Capture More Customers with TrueView Video Advertising

This year, it has been estimated that 79% of internet traffic will be video content. With video dominating online, it’s time to buckle down and focus on what YouTube’s TrueView video advertising can do to help achieve your marketing goals.

TrueView Video Advertising Overview

YouTube provides people with a platform for hosting their videos, as well as the option to monetize their videos by allowing advertising on their videos. That advertising includes both TrueView video and companion display advertising.

TrueView video advertising is named such because Google intends that advertisers only pay for “true” views. With TrueView, the advertiser is only charged when a viewer watches 30 seconds of the video (or the duration if it is less than 30 seconds long) or otherwise interacts with the video. In-stream ads also have a ‘Skip Ad’ button that lets users skip the advertisement after the first 5 seconds.

TrueView video advertising is an excellent way to drive more traffic and bring in customers, and part of that is due to the reach that YouTube has. Over a billion people visit YouTube every month. In that same time period, they watch over 6 billion hours of video content. With advanced audience selection options, you can narrow down this enormous audience into the ideal segments for your marketing.

Types of TrueView Video Ads and When To Use Them

There are two types of TrueView advertisements: in-steam and video discovery (formerly in-display). These different ad types appear under different circumstances, allowing advertisers added flexibility in marketing to their audience. Each type of ad has its placement and strengths, and using that effectively can be key to bringing in more sales.

TrueView In-Stream Video

In-stream ads appear before, during, or after videos YouTube (or video partner sites on the Display Network). These ads have a skip button that allows the viewer to click and skip the ad after the first five seconds have played. With in-stream videos, advertisers are only charged with the viewer watches 30 seconds of the ad (or less, if the video is shorter) or clicks an element of the ad.

Use in-stream video advertising when you want a big increase in your visibility. In-stream video delivers more impressions than video discovery, and can be a great way to generate interest in seasonal promotions or events.

TrueView Video Discovery

Video discovery ads were created for viewers searching or browsing videos on YouTube. With video discovery, promoted videos appear on search results, beside YouTube videos, and on the YouTube mobile homepage. These ads are 100% opt-in, so advertisers are charged when a viewer clicks on the ad and begins watching the video.

Video discovery ads are ideal for businesses looking to build their YouTube channel into a true marketing resource. By promoting video content, advertisers can help grow YouTube subscribers and drive more video views.

Maximizing the Impact of Your TrueView Video Advertising

Video advertising on YouTube can be a fantastic form of marketing, and that success can be maximized by careful ad creation, support, and monitoring. Here are the best ways to optimize TrueView video advertising to capture more customers.

Be Unskippable

While the TrueView system means that advertisers don’t pay unless the viewer is interested, with in-stream videos, it also presents the challenge of making a video interesting and engaging in just five short seconds. The following are the top traits of the least skipped videos.

Big Beginning: Close-ups, celebrities, and vibrant backgrounds capture attention and increase interest, which results in higher viewership and better brand lift.
Reality and Relevance: Product demos, testimonials, and real product stories can help bring authenticity to content that is often dismissed.
Tone Matters: The tone of your ad can make the difference between a skip and a sale. Humor consistently results in the highest ad recall and brand awareness, but tones like “suspenseful” and “emotional” work well for businesses where humor doesn’t fit.
Keep it Current: Incorporating seasonal events and/or holidays into your advertising makes the messaging more relevant to viewers, discouraging a skip.
Match Marketing to Message: Don’t play coy. If the purpose of your ad is to get the viewer to perform a specific action, tell them what that action is. Your marketing goal should match up with the messaging in your advertisement.
Film Finesse: Film your advertisements horizontally and in high-definition resolution. Your ads could appear anywhere a YouTube video is being played, and it’s best to make sure that it will look good on all screen sizes and in all settings.

Support Your Ads

Even with excellent ads and impressive content, both in-stream and video discovery TrueView advertisements can benefit from some support. One of the best ways to increase the CTR of TrueView video advertising is to optimize images and text. In-stream ads will most benefit from the addition of companion banners — display ads that appear beside our ad and don’t disappear even if the view clicks skip. Video discovery ads can be similarly optimized. Search and discovery ads should have titles shorter than 45 characters, as well as a website URL in the description, and customized, branded image thumbnails.

Get Interactive

YouTube advertising includes various interactive elements that can be added to TrueView video advertising. These interactive elements include calls-to-action, card overlays, and auto-end screens — all of which can aid in driving viewers to a business’s website. CTA overlays direct users on what action to take upon seeing the video advertisement. Cards (small boxes that appear in front of a video) can also be displayed beside a video for the first 5-7 seconds of a video. These cards are excellent ways to direct people to a business’s website or specific promotional landing page.

Separate Your Ads

In-stream video advertising and video discovery ads don’t function the same way, and are defined by different success metrics — so it doesn’t make sense to lump them together in the same campaign. Apart from the potential to cause confusion, tracking two ad types together can make it more difficult to review performance and optimize later on.

Fully Utilize YouTube’s Audience Targeting

YouTube offers advertisers impressive audience targeting abilities. Demographic information targeting can be enhanced with audience affinities to ensure that the advertisement is delivered to the audience who would likely be interested in it. YouTube also makes it possible to target in-market audiences.