Category Archives: Remarketing

YouTube Video Ads Best Practices

Google’s YouTube video ads are not just a branding tool for large advertisers anymore, they have become increasingly effective at driving direct sales and leads. If you have a YouTube channel, you should be testing video ads, which you can set-up through Google AdWords. In this post, I’ll share some strategies for getting started as well as best practices.

Connecting YouTube Channel To AdWords

Your YouTube channel with existing video content can be re-utilized to reach massive numbers of potential users. Do you have videos that explain your key product benefits or testimonials from happy customers? Use this videos to share your message with highly targeted audiences. When thinking about which videos to promote, Keep the videos short – no more than 60 seconds, otherwise users will skip or tune out.

Before you can run video ads through Google AdWords, you will need to connect your YouTube channel to your AdWords account. Follow these steps:

In your AdWords account’s campaigns tab, click to create a new campaign +Campaign and choose Online video.

Click on the Linked YouTube accounts section on the left, then on +Link YouTube account and enter your YouTube log-in information. You will now be able to pick and choose from your video library.

YouTube Video Ads Best Practices

Targets

– Start with broad targets, such as “All topics” and “All interests” and let ads accumulate impressions and clicks. Once you have data on individual topics and interests, create new targeting groups and set higher bids for top performers.
– Set low initial bids (such as $0.05) and adjust based on results.
– Set-up a keyword based targeting group to reach users using YouTube search keywords.
– Stay away from demographic targeting, at least not on its own as the only target.

Ads/Videos

– Target all 3 recommended formats:

1. In-Stream
2. In-Search
3. In-Display

– Create multiple videos ads to test the effectiveness of different assets.
– Pause videos that do not meet target metrics, once you have sufficient data.
– Include call-to-action overlays. If ads do not perform, try alternate call-to-action overlays.

Remarketing

– Set duration to 540 days for remarketing rather than 30 days.
– Create a remarketing target group to show videos to users who have previously visited your website.
– Create a display campaign in AdWords with text and image ads to target video remarketing lists that are automatically pre-populated for you. For example, you can target users who viewed specific videos or users who subscribed to your channel.

Keep in mind when evaluating video ads that the sales cycle could be a bit longer than what you’ve been seeing from your search campaigns. As with any campaign, monitor results, adjust and repeat!

Remarket To YouTube Users Who Viewed Your Videos

AdWords remarketing now allows you to reach viewers who interacted with your YouTube videos, helping you strengthen your brand and relationship with your YouTube audience.

Remarketing can help you bring back those visitors who have navigated away from your pages and it can help you improve ROI. If you are new to remarketing, you can read more about what it is and other basics here.

The beauty of YouTube remarketing is that you can automatically create remarketing user lists and there’s no need to add any additional pixels to your website. You can choose to remarket to users who watched or liked specific videos, and subscribed or unsubscribed. You can even create custom audiences and combinations to further subdivide who sees what message. For example, you can remarket to anyone that’s viewed a video but did not yet convert through your site.

To get started, you’ll need to link your AdWords and YouTube accounts first, if you have not already. Next, go to All video campaigns in your AdWords campaign management tab and access the Video remarketing lists under the Shared library section. Click to create a new remarketing list and simply choose from one of the audiences, which AdWords automatically populates for you.

Once you’ve decided who you’d like to remarket to and have created your audience, you will want to set up a new remarketing campaign, adding the YouTube audiences you just created as your targets. You can read more about how to set-up remarketing campaigns and best practices in my previous post on this topic. Make sure to customize ad messaging for the audience you are reaching and include compelling offers and calls-to-action.

How Long Does It Take For You To Covert a Customer? Find Out Through AdWords Search Funnels

AdWords Remarketing Set-Up Best Practices

Remarketing can be a great way to reconnect with your customers as they navigate away from your site and continue to browse the display network. However, it can also be bit intimidating to set-up. In my previous post, I discussed the value and the basics of remarketing. Here, I will outline how to get started and create a remarketing campaign in your AdWords account.

Create A New Remarketing Campaign

First, create a new campaign in AdWords. This campaign should be opted out of search and into the display network only, targeting the broad reach option, as shown in the screenshot below.

