Advertising Best Practices and Use Cases
YouTube offers a unique opportunity to connect with your audience in a personal and targeted way—and the ability to do so at massive scale. Nevertheless, there are some best practices and good use cases of how to best launch a marketing program on YouTube. Take a look at some of the YouTube Ad Opportunities to discover how your brand can converse with this vibrant community.
Making a Splash
Homepage Video Ad
Homepage Video Ads are an up-front way to connect with users when they visit the site. The Homepage Video Ad is a great way to create awareness and reach a wide audience with your marketing message.
Making a Splash—Use Case 1
Advertiser Objective: Omniview television studio was looking to raise awareness for a season premiere of their #1 show geared towards Men 18-24.
What the advertiser did: Omniview created a custom trailer to run as a Homepage Roadblock on YouTube a week before the season premiere. The unit included compelling title card, a 60-second video trailer, and a 300x35 banner ad. The creative was produced in such a way that the content felt organic to the homepage. Watching the trailer felt like you were watching a piece of entertainment rather than an ad.
Results: The Homepage campaign drove a high number of video views for the season premiere's trailer. Consequently, the community provided feedback on the trailer through comments, rating and favorites. Omniview witnessed a dramatic uplift in organic video views of other videos that they had uploaded to the site as a result of their homepage promotion.
Making a Splash—Use Case 2
Advertiser Objective: Fujikawa Tech launched a new cell phone last Fall. They were looking to leverage YouTube as the world's largest focus group and test out TV creative before a larger media buy.
What the advertiser did: Fujikawa Tech ran their video creative as a Homepage Video Ad to see if it resonated with the Internet's 6th largest population.
Results: Fujikawa drove a high number of video views through their promotion. YouTube users were highly engaged with the video—so much so that the video appeared as the most viewed video in the YouTube Science and Technology category for the week. Fujikawa was able to see all of the demographic details about how the video performed from YouTube Insight.
Using Supporting Media
InVideo Ads
YouTube InVideo Ads provide marketers with the opportunity to reach users as they watch video content on the web. Through an unobtrusive, yet highly engaging ad unit, the YouTube InVideo Ad establishes an above-the-fold presence on partner watch pages and acts as an invitation for users to learn more.
Utilize a Companion
Click-through rates are very strong when a companion is used in tandem with an InVideo overlay. The 300 x 250 companion grabs the user’s attention and invites them to learn more.
Strong Call-to-Action
Use buttons or clearly marked sections in your ad to point users toward additional content. This works best when the “Watch Video Now” button is on for several seconds before the overlap minimizes. 10 seconds is a good benchmark for the length of animation.
Invite Engagement
Think of the overlay as an invitation to your content, not your entire message. Creativity and user engagement are critical.
Keep it Fresh
Rotate creative on a regular basis. The highest click-through and click-to-play rates are in the first 5 days of a campaign.
Video Ads on Search
YouTube Video Ads on search pages allow users to discover a brand’s video content in relevant environments, with prominent above-the-fold placements.
Starter Image Best Practices
Make it visually appealing
The opening image should be simple and engaging. Standard banner images are not always the best way to hook the viewer.
Use a non-commercial feel
Stay away from an opening image that feels like an ad. Make users believe they are getting an experience, not a commercial.
Give it the visual feel of a video
Calls to action and complicated messaging usually don’t belong here. Titlecards of an actual frame are most effective.
Video Ad Best Practices
Keep it short
The longer the message, the higher the possibility users will tune out. 60 seconds is a good benchmark.
Keep it engaging
Entertain, inform and be relevant. Users will view the majority of a video if they are interested and engaged.
Inspire, don’t just educate
Avoid focusing solely on being educational; two minutes of talking heads doesn’t work well.
Deliver key messages early
Plan for user tune-out near the end of the video and deliver your message early.
Include a call to action
If it’s appropriate, a call to action can be very effective. If your marketing objective is to increase visits to your channel or participate in a contest—encourage your audience to get involved.
