In this day and age of pay-per-click advertising, there are many different styles and networks to show on. One of the more underutilized advertising forms is video advertising. When mentioning video advertising, most people’s mind almost immediately go to YouTube advertising, and rightfully so. YouTube gets over 30 million visitors per day. However, there are other video targeting opportunities, some of which have actually worked better than YouTube. Below is brief summary of each opportunity:
YouTube (InStream)
Sticking with the biggest video advertising player for a moment, YouTube Instream ads are the video ads that run prior to the video you want to watch. While the majority of InStream advertising is done on YouTube, InStream ads can also show in front of embedded YouTube videos on other websites. These are also the ads that can be skipped after 5 seconds if the content isn’t of interest.
YouTube InStream runs on a cost-per-view bidding strategy, meaning you pay for the video view if someone watches 30 seconds of your video (or the entire video if it’s less than 30 seconds). In terms of where a viewer is sent if they choose to click your video, you have the freedom to send them either to your website or your YouTube channel if that is more appropriate.
YouTube (Video Discovery)
Another form of video advertising is YouTube Video Discovery ads. Video Discovery ads differ from InStream ads in that they can appear either in the YouTube search results or the YouTube video watch pages as outlined below. Similar to InStream, Video Discovery ads operate on a CPV basis.
Thoughts on YouTube
Most articles regarding YouTube video ad options suggest that video is best used for a branding play. While this could be the case, there aren’t a lot of companies out there now just willing to throw dollars at YouTube to increase their brand presence; we all want to see results. As an agency, we’ve seen greater results from the Video Discovery ads as opposed to the InStream ads in terms of conversion rate and lower CPA. We believe this to primarily be because of the search function of Video Discovery ads that requires a user interaction to initiate the first click.
We also believe that InStream ad costs have a higher chance of occurring even when the viewer isn’t interested in the product. Because the ad shows no matter what, if the viewer is too lazy to skip your ad you’re on the hook to pay for that view. In addition, if a viewer is on a mobile device and they try to click the ‘Skip’ button, as I’m sure we’ve all had accidental clicks on mobile phones, their thumb could miss the button and they accidentally click the video, adding additional clicks and cost to your video ad campaign.
Facebook Video Advertising
Another fast-growing video advertising platform is Facebook video. Unlike YouTube, which is a video platform, video ads are a type of ad format shown within Facebook.
Because these ads show in the same places as normal Facebook ads, and there isn’t the same expectation of video ads as there is on YouTube, best practices for Facebook videos ads includes:
- Make the video ads short (15 seconds or less) to help enable the Auto Play feature that lets video ads automatically start playing in the news feed
- Use a strong call to action at the end, including the call to action button following the end of the video that is linked to your website.
- Use an optimized CPM (oCPM) bid strategy. Using this option allows you to target people more likely to take the end desired action (usually getting a conversion) compared to CPC bidding which operates on getting the most clicks, but not necessarily the end action.
Yahoo Native Video Advertising
One lesser known video advertising option (although quickly increasing in popularity) is Yahoo Native Video ads. Yahoo as a whole has continued to get larger and greater exposure as of late, and their video ad marketing is no different.
A few things to consider when launching ads on the Yahoo Native network:
- Similar to Facebook, keep the videos short. The 30 second video length is most preferred
- Use larger logos in your videos. Using bigger logos in your video can help brand recognition. This is particularly helpful when doing video remarketing, where a large logo can help viewers recognize your brand and remind them to take the action you wanted.
- Ensure the video ad aligns well both in horizontal and vertical landscape views.
- A strong call to action at the end of the video ad helps your audience know what you want them to do after seeing your ad.
- Take advantage of Auto Start ads on Yahoo Native. Selecting this option helps improve ad recall.
In the end, video advertising continues to grow and diversify as much as pay-per-click advertising itself. We advise you to continue to experiment and test the different video advertising platforms, and of course we’re always here to help with your paid advertising efforts, including video.
