6 Things to Watch for When Starting AdWords for Video
If you're thinking about adding video to your PPC strategy, you're not alone! Here are some tips for easily adding video to your AdWords account.
If you're thinking about adding video to your PPC strategy, you're not alone! Here are some tips for easily adding video to your AdWords account.
Thinking about adding video to your PPC strategy? You’re not alone. In fact, spend on video advertising just for desktop is forecast to grow 21 percent by 2019. The good news is you can easily add video to your AdWords account with AdWords for video campaigns.
In this post, I’ll show you the similarities and differences of video ads versus the Google Search Network, and things to watch for as you’re creating your video campaigns.
AdWords for video can be confusing, so if the concept is new to you, here’s a short (3-minute) video that gives a simple overview of how to create AdWords for video campaigns.
After working with video ads, I wanted to share some tips on how to prepare. Let’s start with some of the things that are similar to the Search Network.
Although video campaigns are missing the 90-day rotation option of the Search Network, they do have one similarity: the default ad rotation setting is set to “optimize” for clicks. That’s one of those default settings that is great for Google, but not always great for the advertiser. I like to set video ad rotation to rotate evenly, like so:
One thing you’ll have access to when doing video ads just like the Search Network is analytics. Video ads get their own reporting within the AdWords section in Google Analytics – but they are also included with the “campaigns” link as well.
Pro tip: Make sure the naming convention for your video ad campaigns includes the word “video” or something similar that will help you quickly identify all your video ad campaigns amongst others.
One thing you’ll find that’s just as important in video ads as it is to Search Network ads is the call to action. With video ads, you can create call-to-action overlays that link to your preferred landing page. Here’s a brief intro:
I’ve found that call-to-action phrases like “buy now,” “register” and “learn more” convert better (when tested) on the Search Network, so you might. Try testing the same with your video call-to-action overlays. OK, so we’ve just looked at three things with video ads that are similar to advertising on the Search Network. Now, let’s look at the differences.
You may be just as surprised as I was to discover there aren’t ad groups for video campaigns like we’re used to in the Search Network. There are, however, targeting options that allow you to choose a targeting group based on things like demographics, topics and more (similar to the Display Network).
From the help files, a quick explanation:
And here’s a handy chart from the help files that shows the differences between video ads targeting and Search Network ad groups:
Advanced settings for targeting include managed placements and remarketing. Here’s a screenshot of what it might look like in your AdWords dashboard:
Unlike ads on the Search Network, video ads show up in different places, such as the Display Network, on YouTube and via YouTube search. Here’s an example of the settings:
The help files (linked to in the previous section) clarify how targeting options work within the networks, for example, how keywords factor into your video showing up in a YouTube search:
The keywords that you add will target your ads to all the networks that you selected for your video campaigns. Keywords for the YouTube Search Network will serve ads based on YouTube viewers’ search queries. Keywords for YouTube Videos and the Google Display Network (GDN) will serve ads that are contextually related to YouTube channels and videos as well as websites on the GDN.
No matter how well crafted a Search Network ad is, it’s likely no match for the engagement your video ads will get – and the engagement metrics you can access on videos is unlike that of the Search Network, too. So if you’re thinking about a new way to reach more of your target audience, it’s worth exploring AdWords for video. I think it’s going to explode in the next few years.
For inspiration, you can check out how others have used video ads here and here.