Google Adwords Mastery » YouTube

YouTube and TV: better together

Geoff Alexander — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:37:00 +0000

Each day, people watch more than 3 billion videos on YouTube - the equivalent of every American watching about 9 videos a day. U.S. online consumers now spend as much time online as they spend watching TV. With the consumer shift to online media consumption, many of our advertisers wonder how online video ads measure against traditional TV ads. Do traditional and new media ads complement each other? Which format drives recall most effectively?

To get answers, we partnered with Ipsos to measure the relative and combined effects of YouTube in-stream ads and TV ads on ad recall and brand metrics across six advertiser campaigns.

After conducting tests of 15- and 30-second spots on YouTube pre-roll instream ads and TV ads, the results revealed that YouTube and TV ads work better together. People who watched both YouTube and TV ads showed a 2X increase in brand recall than people who only saw TV ads. Those that only watched a YouTube ad had a brand recall rate 1.5X those who only watched a TV ad.

Hotels.com, one of the advertisers that participated in the study, uses YouTube video ads to drive incremental reach for TV campaigns. "Our customers are online today, so it only makes sense for e-commerce brands like Hotels.com to find entertaining and engaging online formats to interact with our audience," says Vic Walia, senior director of brand marketing for Hotels.com. "YouTube video ads is a great distribution vehicle for us to efficiently maximize our reach, but the fact that is has the added impact of improving our overall ad recall metrics is a tremendous win."

This study comes on the heels of our multi-screen research, which found that brand recall jumps dramatically for consumers shown ads across all screens - TV, PC, smartphone and tablet devices. As more people consume media across multiple devices, having a multi-channel campaign strategy helps reach consumers at different points throughout the day.

To learn more about our study, download the infographic and slides from Think Insights or check out our video. And, when planning your media buys, consider using a combination of YouTube ads and TV ads to help you achieve higher ad recall than TV ads alone. You can find out more information about YouTube video ads here.

Posted by Lizzy Van Alstine & Christina Park, Google Research and Marketing

More ways to reach your audience with YouTube mobile ads

Geoff Alexander — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Editor's Note: As of December 1st, 2011, you will start to see Promoted Videos referred to as TrueView in-search and TrueView in-display.

There’s no debate that the world is going mobile. Mobile web searches have grown five times over the past two years. YouTube mobile now gets more than 400 million views a day, representing 13 percent of our total daily views.

For advertisers, this opens up more opportunities to reach customers. And in some cases, it can amplify existing campaigns. In a recent study conducted with Nielsen research, we found that promotions perform better together when displayed across multiple screens. In fact, brand recall jumps dramatically to 74 percent for people who saw ads across TV, PC, smartphone and tablets, up from 50 percent for those who saw ads only on TV.

Here are a few ways you can extend your mobile reach with YouTube:

YouTube’s Promoted Video ads on mobile

Do you use Promoted Video ads to reach viewers searching for relevant products and potential customers browsing videos on YouTube.com? You can also use Promoted Videos to reach viewers on the go. Promoted Videos are featured at the top of the video search results on m.youtube.com, YouTube’s mobile platform.

Advertisers pay only when the viewer chooses to watch the video, and all mobile and desktop view counts are summarized into one complete view count on your channel page. Mobile Promoted Video ads are auction-based campaigns that can be managed in your Google AdWords account. All Google AdWords campaigns are opted into “all devices” by default, but creating separate mobile campaigns helps optimize your mobile advertising efforts and the performance of your brand channel.

A Promoted Video ad on m.youtube.com includes an ad thumbnail, title and channel name; similar to the organic video results.

Promoted Video ads have recently joined YouTube’s family of TrueView ad formats. Soon, your Promoted Video ads will become TrueView in-search ads and TrueView in-display ads. TrueView in-search ads show up in display ad units against search results on YouTube, whereas TrueView in-display ads show up in display ad units against suggested videos on YouTube and across website content on the Google Display Network. These TrueView video ads can be set up and managed in any Google AdWords for video account and purchased on a cost-per-view basis.

YouTube mobile in-stream ads

YouTube mobile in-stream ads are 15-second pre-roll ads that appear before the video begins to play. Similar to your desktop experience, mobile in-stream ads may show before videos produced by YouTube partners. In addition to the Android YouTube app, in-stream ads are also available to viewers accessing m.youtube.com from their iPhone.

You can optimize your mobile in-stream ads to reach specific audiences, locations and content. In-stream ads are priced on a CPM basis and can be arranged via ad reservation through your Google sales representative.

Animal Planet used mobile in-stream ads to promote the new season of River Monsters.

