September 20, 2021
YouTube Video Action Campaigns: What to Know About the Transition
While direct conversions may be your ultimate goal when it comes to paid advertising, generating brand awareness and engagement through channels like YouTube can still be highly beneficial to your marketing efforts, especially if you set your goals properly. To this point, TrueView Video Discovery campaigns are often overlooked when setting up YouTube advertising, since this ad type typically generates fewer direct conversions than formats like In-Stream ads. However, we have found that YouTube Video Discovery ads consistently produce higher engagement rates, making it a strong ad type to test if you are just getting started with YouTube advertising.
What is the difference between Video Discovery and In-Stream?
Video Discovery
Image Source: ThinkWithGoogle
Formerly known as “In-Display” ads, TrueView Video Discovery is an ad format that that promotes your video on the YouTube search results page alongside related videos and on the YouTube mobile homepage. The ad consists of a thumbnail image from the video along with a headline and description.
In-Stream
Image Source: ThinkWithGoogle
In-Stream ads, sometimes referred to as pre-roll ads, is the format most users are familiar with. In-Stream ads automatically play before, during, or after other videos and can appear on YouTube watch pages, videos on partner sites, and apps in the Google Display Network. After five seconds, the viewer is presented an option to skip the ad. In-Stream ads have a variety of formats, including Shoppable TrueView, which shows products alongside your video, and TrueView for Action, which includes a custom call-to-action that displays during and after your video.
Performance differences between Video Discovery and In-Stream
To evaluate performance differences between Video Discovery and In-Stream ad formats, we pulled six months of data from some of Metric Theory’s top YouTube accounts, all with varying business models. We then focused on engagement metrics – in particular, ‘earned subscribers’ per ad view and ‘earned views’ per ad view. Earned subscribers happen when users watch your ad and then subscribe to your channel, while earned views occur when users watch subsequent videos on your channel or watch pages.
Subscribers/View Rate
Earned Views/View Rate
As you can see from the data above, Video Discovery had a much higher rate of engaging users than In-Stream. This may be due to the nature of video discovery; with this format, users must actively click on your ad to view the video. This action indicates the user is interested in your video, product, or service and is more likely to engage with your channel in other ways.
Our study also indicated a higher rate of likes, shares, and playlist adds per view; however, volume for these metrics were lower.
Tips & Tricks for Video Discovery Ads
As you expand your YouTube Ad offerings to Video Discovery, here are some tips and tricks to keep in mind.
Ad Creation
Since your target audience must actively click the video to view, you’ll want your thumbnail and ad copy to clearly show what the video is about while being creative enough to grab the user’s attention.
Choose a visually interesting thumbnail image – Google will auto-generate four thumbnails to choose from, and you should choose the one that best represents your product or service.
Be creative and clear with your headline & description – Headlines can have a maximum of 25 characters, while descriptions can have a total of 70 characters (two lines of 35). The headline and description should be focused on showing people why they should watch the video and what they’ll get out of it.
Since users do have to choose to watch your video ad, Video Discovery is a great format to use for lengthier video assets like tutorials and testimonials. Unlike In-Stream ads, the creative doesn’t need to be as focused on hooking someone’s attention and can instead be more educational and informative.
Targeting
Targeting options for YouTube Video Discovery campaigns are identical to those of In-Stream campaigns – demographics, audiences, keywords, topics, and placements. Since these ads can show in YouTube search results, keyword targeting for Video Discovery will be more important than for In-Stream ads. For example, you can use keyword targeting and select only the YouTube Search network during campaign set up to create video ads that function similar to SEM ads.
Outlined below are recommendations based on what we’ve seen be successful:
– Copy your targeting from your existing In-Stream campaigns and compare performance
– Target your top performing short-tail keywords or competitor keywords and limit the campaign to just the YouTube Search network
– Target specific channels related to your industry
– Leverage Google Ads Audience Insights and any social media insights to target topics and channels your converters are interested in
Like their name suggests, Video Discovery ads are designed to help your target audience discover your brand. It’s important to remember that this ad type typically isn’t as effective at driving direct response as formats like TrueView for Action, but it can be great for driving brand awareness and consideration. When comparing performance to any In-Stream format, you should be looking less at a comparison of CPA/ROI and more at engagement metrics like CTR and earned views. If you evaluate YouTube ads using a combination of direct and view-through conversions, be aware that Video Discovery campaigns will usually drive a high volume of view-through conversions, especially when running them against remarketing audiences. This happens due to a high volume of impressions served with relatively few views compared to In-Stream campaigns, since people need to actively choose to watch the video.
Conclusion
The higher levels of engagement and lower costs that we’ve seen from Video Discovery make the ad format an appealing option for advertisers looking to drive brand consideration or awareness, especially if you’re not ready to dive into video advertising with a large budget. Keeping in mind the above tips and tricks and knowing how to properly evaluate the campaigns will help make your Video Discovery campaigns a success.
Need help launching YouTube advertising? Don’t hesitate to contact our team for a growth analysis!
