This week’s PPCChat session was hosted by Cory Henke. The session had PPC experts discuss everything about YouTube advertising, from what features they liked there to sharing opinions about how impactful the platform is for a brand, from hurdles faced on the platform to predicting which features (that are in beta currently) will click with the advertisers and more.
Here is the screencap of the discussion that took place.
Q1: YouTube is a fantastic platform. If you’re using it currently, what are your favorite features, Targeting? Long Form Opportunities? Cost? Efficiency? Searchability? TrueView buying model?
We love that we’re able to use the space to get into the nitty gritty of our product’s features. We also like that we can put some friendly faces to our name — we love to personalize when we can! – @CallRail
I’d say efficiency and cost, hands down. Great for branding! – @gilgildner
so much I love about @YouTube adve+rtising The ONLY impression on the web you don’t pay a dime for until someone interacts with your video for at least 30 Seconds! The targeting is off the hook! Search Intent + Emotion of Video = Hell to the Yeah! – @BryantGarvin
I believe the TrueView model is probably my favorite feature. Ensuring that I only pay for the most relevant audience, especially in advertising today is my favorite feature. So much you can do in the first thirty seconds. #ppcchat great answers all. – @coryhenke
ALL THE IMPRESSIONS. As a performance marketer, I tend to roll my eyes at impressions but, you just can’t beat getting them for free. Getting charged at 30 sec or a click really can’t be beaten anywhere else. There isn’t a better channel for branding/top-funnel. – @markpgus
I love Trueview, its cheaper than a cable buy, and I can actually track its success.
TrueView buying model, new audience targeting options (yay Custom Intent!), and REACH! . – @akaEmmaLouise
Free advertising with TrueView. Hands down. Thanks for the free impressions Google. – @MilwaukeePPC
We’ve used YouTube campaigns for several clients, mostly for retargeting and awareness purposes. Daily budgets were around $10 (if memory serves), but they didn’t bring much in when it came to sign-ups (again, if memory serves). – @marccxmedia
Favorite Youtube Advertising feature atm is custom intent audiences.The opportunity to target in-market customers that never made it to our site is a welcome addition to what is essentially fancier remarketing. – @zackbedingfield
I love to start with YT Retargeting. Most bang for your buck right out the gate. – @_kingjosiah_
Q2: How impactful is YouTube for your brand, advertiser, or agency? Is YouTube a core part of your media mix? Currently Testing? Haven’t Figured Out?
We’re working to increase our YouTube usage — we’ve definitely seen the benefits of having explainer videos, best practices and tutorials for our customers. In our latest round of videos, we filmed one with a company culture focus and it’s helped a bunch with hiring! – @CallRail
Haven’t figured out unfortunately. 🙁 For my clients at least. May need to put a video together & test for myself. – @mindswanppc
We run ads on YouTube for both our agency (@disco_sloth) and for clients. I’d say it’s a core part of our mix, but we definitely do most of the heavy lifting over in Google Search. – @gilgildner
We find YouTube to be incredibly impactful for our advertisers or at least the ones that have taken the plunge. We believe this will be a core part of everyone’s media mix but if we looked at our clients about 50/50 Inside the media mix vs. testing. – @coryhenke
So much is dependent on the video. Right now we don’t have a good one, and shooting one ourselves would be “off brand” @BryantGarvin shared a great guide for creating one in a webinar once though! Optimizing for the true view model – @markpgus
Mix bag, but we do find it helpful to drive brand traffic down funnel. Our Brand lift studies have been a little hit or miss on the outcome. – @JonKagan
I’d like it to be more “core” than it is currently. Def moving in that direction, though, as more clients are getting into branding and full-funnel/multi-channel strategies. Plus, the new features Google has rolled out in the past year are making it easier to pitch. . – @akaEmmaLouise
Unfortunately not as big as I want it to be. Pushing it as much as we can to clients. Once we can show impact on search traffic it’s easier to get more buy in. – @MilwaukeePPC
YouTube has been minimally impactful for our clients, as most tend to favor or have the assets for Search and Display ads and not so much for a YouTube campaign. – @marccxmedia
We’ve taken video assets that are working for clients on FB and use them for YT. They usually do pretty well. – @_kingjosiah_
Q3: The biggest hurdle I hear most often when it comes to running YouTube is creative. What are some tactics or strategies that you use to make this easy or more accessible for advertisers looking to test?