YouTube mobile roadblocks

YouTube Mobile roadblocks give brands 100% share of voice on the YouTube home, browse and search pages on m.youtube.com. According to recent Nielsen data, these roadblocks add 17 percent incremental impressions for advertisers.

adidas used mobile roadblocks to complement their homepage masthead ad. Using multiple mobile tactics in addition to roadblocks, channel views jumped 26x over the span of their “adidas is all in” brand campaign.

Mobile brand channels extend your online presence

Many advertisers use banners, background images and gadgets to customize their YouTube brand channels. Extend your brand presence to mobile users by creating a customized mobile brand channel. Accessed through m.youtube.com, mobile channels offer the same high level of customization, including the use of gadgets. You can drive traffic to your YouTube mobile brand channel by running ads on the AdMob network or on m.youtube.com.

YouTube’s AdBlitz brand channel features custom-designed elements which engage our growing mobile audience.

For more information about YouTube mobile ads, connect with your Google sales representative or visit www.youtube.com/advertise/mobile.html.

Posted by Nicky Crane, Product Manager

Meet the family: TrueView video ads deliver on cost-per-view pricing model

Geoff Alexander — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:15:00 +0000

If you use TrueView video ads or interested in video advertising, we invite you to check out the Agency blog where we just posted some news and recent stats on this new suite of cost-per-view video ads. To learn more about the TrueView family of ad formats, visit the website here.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

YouTube’s Promoted Videos hits one billion video views

Geoff Alexander — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:01:00 +0000

YouTube’s Promoted Videos recently passed the one billion mark in the number of video views delivered to advertisers. Promoted Videos allow you to promote your video against search results on YouTube, against related videos on YouTube, or across the Google Display Network. Promoted Videos help you bring your business to life—letting your customers see you, hear you, and connect with you online.

You can set up Promoted Video campaigns using your Google AdWords account. Similar to pay-per-click search ads, with Promoted Videos you can specify how much you would be willing to pay for a video view and set a maximum budget. Thousands of advertisers have promoted their videos against branded keywords and against videos that their customers are watching to increase brand awareness and drive sales.

We would like to highlight a few changes to Promoted Videos:

Placement on Google Video search results. We're expanding Promoted Video ads to show up on the Google.com Video search results page in the US only. This change gives you more opportunity to connect with potential viewers when they're actively seeking out video content. If you also have search ads set up in your account, we'll serve either your Promoted Video ad or your Google AdWords search ad, not both, based on a range of factors including your bid and Quality Score. To make sure you can take advantage of this increase in your potential audience, please opt into "Search partners" in your campaign.

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When users enter your search terms (A) on video.google.com (B), they could see your Promoted Video ad above or to the right (C) of the organic search results (D).

Introduction on YouTube Mobile. Soon, your Promoted Video ads will be able to show up on our mobile destination, m.youtube.com, which can be easily viewed on web browsers across any mobile and tablet devices. New Google AdWords campaigns are opted into "All devices" by default, but you can opt your ads out of showing on mobile devices by navigating to "Settings" on the Campaigns tab. For existing campaigns, you may wish to verify that your device settings include or exclude mobile.

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The mobile Promoted Video ad on m.youtube.com will include your ad thumbnail, title, and channel name, similar to organic video results.

Inclusion in TrueView video ads. We recently moved Promoted Videos from a cost-per-click to cost-per-view pricing model, focusing on the value of video views. In the coming months, Promoted Videos will join our TrueView family of ad formats, which provide viewers with choice and advertisers with engaged, opted-in views. Stay tuned for more updates!

We hope these changes give you more and better resources to grow your business with online video ads.

Posted by Jonathan Goldman, YouTube Software Engineer

Animal Planet leverages rich media and video advertising across platforms to engage viewers for River Monsters premiere

Geoff Alexander — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:59:00 +0000

Mobile, video and rich media advertising are changing the way that businesses capture user attention by bringing together the power of sight, sound, and motion to engage audiences like never before. For example, to build awareness for the new season of their popular River Monsters series, Animal Planet, the "Surprisingly Human" TV network, launched an integrated media campaign across platforms to bring the show to life with the broadest audience possible - driving more than 900k YouTube video views in the weeks leading up to the premiere.

The River Monsters campaign ran across both the YouTube and AdMob networks, delivering users a sneak peak of the upcoming season whether they were on their desktop computers or their mobile phones. Rich media display ads on YouTube enabled the star of the show to pop out of the YouTube Channel to introduce new creatures to potential viewers, while video advertising offered a glimpse at upcoming episodes of the new season.

