As part of my coverage of SMX East, I’m digging deeper with one of the killer sessions being offered this year in New York City. After reviewing the agenda, I decided to focus on an advertising opportunity that I believe is extremely underutilized in the industry. My post today is about AdWords for Video, which enables you to target the millions of people visiting YouTube on a regular basis. In addition, the power of AdWords for Video extends beyond just YouTube, and I’ll explain more about that in this post.
If you aren’t’ familiar with AdWords for Video, you’re definitely not alone. I find there are too many companies in the same boat. There are several reasons why this is the case. First, Google has confused marketers by changing the name of the service (it used to be called Promoted Videos, and didn’t cover the array of options you have now). Also, campaigns were managed differently in the past, which also led to a lot of confusion for marketers.
But there’s good news. The latest version of the product can easily be managed within the AdWords UI. You just need to find it, understand the options you have, and pull the trigger on some campaigns.
Manny Rivas and his SMX Session on AdWords for Video
The situation I explained above is exactly why I wanted to focus on this topic. Product confusion led to marketer confusion, which led to missed opportunities for companies advertising with AdWords. At SMX East this year, Manny Rivas will be part of a session focused on AdWords for Video.
The session will include information about the various formats you can utilize and how to access and manage the campaigns in AdWords. He’ll also be providing a case study of a company seeing strong performance from its AdWords for Video campaigns. The session is on Thursday, October 4 at 10:45 a.m.
I spoke with Manny last week about his session, AdWords for Video, the huge opportunity for marketers, the various formats available to advertisers, etc. It was clear Manny knows his stuff, and that the session will be extremely valuable for anyone looking to learn more about AdWords for Video (from a marketer who has run many campaigns).
Remarketing with AdWords for Video
While speaking with Manny, there was one topic we covered that screamed “write about me!” And it just happens to be one of my favorite topics in digital marketing: Remarketing.
I’ve written extensively about remarketing on my own blog, including how to set up remarketing campaigns, how to use custom combinations to target the right audience, and how to leverage remarketing for local businesses. If you check out those posts, you’ll see that I’m a big believer in the power of remarketing. 🙂
With regard to YouTube, there are a lot of companies that don’t know they can use remarketing within AdWords for Video to get their message back in front of people that viewed, liked, shared, commented on a video, subscribed to your channel on YouTube, etc. How awesome is that? In addition, you can leverage your remarketing lists from your standard AdWords campaigns to remarket to those audiences on YouTube (using the TrueView ad formats available in AdWords for Video).
That’s powerful, but the flexibility doesn’t stop there. You can also use your newly created AdWords for Video remarketing lists back in your standard AdWords campaigns to remarket to those audiences. That’s what I like to call Reverse Path Remarketing, and it can be extremely powerful when set up and managed correctly.
Using Reverse Path Remarketing
Now, you might be a little confused with what I just listed above. That’s ok, and I’m going to clear up some of that confusion shortly. Below, I’m going to cover several ways you can use AdWords for Video to remarket to targeted audiences across YouTube and/or the Display Network.
My hope is that you can tap into this powerful mechanism for reaching targeted users across the largest video site on the planet. And by using reverse path remarketing, you can share remarketing lists across standard AdWords campaigns and AdWords for Video campaigns.
Note, my goal with this post is to explain the various opportunities available using reverse path remarketing and not to cover the setup process. That’s for another post. 🙂 Let’s take a closer look.
Here Are Several Ways You Can Use Remarketing with AdWords for Video:
1. Remarket on YouTube—Typical AdWords for Video Remarketing
Using this approach, you can create remarketing lists based on a number of default actions available in YouTube. For example, you could target people who viewed your channel, viewed a specific video, shared a video, liked a video, commented on a video, etc. You can view the various options below:
Once you set up remarketing lists, you can create AdWords for Video ads that target people on those remarketing lists. This will enable you to get back in front of users that already interacted with your videos or YouTube channel. For example, if you know users viewed a specific video, then you could target that audience and drive those visitors back to your channel or to specific videos.
Format-wise, you can leverage the four TrueView video formats when targeting your remarketing lists. That includes TrueView In Search, In Display, In Stream, and In Slate. For a detailed look at the formats available, you can check out Manny’s TrueView Ads Guide.
An Example of TrueView In Search Ads on YouTube:
2. Remarket to Your YouTube Audience Across The Google Display Network – Reverse Path Remarketing
Using this approach, you can set up standard remarketing campaigns across the Google Display Network using your newly created AdWords for Video remarketing lists. For example, you can target people across the Google Display Network who watched a certain video on YouTube or subscribed to your YouTube channel.
If you know that this audience already interacted and engaged with your video content on YouTube, then you can present targeted advertising to them as they browse news websites, blogs, visit Gmail, Google Maps, etc. Using reverse path remarketing in AdWords for Video, remarketing is not limited to just YouTube.
You can target audiences on the Google Display Network that interacted with your videos on YouTube:
3. Remarket to Standard AdWords Remarketing Lists on YouTube (using TrueView ad formats) – Reverse Path #2
Using this approach, you can leverage your standard AdWords remarketing lists to target those audiences back on YouTube (using the TrueView ad formats available in AdWords for Video). For example, if someone visited your site already, checked out a certain category, or even a certain product, you can target that person as they browse YouTube.
Note, in order for this to work, you already need remarketing lists set up in your standard AdWords campaigns. If this is the case, then those lists will show up when setting up remarketing campaigns in AdWords for Video.
Some of you might be thinking, “We already remarket to targeted users on YouTube via our standard AdWords remarketing campaigns.” Yes, that might be true, but you probably aren’t using AdWords for Video TrueView ad formats.
Using TrueView ad formats, you can leverage In Search, In Display, In Stream, and In Slate formats. This combination of formats will enable you to target a variety of scenarios on YouTube.
You can target people who visited your website already (on YouTube) using standard remarketing lists and TrueView ad formats:
Next Steps and SMX East
After reading this post, I hope you see the power of leveraging reverse path remarketing using AdWords for Video. If you’re like many of the marketers I’ve spoken with recently, you might not have known about the various remarketing opportunities available in AdWords for Video. That’s ok, since now, you do. 🙂
Moving forward, I recommend getting more familiar with AdWords for Video, the TrueView ad formats, and the remarketing process I covered in this post. And of course, you’ll need some video. The good news is that if you have video content already on YouTube, you get can started today with reverse path remarketing. And that’s perfect timing, since the holidays are right around the corner.
Remember, if you want to learn more about this topic at SMX East, check out Manny’s session on Thursday, October 4 at 10:45 a.m. I’ll be there.