Media Support—Use Case 1
Advertiser Objective: Avalon Auto launched the newest model of their luxury line of SUVs, the "Crescent," targeted towards Affluents.
What the advertiser did: Avalon ran an awareness campaign using InVideo Ads, Video Ads on search pages, and display media across YouTube. The InVideo Ads contained a 30-second spot with compelling video creative, ending with a call to action to click on the 300x35 companion banner. Video ads and display ads also ran throughout the site, enjoying a high share of voice on every piece of real estate. All of this supporting media linked to a Brand Channel that Avalon had set up specifically for the Crescent launch.
Result: By creating buzz and having a presence specifically targeted at Affluents on the site, Avalon Auto was able to not only drive video views, but also offer their target market further engagement with their content and brand.
Media Support—Use Case 2
Advertiser Objective: Twitcher Games, a leading casual video game company wanted to raise awareness for the upcoming sequel to their best selling puzzle game during the two months prior to its release.
What the advertiser did: Twitcher drove awareness among gaming enthusiasts on YouTube by running a compelling InVideo Ad that clicked through to a Flash-based interactive site with a demo of the puzzle game.
Results: In addition to delivering a strong number of impressions to a relevant audience base, Twicher's InVideo Ad witnessed a click-through rate of 10 times standard display.
Creating a Destination
Brand Channels
Brand Channels allow marketers to create a brandable and customized interface on YouTube where they can connect and create persistent relationships with their customers. Brand Channels act as a distribution outlet for video content and as a destination for users to engage with your brand.
Design
The design of your channel page should reflect your brand identity.
- Select compelling channel and video page icons that display your branding.
- Customize your channel theme and design to reflect your brand.
- Use the video page banner graphic for branding.
Content
The success of your channel is largely dependent on the content that you upload.
- Make sure you have a devoted liaison developing your YouTube channel.
- Emphasize the quality of your videos over the quantity of videos that you upload.
- Update your content frequently, uploading at least one to two videos each week to keep fresh content on your channel.
- Update content on a regular schedule to help users anticipate when you will have new content at your channel.
- Upload your video library over time to encourage repeat visitors and viewership over time.
- Update the video that is featured on your channel page frequently.
- Explain what types of content are available on your channel.
- Engage your audience.
- Encourage visitors to add comments and video responses to your videos.
- Encourage visitors to rate, share and subscribe to your videos.
- Mark other users' videos as favorite videos if they have great content that is relevant to your channel.
- Send messages to other YouTube users who subscribe to your channel, add comments or video responses to your videos, or post other videos with content relevant to your channel.
- Explain how users can add their own videos that might appear on your brand channel.
- Promote your brand channel on your other online properties and use your brand channel to link to those properties.
- Add in-depth brand/company profile information.
- Provide your brand or company name.
- Describe your brand or company.
- Provide a website URL.
Contests
YouTube Contests are a core way of driving user interaction and deep engagement with your content and can easily be integrated into your brand channel, creating one destination to reach your users with a unified message.
Administration
- Create compelling call-to-action videos for each contest phase.
- Assign resources to manage your contest and respond to customer inquiries. By clearly defining the contest rules, prizes, deadlines and entry requirements, you will be able to reduce the need for resources.
- Review all contest entries to manage brand acceptability.
Selecting prizes
Frequently, publicity and recognition can be as valuable or more valuable than financial prizes. The following list identifies several different types of prizes that have been awarded to previous YouTube contest winners.
- Winning videos have been broadcast on network television as ads for the brand running the contest.
- Contest winners receive experiences, such as the opportunity to meet or perform with a celebrity or band.
- Winners receive a prize package featuring the sponsor's products, such as a vacation package, musical equipment or an automobile.
Frequently, contest sponsors will combine a financial prize with another prize that provides some type of public recognition for the winners or winning videos.
Scheduling
Phase I: Announcement and Submission
- Define clear and finite rules to inform users about your contest and aid in the vetting of user submissions.
- Announce submission deadlines.
- Announce prizes.
