.

Remove such sites from your ad campaign in order to increase your average CPV.

3) Use a custom thumbnail image

Video thumbnails allow viewers to see a quick view of your video that is browsing YouTube. Thus create or use a high-definition still image from the video to attract a viewer/user to click on the video.

If there is any person in the image, ensure the person is looking towards the camera. If there is a product in the image, make sure the background is not disturbing.

4) Drive people to buy with cards

A YouTube card is a preformatted notification emerging on desktop and mobile that can be set to advertise your brand and other videos on your YouTube channel. The card includes a small “i” symbol that can be clicked by the users to expand. You can schedule the appearance so that only viewers engaged with the video will be able to notify it.

The cards help you in featuring a product that is associated or shown in the video to boost the product purchases.

5) Create call-to-actions

Call-to-action buttons help a lot in taking viewers to the targeted pages. So, when you are going to promote a video on the social media platform, ensure you are adding CTA overlays that link to a URL.

You can add a landing page, information page or any page that you’re targeting.

6) Create a YouTube end slate

A YouTube end slate is an end screen that helps in driving subscribers to the channel, advertising your social connections or increasing the interest of users in your brand.

Suppose, your video has been watched till the end, it’s could be possible they get attracted by your content and might subscribe to your channel for receiving further updates.

7) Use negative remarketing

If you are running a campaign for a longer period of time and want to only attract new users to a brand, consider creating a list of people who your ad will not be shown to. When viewing your AdWords Campaign screen, select “Shared library” on the lower left sidebar. Then, select “Video remarketing” and “+ Remarketing List”. You can stretch your campaign budget and target only unique users by selecting to not show your video ad to someone who has previously viewed the specific video, who has visited your YouTube channel, or shared, liked, or commented on any of your videos on your channel.

If you have been running an ad for a longer period of time and trying to catch new users to a brand only, consider making a list of users who will not see your ads.

8) Use close captioning to cater to viewers’ needs

This tip applies to all YouTube videos — but it’s a general best practice that’s not followed by many brands. Include a quality video transcription you’ve generated and approved. Only user-uploaded transcriptions are indexed by Google because YouTube’s automatic captioning can be less than reliable. Depending on your target audience, you may also want to include transcriptions in various other languages. You can also offer users the option to download or visit a site page with the full transcription in your video description.

9) Qualify viewers

Sometimes, your ad will be seen by people who have no interest in your product. Encourage them to skip the ad if the content isn’t relevant, so you don’t have to pay for the view and they don’t waste their time watching irrelevant advertising.

10) Consider making your ad longer

When it comes to TrueView ads, if the ad is under 30 seconds, you pay only if a viewer watches until the end. If the ad is longer than 30 seconds, you pay if the viewer watches it for at least 30 seconds. In both cases, you pay if the viewer interacts with your ad before it’s over. Consider this when you are coming up with ideas for content for the ad. You may want to put messaging at a certain point so, uninterested viewers can skip the ad, or you might provide special offers towards the end of the video.

The Future of Video is Bright

We’ve told you before: Video content is a must-have part of your content strategy. This is even truer now that YouTube lets marketers target users based on their search histories. YouTube advertising is more targeted than ever, and it’s less competitive real estate than the world of Google Search because video content is newer to the content scene and less popular than blog posts.

Stay tuned for more from us about how to make great video ads for YouTube and social media, and where we think YouTube marketing is headed next.