google adwords

The Secret Side of Google AdWords: Video Ads

If you’re using Google AdWords to generate leads and drive sales, you’ve obviously noticed the increasing competition for many of your keywords in recent years. Because of that competition, running a traditional AdWords campaign has become more expensive.

Fortunately, many marketers have yet to learn about Google AdWords for video, which presents a great opportunity. You’ll often find less competition and lower keyword costs when using AdWords for video. Everything is good, right? Of course, the costs will vary greatly depending on your keyword focus and industry, but on average, they are around 6 cents per view or click.

Here’s everything you need to know to run a successful AdWords video campaign.

Google AdWords

Google AdWords for Video – A Quick Overview

You can use AdWords to display video ads before, during, and after videos in the YouTube search results. Unlike a traditional AdWords campaign, you can use demographic targeting to reach your target audience more effectively with AdWords for video.

Although the targeting options are pretty basic (age, gender, and interests), they are still helpful. This is a big plus of using Google AdWords for video, as you have far more control over who sees your ad.

How to Know Whether Adwords for Video is Right for You

AdWords for video offer tons of benefits, but it’s not useful for all businesses. Video may not be the best choice for the following reasons:       

Demographics: If your target audience isn’t watching videos (which is highly unlikely, given that everyone watches videos nowadays), creating a video and launching a campaign is not worth the time.

Google AdWords: Click-throughs can be low: There are different reasons for this. The first reason is that you’re not targeting the right audience, and the viewer may not be interested in your message. Also, if you use an in-stream video, you must know that your video will simply start, and the viewer must choose to turn it off in order to save you from paying for the view. With the other types of ads, people need to click on the video for it to start. However, once they do so, you’re charged for the advertisement.

It’s a given that your video should be eye-catching and engaging. You must either know how to make a great video or hire someone who does. Hiring a professional can be costly.   

Demographics

How to Create a Great Video Ad

Shorter is better.

Let’s face the truth; humans get bored easily. Our attention spans are getting shorter every day, so shorter videos tend to perform better. (Short means no longer than 60-90 seconds.) This is especially true for in-stream ads, where users can skip your ad before watching the video they initially selected.  

Google AdWords: Focus your video on the specific keywords you want to target.

This is important. If you’re not presenting your content to the right audience, it’s not worth creating an ad. You can make the best videos, but they won’t watch them if it’s not relevant to the viewer. This means you must be laser-focused on your keywords and constantly test and remove keywords that aren’t performing, especially if you have a limited budget.

Creating unique videos for each keyword group is one way to ensure that your videos are relevant to the viewer. For example, you own a website where you teach aspiring coders how to code HTML. User A searches YouTube for “How to Code HTML,” while User B searches for “HTML coding courses.”

To provide the most value, show user A an ad with one or two basic coding tips to pique their interest. The CTA can then direct them to your website or YouTube channel for more information. Since user B is searching for a course, you could display an ad that explains the course’s benefits on your website. 

Use testimonials.

People are cynical, and a viewer’s first instinct is to be sceptical if you speak about your product or service in an ad. However, if another person recommends a product, it carries more weight.

There are various ways to add customer testimonials to a video. One way is to conduct video interviews with customers and use those clips, or you can also take customer quotes and use them in your video to strengthen the message. You can even request your customers to record their own testimonials. 

Video Ads

Google AdWords: Be purposeful and consistent in your messaging.

Who is your audience on YouTube, and what are they interested in watching? Before the creative process begins, this should be clearly defined. Don’t let the creative process influence the type of video you make; instead, your customer profile should dictate that.

If your video is funny, it should be because of your overall brand messaging, and you believe your target audience will find it relatable.

It’s also important that your video and landing page messaging are consistent. Don’t just direct viewers to your website from the video. You’re much more likely to generate a higher ROI if your landing page and video ad messaging are consistent.  

Leverage existing content.

You don’t always need to start from scratch. There are many ways to repurpose your existing marketing content. For example, if you recently spoke at a seminar, you could easily turn that presentation into an educational video. Or you could compile your best consumer case studies and create a stylish kinetic typography video that tells the story.

Google AdWords for video is an innovative way to attract customers as video has taken over the web.

Final Words

While the audience is large, competition is low because many marketers have been slow to adopt online video campaigns. This is a fantastic opportunity for marketers willing to invest in video content. And, if you’ve used Google AdWords before, setting up an AdWords video campaign is surprisingly easy.

We’d love to hear about how you’ve used Google AdWords for videos to generate leads. Please leave your comments below.    

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5 Ways to Use Facebook Audience Insights