Google Ads video campaigns from the ground up

Among all the types of campaigns we have the ability to create in Google Ads we have video campaigns. Video campaigns allow us to display ads in videos on YouTube and on sites and apps in Google’s network of video partners.

Before we go into detail about the types of video campaigns, let’s consider what we can use them for. The most common purpose of using a campaign is to expand brand awareness and general outreach goals. The effect and, at the same time, the purpose of a video campaign can also be to increase site traffic, etc. A fresh option is to create video campaigns focused on acquiring conversions. In summary, we have three main goals of a video campaign: – increase traffic, – increase awareness, – acquire conversions.  

According to Google, we have as many as 5 campaign goals from which to choose. These are:

– Sales – that is, increasing the number of conversions or sales transactions for customers who are ready to take action. Or a more remarketing function, which involves contacting those customers who have already contacted or are very close to making a purchase decision.

– Potential customers – encouraging relevant customers to actually express interest in given products or services by subscribing to a newsletter or providing contact information.

– Site traffic – encouraging potential customers to visit a particular site.

– Consider buying a brand’s product – encouraging potential customers to consider buying the brand’s products while they are searching for information or shopping. Interacting with users interested in the brand. Encouraging users to consider buying the brand’s products in the future.

– Brand awareness and reach – Reaching a larger audience with effective brand use. Increasing awareness among relevant audiences. Using a variety of ad formats that prompt users to recognize a particular brand.

If you would like your campaign to accomplish any of the above-mentioned goals, and you are wondering whether to choose display, video, etc. formats. Then it is definitely worth testing a video campaign.

Types of video campaigns to encourage action

Campaigns that are designed to encourage user action, i.e. direct conversion, can have three goals: sales, potential customers or site traffic. Ads are meant to encourage action, and that action is the goal of the campaign. 

• LEDGE CONVERSION

Before adding a new campaign, it is worth noting whether you have conversion tracking properly configured, without it, creating such a campaign will not make sense.

• BUDGET AND CPA

Google also draws our attention to setting the budget in campaigns whose rate-setting strategy is the target CPA – the ratio between the target CPA and the amount of the budget is important, because the campaign optimization time depends on it. If the budget is 15 times the target CPA the campaign optimization time will be 7 to 8 days, with a budget of 10-15 times the target CPA – the optimization period will be 2 weeks, and with a budget of 5-10 times the target CPA, as much as 3 weeks. 

With the rate setting strategy Maximize the number of conversions with the added target CPA – the daily budget should be at least 10 times the set CPA (tCPA).

• CONVERTISING ADVERTISEMENTS – RECEIVERS

It is recommended to set audience targeting as wide as possible. This will allow the campaign to reach many users who are highly likely to convert. Adding content targeting, i.e. targeting keywords, topics or destinations will limit us the most from the campaign. It’s best to start with custom segments created based on keywords in the search network, targeting customer lists, data segments or similar audiences. These are „broad targeting” options – we have control over where our ads go however we do not overly narrow this area. 

If we are using data segment or customer list targeting, and we want to target iOS audiences, for this to work we need to link the segment to a list of similar audiences in the same campaign and leave optimized targeting enabled.

• Add a video

While we’re on the subject of adding a video, the most important thing is that the video be added on YouTube, this applies to all video campaigns and all video ads We do not have the ability to manually upload the video from the drive to the ad, we can only provide the URL where the video is located.

In this campaign, we need to choose a video that is at least 10 seconds long. We do not have an upper limit, but videos longer than 3 minutes are usually less effective. 

It is worth the temptation to add an accompanying banner – this is a graphic visible only on computers – if we don’t add it, the system will generate it automatically, but manually adding it will certainly improve our results. 

• Add products

You can encourage users to purchase your products by displaying that product directly to them alongside a video ad with the option to move on to purchase it. All you need to do is add a product data file. This increases the number of conversions by 60% on average at a lower cost per campaign. 

K reach campaigns

As the name implies, in this type of campaigns we care about reach, about getting our brand out to the widest possible audience and about strengthening their awareness of the brand or actually creating it. 