On the YouTube desktop website, users were able to interact with the River Monsters whether they were searching for their favorite video, watching partner content, or browsing the homepage. Ads led visitors to a custom mimicry gadget on the Animal Planet Brand Channel, where the host of the show jumped out of the ad to highlight the most exciting portions of the featured video.

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In-Stream Ads on YouTube are also available in the YouTube Android app, enabling Animal Planet to extend this engagement opportunity to mobile users. Including Interactive Video Ads on the AdMob network further expanded the mobile campaign, giving users the opportunity to watch a preview of the River Monsters show, share the video through social media, learn more on the show’s mobile website, and watch additional videos - all from within the mobile ad.

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To stir up even more excitement on the day of the premiere, a Rich Media Masthead on the YouTube homepage revealed clips from the upcoming episode and reminded users to tune in.

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The River Monsters campaign was hugely successful:

YouTube advertising generated more than 930,000 video views on the River Monster clips
Nearly 2,000 users subscribed to the River Monsters Brand Channel
Mobile In-Stream Overlay Ads received more than 3 million impressions, with 84% of mobile users completing the video
Interactive Video Ads on AdMob generated another 6 million impressions, with 75,000 users engaging with one of the interactive elements in the ad creative

The combination of compelling rich media and video advertising on both desktop and mobile created an engaging experience that increased social buzz around the show and led to a premiere that exceeded expectations.

Posted by Vicky Homan, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Learn about the latest in Video Ads on Ad Innovations

Geoff Alexander — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:36:00 +0000

Google offers the world's largest online video audience, based on users of Google.com search, our partnerships with top video publishers across the Google Display Network, and the reach of YouTube, the world's largest video property. On YouTube alone, users generate 3 billion video views daily and upload 48 new hours of video per minute. The online video market is huge for users, and we believe this means it also holds a lot of potential for online advertisers.

For those of you who are already passionate about this large and growing market, we’ve just launched a Video page on Ad Innovations -- your destination for exploring our latest advertising developments.

On this page, you can learn about new video innovations that can help you prepare your campaigns and promote your business.

Prepare your campaign

Ad Creation Marketplace - Hire a professional to create a TV or video ad that fits your needs, budget, and deadlines.
YouTube Video Targeting Tool - Search by keyword or audience to find YouTube videos where you might want to advertise.
YouTube Insight - Learn about the video likes and dislikes of audiences you define.

Promote your business

TrueView video ads by YouTube - Give users choice and control over which advertisers' messages they want to see and when. Pay only when a user chooses to view your ad, increasing your view count on YouTube.
Video extensions - Include click-to-play videos for trailers, previews, and product demonstrations that play right below your ads on Google.com.
Media Ads - Discover new ways to target, pay for, and experience video ads on Google.com.

Check out our new Video innovations page and send us feedback on these new features. We’ll add more items to this page as we bring new video advertising features to you.

If you're new to video advertising, start with the basics. We have online resources available where you can learn about all our video advertising solutions including YouTube advertising.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Promoted Video pricing change: Focusing on the value of views

Geoff Alexander — Wed, 18 May 2011 19:12:00 +0000

Promoted Videos have proven to be an effective and popular way for advertisers to drive traffic to video content on YouTube. This format allows you to promote videos on YouTube when users are searching for or watching videos. Until now, Promoted Videos have been priced on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis; similar to AdWords search ads, you were charged every time a user clicked on a Promoted Video ad.

Beginning on May 25th, we’re changing the pricing structure of this format to a cost-per-view (CPV) model, shifting the focus to actual viewership. This change means you’ll be charged only when a user clicks on a Promoted Video ad and starts to watch your video content. This pricing model ensures that your advertising costs are more closely connected to your goal of driving trackable video viewership.

How Bids Work

When you create your Promoted Video ad, you'll be asked to set a maximum CPV, which is the maximum amount you're willing to pay for a video view. Promoted Videos use the AdWords discounter to automatically reduce your costs. As always, we’ll only charge you one cent more than the next advertiser on the page competing for the same or similar keywords/placements, ensuring auction-driven efficiencies.

What You’ll See

As before, Promoted Video campaigns can be set up and managed right in AdWords or via ads.youtube.com. As of May 25th, billing terms from all Promoted Videos campaigns will officially convert from CPC to CPV and will be reflected in your advertising dashboards in both systems. If you’re using AdWords to purchase Promoted Videos on YouTube, you may continue to see mentions of CPCs in your campaign dashboard as we introduce additional CPV formats and adjust verbiage in the system.

Please visit the Help Center for more details and FAQs. Our hope is that this change in the pricing model aligns Promoted Videos more closely with your goals, driving the right results for your business.