Select Audiences

Then, go to Shared Library in your AdWords account and click on Audiences, which is where you will be able to create an audience and generate code to be placed on the appropriate pages. I discussed defining your audiences in my last post, please refer to it for more information on how to segment your visitors.

Select New Audience -> Remarketing List and choose a name and a cookie duration for your list. I recommend you start with a default 30 day cookie. When you save your audience, you will need to place the code on the corresponding pages of your website.

AdWords used to require 500 users in your audience list for your AdWords ads to start running. Now, your audience count needs to only reach 100 users for ads to be eligible to run. This is good news for smaller businesses and sites that do not get a ton of clicks as well as for more specific audiences.

Create Custom Combinations

You may want to create several audiences and then use custom combinations to reach the proper user base. For example, to reach only the non converters, you will want to have two audiences for all visitors and those that converted. Then, you will want to create a custom combination to target all visitors minus those that reached your conversion page.

Add Audience To Remarketing Campaign

Once you have created your audience, you will have to target it via your remarketing campaign. In your remarketing campaign, create an ad group, set your bid, and click on the Audiences tab. There, click on Add Audiences, choose the Remarketing Lists column and add in the audience you defined in the previous step.

Bidding

You can use CPC (Cost-Per-Click) or CPM (Cost Per 1000 Impressions) bidding, but I recommend going with CPC bids if you are direct response focused. You will want to start with a higher bid for more exposure, I recommend beginning with a $2 Max CPC and adjusting, as you monitor impressions, clicks and conversions.

Last Thoughts

Like with any campaign, you will want to monitor closely and adjust, based on performance. There are many more ways you can further sub-segment your audience, such as by cookie duration or display topics. Continue to experiment to custom targeting and messaging that resonates best with your customers.

Boost Conversions and Increase Brand Awareness With AdWords Remarketing

If you are like me and have been doing a lot of online shopping this holiday season, you have probably been remarketed to. Have you noticed ads on random sites that seem to ‘know’ what you recently searched for or want to buy? Yep, that’s likely remarketing.

With remarketing, you can serve your ads to users who previously visited your website as they go on to browse the display network. Remarketing can be an extremely powerful method of reminding your potential customers of your brand or reconnecting with them as they click on your ads but navigate away from your website.

If you are advertising with Google, you can set up remarketing through your Google AdWords campaigns. To get started, you’d need to first define your audiences or who you’d like to target, create a separate campaign for remarketing, and you would need to place some code on your website. Below, I am outlining some basics about remarketing and things to keep in mind as you set it up.

Remarketing Costs

The costs are the same as for other AdWords campaigns. You only pay when someone clicks on your remarketing ads or sees them (depending on if you’re using CPC or CPM bidding methods) and you set your own bids and budgets. If you are direct response focused, I recommend going with CPC bidding.

Defining Audiences

Your remarketing ads should be different for the various segments and audiences you are looking to capture. So, the first step of setting up a remarketing campaign will be to define your audiences or who your ads should reach. Here are some recommended audiences:

All Visitors: Anyone who came to your site. This is the most basic way to set-up remarketing but also the least targeted.
Non Converters: All visitors minus those that purchased a product or became a lead. Targeting such audiences can remind your non converting visitors of your brand and entice them to come back to your site and convert. You could get really specific here and target visitors who saw a particular brand or product and then show them the most relevant ads highlighting that particular brand.
By Products or Services: You could target users who visited specific pages on your site with custom ads and messages.
Topic Layering: You could further subdivide any of your chosen audiences by adding in topics in AdWords. This would segment a given audience by type of site they are browsing on the display network. For example, you could chose to show your remarketing ads to all non converters who browse finance related sites.
Converters: You could target those who already purchased a product or became a lead and continue to nurture your relationship with these visitors. Most direct response focused marketers do not see this audience as a priority, as it is more of a branding strategy.

Customizing Ads

I recommend doing a combination of text and image ads for greatest reach. Your message should be customized to the audience you are trying to reach. For example, if you are targeting visitors who did not convert, your ads should remind them why they should go with your brand or you can offer customers special discounts for coming back.

After you set-up remarketing, continue to test and experiment with audiences and settings until you find a method best suited for your goals. It is a robust tool for both branding and lead or sales generation. As you tailor it to your many unique audience segments, you can make a powerful connection with your customers.