Before we start creating reach campaigns, we need to decide whether we want to reach more users at a lower cost due to the possibility of skip ads, or whether we care about reaching the full message of the ad using non-skip ads. 

The first option is called „Effective Reach”.

• EFFECTIVE RANGE

In this campaign, we have the option of using two ad formats – bumpers and skippable In-Stream ads. Bumpers last a maximum of 6 seconds, and the viewer cannot skip this ad, while In-Stream skippable ads, as the name suggests – can be skipped – after 5 seconds of their duration (we have no maximum limit on video duration). Here we use the CPM rate setting strategy.  

• IN-STREAM ADVERTISEMENTS IMMEDIATELY TO BE MISSED

In this opportunity, we only use In-Stream impossible to skip ads that last a maximum of 15 seconds. Also, they benefit from the CPM rate setting strategy. 

Sequential Campaigns

Campaigns with a video sequence are a fairly recent creation, but they work very well with goals: „Consideration of buying a brand’s product” and „Brand awareness and reach.” They involve adding several videos and setting them up in a sequence so that the user sees the ads in exactly the order we have in the campaign. Ad after ad, we can create a consistent story and solidify in the user’s mind what our brand is all about. It is also possible to add an „automatic sequence”. – We add a number of videos and Google creates a sequence out of them by itself. In my opinion, if we already decide on a sequence, it is this specific order that we care about, not a random selection.

• SHAPES

If we know that sequencing is something for us, but we have no idea in what order to add the different videos, Google comes to our rescue and provides 4 sequence templates with 4 different purposes. Below is a description of these templates:

„- Introduce your offer and reinforce your message – introduce your brand in a long video ad, and then reinforce your message with a short ad.

– Remind your offer and inspire purchases – capture viewers’ attention with a short video ad, and then inspire them with a long commercial.

– Attract customers and retarget them – grab viewers’ attention with a short video ad, inspire them by using a long ad, and then encourage them to take action by displaying another short ad.

– Engage users and differentiate your offerings – Split your brand narrative into several parts or tell the same story from different perspectives in 4 short video ads.” The shape of the templates was created based on statistics from Ipsos research available at this link: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/publication/documents/2019-05/how-sequencing-ads-drive-impact.pdf

Sequence templates are only available during campaign setup, they will not appear either in reports or when editing campaigns. 

• DIFFERENCES IN A SECWENCY CAMPAIGN 

In sequential campaigns, we cannot target ads to keywords, topics or destinations, but we can exclude them in campaigns.

If we promote the same video in several campaigns, including a sequential campaign, a user who has seen our video in a campaign other than the sequential campaign will continue the sequence, but already with the video excluded.

Each ad has the ability to limit the number of times it can be viewed. Sequence video ads have a limitation on the number of impressions set to one sequence per person in a 7-day period by default, but you can change this to a setting of 1 sequence per person in a 30-day period. Once you save a campaign, you can no longer change the limitation on the number of impressions.

Unfortunately, for sequential campaigns with video ads, traffic forecasts are not available.

• STRATEGIES FOR DETERMINING RATES

There are two strategies to choose from: CPM (tCPM) and CPV (max CPV). Depending on which rate-setting strategy we choose, we will be able to use such advertising formats:

For CPM, we will have a choice of – In-Stream skippable ads; In-Stream non-skippable ads; interruption ads and, of course, combinations of the previously mentioned. 

In the case of the CPV model, we will only have In-Stream skippable ads.

Video out-stream

Out-Stream ads are designed to help build brand awareness. They reach a larger audience by displaying videos on sites and apps outside of YouTube. They were created with mobile devices in mind. Users who are just reading the latest news or shopping online can easily click and play the video ad, or skip it by scrolling through the page. 

Advertisements are played in mute mode; users can turn on the sound with one click. 

The model for determining rates here is CPV – we pay only if the ad is visible to the user (an ad is considered visible when at least 50% of it is visible on the screen, and it takes no less than two seconds to play).

Summary

That would be enough about the types of video campaigns. In future articles, I’d like to talk more extensively about advertising types and best practices for creating them. I’ll also discuss a new tool in the Google Ads dashboard, newly available to all accounts, for creating custom videos from available resources, which is deceptively similar to another tool – YouTube Video Builder.