How to do video marketing via Google AdWords, a strategic approach

Video Marketing through Google AdWords works on YouTube and Google Display Networks. This gives you a reach to over 90% of Internet users worldwide. 

By Rohan Bhargava

The rise in consumption of videos has been one of the most exciting trends in the recent years. With the attention span of customers decreasing every day, marketing of content is becoming more visual. It is predicted that by 2019, 80 percent of all traffic on the Internet will be to video content. In such a case, the need for brands to expand their use of videos towards a fulfilling customer experience is most immediate.

However, a great piece of video content goes completely unnoticed when there is no marketing for it. It is therefore of prime importance to market your videos to build a successful brand experience.

Google AdWords for Video Marketing

Though there are many platforms catering to video marketing, Google AdWords is undoubtedly the best. Marketing of videos through Google AdWords gives more control over your video campaigns. From campaign creation and video targeting to deriving metrics and analyzing performance, Google gives you good control and leverage over your videos.

Video Marketing through Google AdWords works on YouTube and Google Display Networks. This gives you a reach to over 90% of Internet users worldwide. The wide variety of targeting methods such as interests, placements, demographic groups and remarketing lets you reach specific audiences who are most likely interested in your video content.

Structuring Video Campaigns

A successful video marketing strategy starts with perfect structuring of video campaigns. It starts with targeting a specific audience based on any one of the targeting methods. In my opinion, targeting through placements works the best. This lets you spread your video ads across specific genres and video channels. For useful insights into top channels across genres, tools like keywordtool.io, VidStatx.com and Google Trends are helpful.

When you select an audience group for targeting, Google gives an estimated views-per-day calculation. Choose to not include Google Display Networks if you have a small budget since this allows a lot of traffic to your videos which easily consumes your daily budget.

Keep the Budget Limited

Depending on your target group, YouTube can easily spend your budget for the day. This calls for keeping the budget under check and minimizing the target audience. This enables you to close the target groups that don’t perform as expected. Also, unexpected volume of clicks are kept to a minimum when the budget is small.

A/B Test your Video Versions

A very important step before going live with video ads is a/b testing of video versions. Your videos are charged on the basis of views and not impressions. A view is calculated as anyone who watches your video ad for 30 seconds or above. (If the video is below 30 seconds, one view is calculated when someone completely views your video ad).

Make a long and short version of your video ad and test it. Make sure that the brand message is explained well in your ad. More often than not, people would prefer to watch the video ad which explains the brand message completely. Even if that is the long video, people would have no problem in going through the entire video. Check the engagement of both versions and go with the variation which engages more.

Measure Impact of your Video Ads

You can measure the impact of your video ads/campaigns by looking into various factors. View rate, which is the number of views over impressions is one among them. A decent view rate benchmark for a typical video ad is around 30% or more.

Another important impact measuring criteria is the number of conversions. Conversions can be measured in terms of user registrations, sales and calls generated. In addition to these conversions, increase in organic brand queries and direct traffic also indicate an indirect impact of your video ads.

This is how you can strategically optimize your video marketing campaign via Google AdWords for optimum results. Never be held back to tweak and change strategies when the campaign doesn’t perform well. Always analyze the report of one video campaign before going ahead with another. This lets you avoid the mistakes that were made in the previous campaign.

If you have worked on Google AdWords earlier, you will find AdWords video campaigns to be extremely simple.

The author is co-founder of CashKaro.com