Google announced the launch of several new measurement features for AdWords for Video designed to bring some consistency among video ad reporting and other forms of media.
One of the features is Reach & Frequency reporting. AdWords For Video will now show you reach and frequency metrics in the campaign reporting interface.
“These metrics give you more insight into how many unique viewers have seen your ad and the average number of times they’ve seen it, helping you better measure against other media such as TV,” says YouTube product manager David Tattersall. “To view these metrics on a campaign, ad or targeting group level, just click on Columns >> Customize Columns and look under the Performance section.”
There’s also a new Column Sets feature, which groups metrics by marketing objective. If you select Branding, you can see how broadly a video has been viewed, with unique viewer average view frequency and average impression frequency data. If you choose Website Traffic and Conversions, you can see website traffic, number of conversions, cost-per-conversion and conversion rate. If you select Audience, you can see follow-on subscribers and follow-on views. If you pick Views, you can see follow-on views and unique viewers.
There’s also a new GeoMap feature if you click “Map View”.
Video advertising just got a lot better for small business with Google’s launch of AdWords for Video, which adds YouTube advertising to the AdWords dashboard, enabling businesses to manage search, display and video campaigns from one place. With local being a major element for many of these businesses, advertisers will be happy to know that this includes geotargeting.
“We have geotargeting capability in AdWords for video so yes, local businesses can focus their advertising on specific geographies,” A Google spokesperson assures us.
Google compares YouTube advertising to other media:
According to recently released data from comScore, video ad impressions reached record numbers in March. The firm says video ads accounted for 18.5% of all videos viewed and 1.5% of all minutes spent viewing video online.
Advertisers only pay when users watch their ads (not when they skip them).
“With TrueView video ads you only pay when viewers choose to watch your ad so you aren’t charged when viewers skip your ad if they aren’t interested or have already seen your video,” explains Baljeet Singh, YouTube group product manager. “This means your ad budget is focused on viewers interested in your video. By displaying a call-to-action overlay on your video you can talk about a sale or specific offer to your viewers, share more information about your business, or drive traffic to your website.”
There are four TrueView formats: in-stream, in-search, in-slate and in-display.
“On average, we’ve found that YouTube video ads drive a 20 percent increase in traffic to your website and a 5 percent increase in searches for your business (Google Campaign Insights, 2011),” says Singh. “With AdWords for video you can find out how viewers are engaging with your brand during and after they watch your ad. You can see how many viewers watched your entire video, visited your website, stayed on your channel to watch another video, or subscribed to your channel, after viewing your ad.”
Google bought YouTube back in 2006. For years after that, the deal and Google’s monetization fo the property were heavily criticized. While Google has certainly made YouTube more ad-saturated in recent years, this new offering could be the one that really pays off. Apparently, Google even thinks it can generate as much revenue as its search ads.
Are these ads part of Google’s master plan to boost CPCs? For the last two quarters, Google has revealed declines in CPCs, while Facebook – which is becoming more of a competitor to Google than ever – is apparently destroying Google on that front, though Facebook has yet to unleash its mobile ads, which could have a similar effect on the company’s revenue as Google’s mobile ads have had on its own. Mobile is widely accused of contributing greatly to Google’s CPC decreases.
During an earnings call earlier this month, Google CEO Larry Page talked about how bullish he is on mobile, and that CPCs will improve. Mobile is exploding in query growth, he said, adding that the formats are just adapting a lot from a “relatively crude base.”
“Right now, they don’t monetize well,” he said, comparing it to search in the early 2000s.
People always spend most of their efforts on the major source of traffic, which is desktop, he said. But over time, he said, that will reverse.
In the meantime, there are a whole lot of YouTube users, both desktop and mobile. There are over 800 million total. That’s a Facebook-like number on its own (well, almost). It will be quite interesting to see how the AdWords For Video element impacts CPCs.
And how long until AdWords ads creep their way into Google+?
Google has launched AdWords for Video, which will make advertising on YouTube a lot easier for any business. It’s integrated right into AdWords itself, so video campaigns can be managed right along with search and display.
Frankly, the concept seems long overdue, particularly in light of all the criticism Google has faced regarding its YouTube purchase, and its monetization of the property, but it’s here now, and it just may have a huge impact on Google’s bottom line.
“Similar to search advertising—where you pay for clicks and set budgets with bids—we created a new model for video advertising,” explains YouTube Group Product Manager Baljeet Singh. “With Google AdWords for video, you only pay when someone chooses to watch your ad, and you can create and manage video campaigns from the same platform as your search and display ads.”
The account is not only connected to a business’ AdWords account, it’s also tied to the user’s YouTube account. Google says this is so that advertisers can easily start video campaigns using their existing videos. It certainly reflects that “one Google mentality the company has been taking (see recent privacy policy consolidation).
Google has a 7 1/2-minute walkthrough of how to get set up on AdWords for Video:
“On average, we’ve found that YouTube video ads drive a 20 percent increase in traffic to your website and a 5 percent increase in searches for your business (Google Campaign Insights, 2011),” says Singh. “With AdWords for video you can find out how viewers are engaging with your brand during and after they watch your ad. You can see how many viewers watched your entire video, visited your website, stayed on your channel to watch another video, or subscribed to your channel, after viewing your ad.”
Google says advertisers will only pay when viewers choose to watch their ads, so if the user skips it, it won’t cost you anything.
AdWords for Video is now available to all advertisers. Google is currently offering a $75 credit to new AdWords customers. The company says this alone can reach over 1,50 customers on YouTube for a month. The company is giving away $50 milliom worth of AdWords credits to 500,000 businesses. Businesses can request their credits here.
YouTube has over 800 million users.
There’s a lot more to say about today’s announcement. We’ll be following up with more.