Posted by Baljeet Singh, Senior Product Manager, YouTube

TrueView Video Ads give viewers choice and control over ads

Geoff Alexander — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:46:00 +0000

Today we're announcing a new family of ad formats called TrueView Video Ads. TrueView Video Ads give viewers choice and control over which advertiser’s message they want to see and when. And we charge advertisers only when a viewer has chosen to watch your ad, not when an impression is served.

We believe offering a cost-per-view video ad model is good for everyone: consumers choose ads that are more relevant to them; you more precisely find the audiences you want; and content creators continue to fund great content with an ad experience that is less intrusive. Our experience with Promoted Videos, which you buy on a cost-per-click basis, shows that viewers will choose to watch ads that are relevant and engaging.

Our first available cost-per-view format is TrueView Video Ads - InStream. Viewers can choose to skip a video ad after 5 seconds, and you only pay when the viewer has watched the full ad or 30 seconds, whichever is shorter.

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We’ve tested this ad format across thousands of viewer hours, serving millions of video views for a wide range of advertisers. If you counted up all the video views watched, they would stretch out for nearly five years. Early results are encouraging with view-through rates of 20-70%. A view-through rate measures how many viewers have opted-in to watch your ad - a valuable signal which you can use in connecting the right message with the right audience at the right time.

Check out the experience of some of our early advertisers. GoPro makes and sells the HD HERO line of wearable, gear-mountable HD cameras. Lee Topar, Director of Online Marketing for GoPro, says, “We like how TrueView Video Ads give us the ability to target our audience, and gives viewers the choice to opt-in to watch our ads. Thus far, we’ve seen about a 40% view-through rate -- and since we only pay when potential customers actually watch a video, we have more control over our budget.”

In the run-up to the recent US midterm elections, many political campaigns tested TrueView with positive results. Peter Pasi heads up Emotive LLC, an online marketing firm which recently helped to elect Senator-elect Rob Portman and Governor-elect John Kasich in Ohio. He says, "TrueView allows us to deliver our message in a scalable way specifically to the voters we want to reach. For example, we used its geo-targeting capabilities to execute a county-by-county media strategy. TrueView also provides a rich experience for the voter and allows the viewer choice and freedom. It’s easy to deploy, and it's a fraction of the cost of television."

Robert Wray served as the director of technology in Governor Martin O’Malley’s re-election campaign in Maryland. He says, “The Governor had used YouTube prior to the re-election so it was a no-brainer to use it in the campaign. We achieved a 45% view-through rate with TrueView ads and found them to be effective when you look at the raw numbers of total video views and the amount we paid for them.”

This ad format is available for customers in the US and Canada and in limited testing for advertisers in the UK. We are working to add availability in additional countries.

Several other developments are also in the works. Soon, you'll be able to use TrueView Video Ads to increase a video’s view count. We are working to make TrueView Video Ads available for our self-service customers and to simplify the buying experience and reporting for everyone.

If you’re interested in trying out TrueView Video Ads, contact your account manager today.

Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew

Learn about advertising on YouTube in a new online course

Geoff Alexander — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

If you're interested in creating a stronger online branding presence or drawing high-volume traffic to your site, YouTube can help you accomplish both by giving you access to the world's largest online video-streaming and sharing community. YouTube can further enhance your current online advertising campaigns with millions of ad impressions and video ad streaming opportunities, so that you create the high-profile online presence that your website needs.

There are now a number of ways in which you can raise your profile as an advertiser using YouTube. During this course you'll learn about the different methods of targeting YouTube, and how to make the most out of any existing presence you may already have on this platform.

This is a live course presented by a YouTube Specialist and is appropriate for all advertisers interested in growing their presence on YouTube. It will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, November 17, 2010 3pm - 4pm BST / GMT+1 (London), 10am-11am EDT (New York), 7am-8am PDT (San Francisco).

If you’re interested, make sure to sign up now!

Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew

Live webcast: 5 Tips to Turbo-Charge Your Online Marketing Campaign With YouTube

Geoff Alexander — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 19:20:00 +0000

Event Date: November 16, 2010 at 02:00 PM East/12:00PM Central/11AM Pacific. Register today.

As a dentist, Dr. Bob Wagstaff knew he had a better way to cure bad breath than most other solutions in the market. So he founded Orabrush to sell a tongue brush to help consumers more easily clean their tongues of the germs that cause bad breath. When Dr. Bob first tried promoting his new invention, many forms of traditional advertising failed him. A $50,000 infomercial went nowhere. Then, Jeffrey Harmon suggested a marketing campaign built around a YouTube video. That first video cost $500 and has since earned the company over 13 million views, setting Orabrush on the path as an innovator in online video marketing.

Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew