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Updates to Google’s video ads
Google has been pretty busy and focused on their Search business over the last few days. It was only a matter of time until they circled back on their advertising business. Well, not literally.
Over the last 48 hours, Google announced a series of updates for advertisers running video ads on Google’s ad platform.
Let’s quickly jump onto them.
TrueView ads in the YouTube home feed: To help you manage your ad campaigns in a better fashion and to reach your audience when they are most active, Google announced the launch of TrueView ads in the home feed of YouTube.
“A great chance for any advertiser looking to drive more, high value conversions”.
Masthead ads on TV: It also added masthead ads on the main screen for TV-connected YouTube users. While they definitely grab a lot of attention, it might put some users off because of their overt nature. Nevertheless, a huge chance for marketers to grab some eyeballs.
Video Reach Campaigns: These newly added campaigns will allow you to upload a range of video assets and Google’s systems will then automatically determine their placement.
This means video advertisers don’t have to run and manage separate campaigns for 6-second bumper ads, skippable in-stream ads and non-skippable in-stream ads. You can now upload multiple video creatives into a single campaign.
Reddit follows Google: Improved Video Ads
It is not just Google or Snapchat that’s been focused on video ads to drive more engagement on their platform, Reddit has hopped on the bandwagon too.
Here’s what’s new with Reddit Ads:
Mobile landing pages for video ads: When a user clicks on any in-feed video ad on Reddit’s mobile platform, they will be redirected to the advertiser website where the ad will continue to play uninterrupted along with the advertiser branding and product information on the landing page.
This new functionality is expected to significantly improve engagement and conversion rates.
New video ad sizes: Advertisers can now utilize their existing video creatives from other ad platforms on Reddit without having to rework their ads, with new specifications. Reddit used to support only 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios for video ads, but now it supports 1:1 square and 4:5 vertical video sizes.
Referral URLs for CPV campaigns: The newly added referral URLs will allow advertisers to deliver a cleaner viewing experience while driving more views to your video ad campaigns optimized for views.
SPONSORED
Don’t leave this 79% of your potential revenue at the table
Did you know that on average, affiliate marketers, bloggers, and publishers miss out on 79% of their potential revenue.
Where did we hear that? This surprising fact comes from this SEMrush case study on how the ad publishing business was faring.
What does this mean? It means that you as an affiliate marketer, blogger, or publisher are just at a mere 21% of your actual monetization potential. Now, think of your monthly revenue figures and imagine 5x more revenue each month at your full potential. Call it an easy moolah or low hanging fruit.
Does it sound like some made up jazz? Well, they are happy to back it up with data gathered across 30k domains and 20 industries.
That’s exactly where SEMrush comes into the picture to help not just you but also your audience make the most out of your monetization efforts!
So, are you ready to reclaim this missing 79%? Then, be sure to check out this new data-powered guide to online monetization!
Here’s a quick preview of the perks this latest guide has to offer:
- Detailed and in-depth insights on the elements responsible for this rev loss.
- The magic formula of monetization revealed.
- New benchmarking tool: Check any domain’s potential monetization revenue.
- Top 10 SEO mistakes that plague online publishers.
- A step-by-step tutorial for publishers, bloggers and creators.
Rolling in $437k with 4x ROAS
You like case studies, eh? Here’s another one about a store in the beauty niche shared by Ryan Alexander. The AOV is $80.
The whole structure looked like this:
- Top of funnel -> Awareness and refreshing data.
- Top of funnel -> Conversions to cold traffic.
- Middle of funnel -> Conversions to warm traffic.
- Bottom of funnel -> Conversions to hot traffic.
+ TOF (Awareness and data gathering): Here Ryan ran engagement ads because they’re cheaper to get data on the different creatives, headlines and copies to test. The targeting is left wide-open.
He used only Video Ads and his tip is to make the ad relatable to something that everybody knows about: news headline, celebrity, etc.
Start the video calling out the problem your product solves and keep the video fast-paced. Short and sweet ad copy for all these ads. And if you can, link it to something/someone popular in your niche.
The goal of the TOF campaign is testing creatives, build awareness and get video views data.
+ TOF (Conversion to cold traffic): Here Ryan runs 8-12 ad sets broken down into two components: Interests and LLAs.
- LLAs: 1, 1-2, 2-5 and 5-10 percent audience sizes for 75% and 95% Video Viewers. A separate campaign for each country. 4 in his case.
- Interest: 5-10 single Interests targeting, all e-packet countries.
The creatives used here are Video and Image Ads. In this phase, the copy makes a big difference, so do not neglect it, especially if your product is not self-explanatory.
+ MOF: Here Ryan breaks down the traffic into 6 main ad sets:
- FB Page Engagement.
- FB Post Engagement.
- 95% Video Views.
- 75% Video Views (Excluding 95% VV).
- IG Page Engagements.
- IG Post Engagements.
A little overlap might happen here, but your budget should be relatively small. Plus, make sure to monitor the frequency and adjust the budget accordingly.
You can use the same creatives from the previous phase. For the copy, throw in some scarcity and social proof.
+ BOF: This is how the camp is structured:
- All website visitors excluding View Content (12 days).
- View Content Excluding ATC (12 Days).
- ATC (add to cart) Excluding IC (12 Days).
- IC (initiate checkout) Excluding PUR (12 Days).
- All website visitors (AWV) 30 Days excluding AWV 12 Days.
Here Ryan suggests using discounts and social proof and according to his test, in TOF campaigns, the amount of the discount doesn’t affect conversions a lot.
The copies that made wonders for Ryan here are:
Finish line. This is a bit similar to the case study we featured yesterday but there are some more points to take into account. For example, connecting your ads to something or someone popular for your audience.
FANTASTIC FOUR
- AFFILIATE MARKETING: If you’re just starting out you probably know the struggle of getting approved by an affiliate network. Charles Ngo shared his take on how to increase the odds of getting accepted.
- BOT MARKETING: Did you hear about ManyChat’s integration with SMS and Email? Here’s a video on how to implement it.
- ADVERTISING: Firefox‘s latest anti-tracking changes caused quite a few problems in the ad world. German publishers experienced a 5% drop in ad revenue and a 40% drop in bidding. Ouch!
- E-COMMERCE: Getting ready for the holiday season is not only about setting up ads, audiences and creatives in advance. It’s also about getting your inventory and fulfilment on point. Here are the things you should watch according to Shopify.
BRAIN TEASER
Which word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly?
You’ll find the answer at the end of this email.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.Opulence for scuba divers
Burger King sending its clients to McDonald’s: A true story
Batman VS The Joker
Achilles VS Hector
Ronaldo VS Messi
Facebook VS Google
McDonald’s VS Burger King
Historic rivals always gave us great stories. And talking about advertising, the Burger King VS McDonald’s competition always generated great campaigns.
However, sometimes rivals lay down the weapons for a common cause.
That’s what happened in Burger King stores yesterday. For an entire day, Burger King stopped serving Whoppers and started to send customers to McDonald’s.
Why? Because The Golden Arches fast food joint had pledged all sales for that day for children fighting cancer.
“Today we won’t be serving Whoppers to support our competitor’s cause.”
A great deed made by Burger King.
But again, this is just another marketing gem.
Obviously we’re not doubting Burger King’s intentions. But they definitely killed two birds with one stone!
Do you think this is a better marketing angle than Burger King running their own campaign in the same style as McD’s?
BRAIN TEASER ANSWER
Incorrectly.