TrueView: Watch How YouTube Can Convert More, for Less

In today’s online-marketing driven world, you want to reach an audience where people are paying attention. And with around 3 billion (yes, with a b) views a day, YouTube delivers this engaged reach. Factor in Google’s newfound knowledge that people are 3x more likely to pay attention to online video ads vs. television ads—and you’ve got a platform you can’t ignore.

TrueView video ads give YouTube viewers the ability to choose which video ads they want to watch and when—meaning you’ll be maximizing your budget by not paying for unwanted views.

There are two types of TrueView ads (also known as formats):

• In-stream ads run before, during, or after videos on YouTube or on partner video sites and apps. With TrueView in-stream ads, you only pay when a viewer watches 30 seconds or more of your ad.
• Video discovery ads appear in places where viewers discover content–like on YouTube search results, next to related videos, and on the YouTube mobile homepage. With discovery ads, you pay when someone clicks on your ad to watch the video. In other words, you only pay for engagement.

There are two recent additions to the YouTube advertising platform that could help drive engagement to your website: TrueView for Reach, and TrueView for Action Marketing.

TrueView for Reach is optimized to help you target a specific broad set of customers. The benefit of this, in theory, is that these are customers who are interested in your product and more likely to click-through to a landing page. As with standard TrueView ads, YouTube lets ads be skipped after 5 seconds. In practical terms then, it makes the most sense for an advertiser to keep an ad in the 10 to 15-second range (Google recommend a minimum of 12 seconds for TrueView ads). The goal for True View ads for Reach is to provide an alternative to the standard YouTube ad offerings, such as bumper ads which are non-skippable at lengths from 6 to 20 seconds.

What Are the Benefits?

Well aren’t we glad you asked! TrueView for Reach offers the potential to provide advertisers with greater reach and lower CPMs (cost-per-thousand ad impressions).

Another interesting feature that the new Google Ads offers is TrueView for Action, which allows you to build custom intent audiences. You are now able to target users who recently searched for your products or services on Google. For example, if a user searches for Joe’s Auto on Google, then Joe’s Auto could reach them with a branded ad on YouTube. To accomplish this goal, our team will create a keyword list for our video campaign in the new Google Ads experience. For the best results with custom intent audiences, Google recommends combining with TrueView for Action.

Wait, There’s More?

One of the biggest benefits is that TrueView for Action video ads allow you to customize a call-to-action that will appear below the video, to drive the user to click-through to the website to submit a lead.

An example of a strategy that Strathcom’s marketing can implement for our clients, using the TrueView advertising tools, is a three-pronged remarketing strategy to generate a lower funnel lead. For example, we could create a campaign to drive traffic to the website, and then create a remarketing search campaign to target this audience with specific keywords using the Google search engine. In our final push, we would use the same keywords as our remarketing search campaign to show ads to a potential customer while they browse YouTube videos.

As the landscape for the way people intake information changes, it’s important that you stay up-to-date with the trends–like video (especially when they appear to be here for the long run). The fact that YouTube TrueView is incredibly cost-effective is just an added bonus, and should alleviate fears regarding seizing these new and unfamiliar opportunities. Of course, the team at Strathcom Media is always on top of the latest trends and how to best utilize them. If you want to know more, contact your online marketing manager or info@strathcom.com today!