Get EVERYONE involved. Especially your content team. What questions does your sales team get all the time? Answer them. What have your support and success teams learned from their interactions? Your content team can tie these all together for solid pieces. – @CallRail
I recommend the director onsite program https://director.youtube.com/onsite . I know a few freelancers that do affordable work & I have access to an animated platform (but that doesn’t work for everyone). Ccan also get B-Roll really cheap & then do voice-overs and add logos. – @Hoffman8
If you have content, test it. As Michael Jordan said, you miss all the shots you don’t take. 😉 If there is no content or new content is http://director.youtube.com ($350 on ad spend. Free professional video) or start with @vidmob, video creator service. – @coryhenke
what we found really works is saying “You could honestly make a video with your cell phone and have it live as an add in 24 hours, not that we recommend that” – @JonKagan
recycle or upcycle I suppose… using videos already on their channel repurposed as ads, or using creative from FB on YT, etc.. – @akaEmmaLouise
Make sure you get several edits of your videos. If you can’t afford total reshoots, at least you can test out different versions of a video to see what might have a bigger impact. – @MilwaukeePPC
If clients already have the creative assets, fantastic. If they don’t and are hesitant to invest in such creative assets (and Search & Display make more sense), then we put it on the backburner. – @marccxmedia
If they have existing traditional spots or brand videos on their site, running those (or trimming them down) can be a good place to start – @timothyjjensen
Q4: YouTube has a lot of new features consistently rolling out in Alpha and Beta phases. TrueView for action, Sequential messaging, Life Events, Cross-Device Targeting, Shopping Integration and others on the horizon. Which will be most impactful and why?
I’ve tested TrueView for Action with several clients and have seen much better results than on normal TrueView, so I am excited about that. Hopefully this effect stays when the novelty for the user wears off! – @ch_brauer
I think it all depends on the client. Any of these could have a big impact for the right business. I think sequential messaging has the broadest relevance to all advertisers but the shopping integration stands to be as impactful if not more for ecomms, and life events for B2C. +1 tCPA worked really well for us. Only problem was it also limited our reach bc we had it around the same CPA as we’d want from the rest of the acct… but made the client more willing to test, which allowed us to get into some other YT experimentation, so it was a win. – @Hoffman8
+1 tCPA worked really well for us. Only problem was it also limited our reach bc we had it around the same CPA as we’d want from the rest of the acct… but made the client more willing to test, which allowed us to get into some other YT experimentation, so it was a win. – @BryantGarvin
Really interested in shopping and cross-device attribution mostly because I believe in long-form and new exciting products need a more extended explanation, but when combined with a seamless transition to purchasing, I think this could be a gold mine. – @coryhenke
I’m honestly excited for all of them! I think the ones I will use most are Life Events and Custom Intent, though. TrueView for Action is legit, but I’ve been unable to set it up in my accounts bc it requires that majority of conversions take place within 24 hours. Also, Lead Gen forms direct from YT! Idk when they’ll get here, but I know they will eventually. I can see YT becoming a fierce competitor with FB once they get that rolled out.. – @akaEmmaLouise
And this may be unpopular but we all have video cameras in our pockets now. I know, “But the brand! Blah Blah Blah.” You can still make a pretty quality video with some self editing tools from your phone. I’m liking the TrueView for Action. Makes total sense for B2B. But B2C can use it for top of funnel to get more newsletter signups. So many possibilities. – @MilwaukeePPC
Cross-Device Targeting and Shopping Integrations, at this point, seem to be poised to be the most impactful, as they enable tracking across unique user IDs and easy shopping ability (respectively). – @marccxmedia
Custom intent is by far the coolest. Allowing search marketers to essentially engage PRE-click is huge. – @zackbedingfield
Q5: One thing that is still very tough to understand when evaluating YouTube as a core piece of your advertising media mix is the value regarding conversion volume, which sometimes is lost in attribution. How do you best tackle this issue within AdWords and with Clients?
