Coming Soon to YouTube Marketers: Live Stream Display Ads
Video is one of the marketing channels with the highest ROI. One study shows that 52% of marketers rated it as the best digital advertising medium. Google understands the value the YouTube platform offers to advertisers, so it is constantly rolling out new content and advertising options.
The company recently announced a new feature that will help YouTube advertisers expand their reach and increase engagement. YouTube advertisers will be able to show live stream video in any of their display ads. These ads aren’t limited to YouTube properties. They can be shown on any part of the Google Display Network. Potential customers can see live video ads while reading news articles on CNN or browsing through their favorite recipe blogs. This is one of the biggest developments in the history of the YouTube platform.
Live stream video display ads will come with a number of new opportunities. However, advertisers will also face new challenges as well. Here are some things that YouTube advertisers will need to keep in mind while reaching customers with live streaming ads.
You might need to experiment with strategies to keep the CTR of your dynamic ads high
YouTube advertisers are going to need to work harder to maintain maximum engagement with live streaming videos. In the early days of video streaming, you would build a subscriber list and notify them about a new video. Once they started watching the video, you didn’t need to do it a lot to keep them engaged.
The new advertising approach is a form of disruption marketing. Many of the people that see your live streaming content will have never engaged with your video content before.
This means that people being exposed to your content might not find it engaging if they encounter your ads during a mundane part of your video streaming session. You need to find other ways to make your content seem more engaging. Adding relevant copy and CTA buttons to your stream is a good idea to try.
Using CPC bidding could be necessary
Google has not announced the bidding options that will be available to life streaming display advertisers. However, it is likely that both CPM and CPC bidding will be available.
You might find that CPC bidding is best. The reason is that many users will see your streaming display ads during less engaging parts of your video streaming session. Therefore, they are unlikely to click on them. If you use CPC bidding, you will avoid spending a lot of money to reach and audience that is not going to be engaged for large periods of time.
Advertisers will need more data on properties in the Google display network
Cracking the code to Advertising on the Google display network has always been a challenge. Many marketers struggle to understand that that their ad copy, conversion goals and positioning strategy have to be different than what they would use for the Search Network.
Live streaming ads will add another layer of complexity to the equation. With other advertising strategies, advertisers could usually create a sustainable campaign once they matched the right Google display partners, ad copy and landing pages. Things are not going to be nearly so simple with live streaming ads on the Google Display Network.
Advertisers might find that ads shown on some display properties convert very well during one stage of the campaign. Unfortunately, they might discover the conversions from the same property are terrible at another point in time.
One reason this could happen is that the content users will be engaging with is going to be constantly changing. With traditional advertising campaigns on the Google Display Network, you can continue using a high-performing landing page indefinitely. When you are streaming a live video on YouTube, the content could differ significantly from one minute to the next. If you are showing a video with custom printed magnets, then people might be more curious about your brand and be more likely to click. They might not be as interested during other parts of your video.
You are going to need to determine what types of video content users engage with the most. You might find that visitors on some websites respond to certain video streaming content the best, while visitors on another website will convert better with other content.
One strategy is to create different campaigns with different live video streaming content. Each campaign can have a different angle. You’ll need to collect data on the types of video streaming content that convert the best on different display partners.
Once you have that data, you can segment future campaigns. You will choose an angle for your video streaming content and make sure that your ads show up on the display properties that are most appropriate for it.