Video content has become an increasingly important advertising medium for companies of all sizes. It’s no longer the questions of whether you should be using video. It’s how you should plan to incorporate it.
YouTube has recently announced a major overhaul of its video advertising formats and functionality. Brand new TrueView ad formats provide advertisers with the assurance that viewers are watching and interacting with their videos. According to Scott Keever, founder of Scott Keever SEO, a website design, internet marketing and digital advertising company, “This ensures that their videos are seen by their targeted audience members. Now, YouTube will begin to roll out extensions to these formats. These will allow viewers to learn more about products and services advertised, even make a purchase without exiting the platform.”
There’s a market research company that has come on board. IRI is now a part of Google’s Measurements Partners program. Advertisers will now be able to perform brand lift studies. These provide valuable and immediate feedback regarding consumer ad response. As a result, two additional metrics will be added. Cost per lifted user and lifted users will let advertisers know how successfully their ads are influencing people.
Basically, as the ad plays, users will be able to perform tasks such as querying the location of the company, or sending their contact information in order for a sales rep to contact them. All of this is done from the YouTube platform. In the future, this will likely expand to other actions including making a reservation or downloading an app, according to a blog post from Vishal Sharma who is the VP of product management.
Some major brands including 20th Century Fox and Chili’s have participated in the early testing of these new extensions with good results. Now the important question is, how should brands respond when this rolls out to a larger audience?
Taking advantage of new YouTube metrics
To provide brand lift metrics, Google relies on two sources of input. The first is surveys. Two groups of customers are queried. The first has not seen the ad in question, the second has. Using this simple approach, Keever says it’s easy to tell how much viewing your ad has impacted brand awareness and impression.
The second is search. This also uses a control group of people who haven’t seen your ad, and those that have, according to Keever. You can receive answers to the following questions within a few days, rather than over weeks:
- Is my ad memorable?
- Are people searching for more information after they see my ad?
- Is there an increased intent to purchase?
- Has there been a positive upswing in viewer impressions regarding my products or messaging?
“Because of the near real-time availability of this information, brands can act quickly. This means making adjustments to advertising and targeting earlier in the process, before a significant amount of money is spent,” Keever said.
Get familiar with existing ad formats and new ones
“While some extensions are yet to be made available, brands can begin experimenting with the existing ones,” Keever advised. “These include the location extension, which displays a map, hours, website link, and other relevant information. Another extension is a store visit tracker.”
Once brands are familiar with the existing formats, it won’t be as difficult to incorporate the new formats. For example, Chili’s is experimenting with the form extension to get viewers to subscribe to their loyalty program. Another feature shows local movie listings when movie trailers are shown. As mentioned above, the platform is also experimenting with extensions that allow viewers to download an app.
Develop strategies to get viewers to perform immediate low funnel tasks
When these extensions are fully available, viewers will likely be able to download information or executables, make bookings and provide lead information. To take advantage of these capabilities, Keever says brands should view these as built in calls to action. Then, they can plan their ads around the specific extension that they use.
For example:
- Event promoters could sell tickets directly from YouTube ads
- Developers can provide trial downloads to their products immediately
- Manufacturers can offer white papers on their products for download
- Restaurants may be able to offer quick online ordering options
“Ultimately, the brands that are most successful will do the best job of understanding how to nudge viewers towards a specific action, then use the extension to make taking that action as easy as possible,” Scott Keever added.
These new ad options have the potential to help brands gain better insights into their advertising efforts before they waste a significant amount of money on poorly targeted campaigns. Even better, they combine the engagement potential of video ads with an immediately accessible means to answer a call to action. Brands that incorporate these new extensions into their advertising strategies will be able to gain significant advantage over their competitors.
