Decoding Google Video Ads: Halved Costs, Doubled Exposure and Conversions

If you find that your video ads have a lower view rate than other ads in your campaign, or your CPV is higher than your target CPV, and you want your ads to reach a wider audience but don’t know what to do, this article will be of great help to you.

PART / 01

Use different video ads

Creatives and formats to attract more customers

Your audience may want to engage with your video on desktop or mobile, and they may respond differently to videos with different messages.

There are multiple video ad formats to choose from in Google Ads, and each format allows you to engage your customers with your message in a unique way.

That’s why it’s so important to understand your audience and think about the best ways to reach them.

Content and text are fundamental components of any video ad, and engaging content always stands out, while driving traffic to your video can keep viewers coming back for more.

We recommend uploading multiple videos in your creative assets, each with different aspect ratios (square, vertical, and horizontal) and different messages, and using different formats to create your videos.

A mobile-friendly full-screen vertical video experience can help drive engagement with mobile video viewers.

For YouTube, vertical video is supported in all video-eligible campaigns.

In some cases, adding vertical video assets to your call-to-action video campaigns can drive 10-20% more conversions than using horizontal videos alone.

In addition to YouTube, your ads can run on Google video partners to reach more users.

A large portion of Google video partner inventory is vertical-focused (such as gaming apps and video apps) to further leverage vertical and square video assets.

There are many different ad formats, but we recommend the following three formats to create effective and relevant ads:

Video ads with voiceover

With the free voiceover feature in Google Ads, you can easily add high-quality, realistic text-to-speech narration to existing videos in the Google Ads asset library.

TrueView in-stream video ads

In-stream video ads allow you to insert your ads at the beginning or in the middle of other video content. While this is an effective branding medium, it generally has lower conversion rates than other online ad formats.

Here are some tips to get the most out of your campaigns:

01.Direct traffic from your ad to your brand’s YouTube channel or a website with more video content. Viewer engagement is more likely to increase if you can provide continuity in the customer video experience.

02.Make sure your landing page is relevant to the ad content. For YouTube landing pages, consider driving customers to a webpage or brand channel tagged with the Google Ads remarketing code to reinforce your brand and increase the frequency with which your message is shown to viewers.

03.Include a strong call to action in your ad, and choose colors and fonts that match your brand.

04.Avoid using keyword targeting for your campaign, as this can severely limit how often your ad can be shown.

Also make sure the video you create for your ad is engaging. Remember, your audience isn’t going to stare at your ad because viewers can skip the video after 5 seconds.

To keep viewers’ attention throughout the video, try these tips:

01.Keep your videos short and engaging. Place your most important information early in the video to prevent viewers from stopping before the video ends. Play rate drops significantly after 45 seconds.

02.Since video may be your only way to communicate with website viewers, be sure to clearly state the scope of your business.

03.Provide customers with clear follow-up actions after the video ends. This could be making a purchase, or visiting your website or store.

In-feed video ads

In-feed video ads allow you to showcase your brand, product, or service next to YouTube content that your target audience is likely to watch.

Promotional content

Before creating a promotional ad, be sure to read the YouTube Ads Policy carefully. You should create compelling content based on real stories. Videos that are purely advertising are unlikely to delight viewers or keep them coming back.

01.Avoid using broad themes in your ad text and instead focus your ad text on why people should click on your ad to see your content when they see your promotional ad.

For example, what style of language is typically used in movie trailers versus TV commercials?

Movie trailers use taglines and subtitles to spark interest in the movie’s story and keep viewers coming back for more.

Try encouraging users to learn or see more of your video, rather than simply highlighting the sale of your product or service.

02.Choosing relevant keywords and promotional text can help you get your video content in front of interested viewers at a reasonable price.

Experimenting with different keywords and promotional text is a great way to achieve your goals.

03.If you want users to take action, invite them to perform an action that can be performed on YouTube.

For example: “Subscribe,” “Watch,” “Record a video response,” or “Comment.”

04.Do some market research to understand what users think of relevant content. See what users are saying about similar videos and channel pages.

05.Use YouTube analytics to determine which parts of your videos are most engaging for your viewers. This will help you come up with more optimization ideas.

Video Stills

When you create an in-feed video ad, you’ll see a variety of video stills or “thumbnail images” to choose from. These stills are the first thing YouTube users see before they click on your promotion ad.

Choose the video still that best highlights your ad’s content. You can also try to match this image to your promotion text or keywords.

For example, if your video is about surfing, you could choose a video still that captures the moment. When writing your promotion text and choosing keywords, you should mention surfing.

This way, you’ve created a well-structured Promoted Video ad that users will find interesting if they click and watch your recommended video when searching for videos about surfing.

PART / 02

Make the most of cost per view (CPV)

Average CPV is the average amount advertisers pay for each view of their video ads. CPV fluctuates due to a variety of factors, including ad length, creative quality, targeting, and auction conditions.

01.Evaluate CPV

CPV is an important indicator of the competitiveness of your ads in the auction ecosystem. Are you paying more for views than you expected? Is your CPV continuing to increase?

By tracking and adjusting your CPV, you can communicate your message more effectively. If your ad has been running for several weeks, a rising CPV may be a sign that users are tired of the ad creative. A rising CPV may also mean that it is more difficult to win the auction in the competition.

Conversely, a falling CPV means that there are fewer competitors in the market and you may be able to get the views you want by paying less.

02.Tips for achieving your CPV goals

While the relationship between bid and CPV is the most direct, targeting and creative are equally important to provide the best user fit, which can lead to higher view rates and lower CPVs. Here are some tips to help you lower your cost per view.

Adjust your bids

Bidding has the most direct impact on your CPV, since you can never pay more per view than your maximum bid.

However, since bid limits only constrain your maximum bid, adjusting your bid is only one way to adjust your CPV.

The most effective way to use bids is to bid the true value of each view you are buying (similar to buying clicks on Google Search).

However, “true value”, which is the point of post-ad performance evaluation, is often difficult to calculate in advance.

The best way to start defining the value of each view is to compare the number of paid views you get, owned views (views on your own content), and earned views (views from shared content).

Views can lead to subsequent actions that can be worth far more than what you paid for directly.

With skippable in-stream ads, you can improve engagement and recall for ads that are shown for less than 30 seconds, which means you can still get value without paying.

Expand your targeting

Limiting your targeting will increase competition. This will likely result in a higher CPV unless you are already close to your maximum bid.

If you are already close to your maximum bid, this will simply result in you not winning the auction and, ultimately, not spending your budget.

If you expand your targeting, the ad serving system can determine which auctions your ad and bid are more competitive in, which can lower your campaign’s overall average CPV.

By taking a wider range of targeting into account, it may still be possible to find valuable audiences at a lower CPV.

Note that the campaign format of skippable in-stream ads also acts as a targeting filter, allowing you to pay only for interested viewers who choose to watch your ad.

Loosen other restrictions at the campaign level

For example, turning off accelerated delivery, platform targeting, or adjusting ad rotation settings may help increase view rate and reduce CPV.

Perfect your ads

Ads that engage people will naturally receive higher view rates, which will often have an impact on CPV.

As the view rate increases, the cost per view will decrease because the bidding system will prioritize highly relevant ads that viewers like to watch; and whether the audience likes to watch is reflected in whether they are willing to watch the entire video.