As @MilwaukeePPC mentioned earlier – RLSA audiences as observation only is a good way to track performance down the line. Also monitor brand search terms (PPC & organic). – @Hoffman8
number 1 tip is create a separate account and conversion pixel for YouTube prospecting campaigns helps directionally tell you better which ads and audiences are working Remember if in Brand/Search account User watches video Later searches Video gets no credit. – @BryantGarvin
Tracking conversions over multiple channels is really difficult. Typically the most straightforward way to reflect this to a client is by showing an increase in organic brand searches (or unique phrases in the video). It’s a long term solution as well. – @gilgildner
I usually run a retargeting campaign on the audience that saw the video to capture some conversions. – @ch_brauer
We see a variety of results based on the different attribution models. Google Analytics, as well as AdWords, has an excellent attribution comparison tool that we use however we spend less time on attribution and try to focus our clients on taking a holistic approach. – @coryhenke
Just understanding from the get go the funnel you’re going to use and the target cpa across everything. Creating a specific goal in analytics for cold youtube audiences on a first click attribution could be interesting. Never done that personally though. I also think that it is important to set expectations that certain parts of our funnel are going to be more expensive at a CPA level. Set the expectation that an account CPA should be x and then allow us to move people down that, however, we see fit. – @markpgus
Be direct up front: “This is not going to lead to sales directly, so don’t expect it to, this is going to power your other media to get more sales and brand recognition, now stop asking why it isn’t converting” – @JonKagan
I try to sell it differently when recommending to clients. It’s not JUST a branding play, but it’s also NOT going to perform the same as Search or even FB where convs are easier to complete. Set expectations and then do the best we can.. – @akaEmmaLouise
Find my audiences answer from before. It’s not 100%, but it helps. I’d also look at your engagement and earned metrics. Create remarketing audiences off of those metrics too and get those users back to the site. Easy to track visits from those video audiences if you set up your campaigns properly. – @MilwaukeePPC
With YouTube and Display campaigns, we remind clients that there are less likely to be conversions, as these types of campaigns are better for generating awareness. Granted, lead gen is also a possibility, and we’ve had some clients with moderate gains. – @marccxmedia
Q6: Are there any YouTube advertising blogs you would recommend? Where would one go to learn more about YouTube advertising?
We love picking up tips from the video experts @wistia! Their blog is a fantastic place to hit the ground running with your brand’s video initiatives. https://wistia.com/learn – – @CallRail
I followed the courses in the @YTCreators Academy https://creatoracademy.youtube.com to get super up to speed for a project and it was probably 50% useful – so would recommend some of those. – @ch_brauer
I am always searching, but unfortunately, there is not a lot out there. My reco., search Google for articles, YouTube for video. Stay close to influencers like @MilwaukeePPC and @BryantGarvin two people I follow for YT. Attend conferences such as @smx @heroconf – @coryhenke
Honestly, I credit a webinar I watched from @BryantGarvin last fall for most of my philosophies on Youtube Ads. Literally redid a pitch that evening to include Youtube. – @markpgus
shamelessplug again… I linked two blogs earlier, and will have another (on Custom Intent for YT vs. Display) in a couple of weeks on @Instapage. Also, @Hanapin has some webinars and a whitepaper on YT in their resource library: https://www.hanapinmarketing.com/ppc-library/all-resources/?search=youtube . – @akaEmmaLouise
We learn from you @coryhenke. – @MilwaukeePPC
Q7: Outside of the Duopoly (Facebook & YouTube), Where is the next best place to test, buy, or run video?
I think programmatic TV buys are going to be huge… but I’m not an expert on that…. at least not yet. – @Hoffman8
Does @Snapchat count? Low CPCs right now seems pretty tempting. .Anyone have experience with integrated TV? Seems really cool. Never used it before, just have had programatic peeps try to sell me on it. – @markpgus
I kinda like Hulu and Tremor, but my options are lacking – @JonKagan
Curious if anyone has had success with LinkedIn video sponsored content? Tested briefly and didn’t see the best results compared to regular LI sponsored content, but wasn’t much spend behind it – @timothyjjensen
PPCChat Participants:
- Cory Henke – @coryhenke
- Amy Bishop – @Hoffman8
- Christina Nrauer – @ch_brauer
- Jon Kagan – @JonKagan
- CallRail – @CallRail
- Gil Gildner – @gilgildner
- Emma Franks – @akaEmmaLouise
- Bryant Garvin – @BryantGarvin
- Joe Martinez – @MilwaukeePPC
- MindSwan – @mindswanppc
- Mark Gustafson – @markpgus
- Zack Bedingfield– @zackbedingfield
- Mike Crimmins – @mikecrimmins
- Josiah Colt – @_kingjosiah_
- Timothy Jensen – @timothyjjensen
- Marccx Media – @marccxmedia
Related Links:
Shiv Pillai
Helpful!