YouTube Promoted Videos
August 11, 2010 • Article by Nettie Wells
On Monday we talked in general about some of the benefits of advertising on YouTube. Today we’re taking a closer look at YouTube Promoted Videos; how you set them up, what they’re good for and why they are so unique.
So how do you go about setting up a Promoted Video Campaign? If you don’t have an existing Google AdWords account then no worries – you don’t need one. All you need to start a Promoted Videos campaign is your own free YouTube account and some top quality video content. If you’re working towards a long term branding strategy it will be worth taking the time to create a customised user channel where users can watch all your videos in one destination.
If not then simply click through to www.youtube.com/promotedvideos, choose your video, select the keywords you want to bid on and set your budget. It’s that simple. Promoted Videos work in much the same way as Google Search Ads in that when a user searches YouTube they type in a query containing keywords – if you set the bids at the right price then when a user searches for the keywords that you are bidding on your video will appear at the top of the video search results.
In order to get the best out of Promoted Videos there are two tools you might want to integrate with your campaign. Firstly, while it isn’t necessary to have an AdWords account to run Promoted Video’s, if you integrate the two you will be able to track the number of conversions that occur as a result of somebody clicking through and watching your video. This can give you a greater idea of your ROI.
And secondly, and unique to YouTube advertising, you can access YouTube Insight – a free tool that shows you detailed performance statistics for your videos. Using Insight will give advertisers a greater understanding of who their audience is, where they come from, what they watch and when they watch it. This information can then be used to refine your advertising campaigns by creating user specific custom targeting and generating ideas for new, exciting and relevant content.