- Publish terms and conditions of contest.
- Explain voting method.
- Provide users with sufficient time to prepare their contest entries before the submission phase begins. We recommend that you announce your contest three to five weeks before you will begin accepting submissions. Shorter time horizons may not provide sufficient time to build awareness about your contest, while longer time horizons may cause users to lose interest in the contest before it actually begins.
- Encourage contest participation by highlighting recent submissions in the Videos box on your brand channel page.
- Create playlists that feature the top entrants for specific time periods. For example, if your submission period is four weeks long, you might create one playlist each week to showcase the top submissions for that week. Use the Playlists box on your brand channel to feature this content.
Phase II: Voting
- Restate the process for selecting the contest winners. Confirm important dates during the process, such as the time when finalists and/or winners will be announced.
- Use call-to-action videos to encourage user interaction with your brand during the voting period.
- Let users vote to select the eventual contest winners. Users can vote on the entire set of entries or you can choose a set of finalists and letusers vote on those.
- Even if user votes do not influence results, you can still encourage users to watch and submit comments about the contest entries. Comments and viewing statistics may help you to identify the contest entries that best resonate with your audience.
Phase III: Results
- Extend awareness for winning videos through your brand channel page, website and other media outlets.
- Feature additional content related to contest winners, such as behind-the scenes interviews, footage of the winners learning the contest results, or other videos about your brand that the winners may have made.
Driving Traffic and Engagement with Contest
- Use of InVideo ads (strong click-through rate to contests)
- Use of HP that is typically apart of the media plan (i.e. kick-off, etc.)
- Use of ads targeting—Recent/Frequent uploaders for entrants
- Use of AdWords campaigns (strong click-through rate to contests)
- Use of Gadget Ads on GCN if applicable
Creating a Destination—Use Case 1
Advertiser Objective: LeFey Cosmetics, one of the oldest make up manufacturers in the country, underwent a re-branding campaign to re-invent and re-invigorate their brand. Using their new brand image, they wanted to re-connect with, excite, and engage their loyal core demographic of Women 25-54.
What the advertiser did: LeFey chose an integrated approach, utilizing the YouTube Homepage Roadblock and supporting media to drive traffic to the centerpiece of their campaign—a video submission contest housed in their custom brand channel. LeFey hoped to reach the right person, at the right time, with the right message, targeting uploaders during submission and their core consumer during viewing and voting. Offline marketing was conducted as well, with the brand channel's contest and URL information appearing on billboards and product packaging.
Results: By folding together a 360-degree campaign, LeFey was able to successfully drive awareness of the program on the site, both through advertising and PR. The homepage campaign successfully drove up video views and channel visits. In addition, the contest witnessed hundreds of submissions, thousands of brand channel views and hundreds of thousands of views of the submitted videos to the contest. LeFey was able to leverage the power of YouTube's video creators to create compelling video submissions.
Creating a Destination—Use Case 2
Advertiser Objective: MoonRun Films sought to build excitement for a new superhero film release for the four weeks leading up to the premiere. The characters were popular cultural icons, and the storyline was particularly action-packed and engaging. MoonRun wanted to create a marketing campaign that was just as compelling and engaging as the movie itself.
What the advertiser did: Armed with a plethora of compelling video and audio content such as trailers, behind-the-scenes footage, outtakes, interviews, and sound effects and narration, MoonRun integrated a video remixer into their Brand Channel to serve as the centerpiece of the campaign. This engagement platform provided users with tons of content to watch and the ability to further interact with the brand by allowing them to mash up their own movie content.
Results: Their homepage campaigns drove the video views of their trailers and raised awareness of the mashup tool on the site. Targeted InVideo and Video Ads drove movie enthusiasts to engage more deeply with the brand channel. These enthusiasts became advocates for the film on behalf of the studio, and used the video remixer thousands of times, producing hundreds of video submissions. As a result of these user-generated videos and general buzz for the film on the site, MoonRun was able to drive hundreds of thousands of organic video views as well.