The Complete Guide to Successful Video Advertising

Video advertising is quickly becoming one of the most effective and popular ways to market your business on social media and online. Video content captures the audience's attention and generates more impressions than any other form of content.

The demand for video content increased with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Suddenly, instead of purely being a form of entertainment, video content became essential for businesses and individuals. 

With many companies working from home, people felt compelled to find ways to continue promoting their products and services in unique ways. 

Perhaps you're considering implementing video into your marketing strategy but are unsure how to begin. How much equipment do you need? How easy is video editing, and is it expensive to produce video content? Perhaps you want to learn how to do a promotional video?

By the conclusion of this guide, you will have the answer to your video marketing questions. You'll have a clear strategy for producing video ads for video marketing.

What is video advertising?

Video advertising is using video content to advertise your business. It's an effective way to connect with your customers in a more personal way. Today, consumers expect personalized content, and video is easier to consume than blocks of text. Video marketing is an excellent way to "show not tell", which is a more effective marketing strategy.

Product Video Ad by alekpanchik

What are the benefits of Video Advertising?

• Video advertising is a powerful way to showcase and develop your brand, introducing personality and engagement, something almost impossible with text-based ads. You get the chance to be more creative and do something that your competitors may not be doing.

• Video marketing allows better targeting. It's harder for bots and other unwanted traffic sources like pop-ups that may have been responsible for reducing conversion rates on traditional digital marketing campaigns before now.

• Videos allow you to create a more memorable advertisement to display your product or service, showing consumers how it works and highlighting the benefits.

• Video is interactive, meaning viewers can engage with the ad by clicking through links or answering questions related to the video itself.

• Video marketing can help your brand build brand loyalty. If you work with a video marketing professional, it's possible to produce a video ad that keeps consumers coming back for more.

• Many companies are creating video testimonials, a powerful and memorable way to promote your products or services. The written word is not as powerful as a person speaking about their experience through visual media. In addition, people love to hear stories from "real people." You can also add video testimonials on product pages, via email marketing messages, and anywhere else you think might be helpful to customers. There is no limit to your video marketing other than creativity.

Video ads have multiple benefits over static ads. Here are a few:

Increased conversions

Video advertising can increase conversion rates by as much as 34%, which means you'll get a better ROI from your campaigns.

Increased engagement

Customers prefer video content. 65% of the global population are visual learners choosing dynamic video content, and 72% of customers said they prefer watching video ads rather than text-based ads. Video advertising has a much greater chance of capturing consumer attention. Indeed, some companies create entire brands from YouTube video marketing.

Increased Revenue

Video advertising can grow revenue 49% faster than other media forms. It's worth the extra effort to create video ads for a video marketing campaign. According to Amazon and eBay statistics, adding video ads to your product descriptions can increase consumer purchasing by 35%.

Better email open rates

The average person receives 100-120 emails daily. It's a challenge for a business to increase email open rates. Adding the word "video" in the subject line can increase open rates by 19%, and click-through rates for video thumbnails can be around 50%.

Video marketing gets results and is one of the best ways to drive traffic and help your customers understand your offer.

Is Video Advertising for small businesses?

Even small businesses can maximize the success of Google-owned YouTube, which is still the leading media and entertainment platform globally, with 2.1 billion monthly active users.

Whilst it can be challenging for new users to get noticed on YouTube, if you begin working with a consistent video marketing strategy, you can soon have your video content ranking up with the bigger businesses. Moreover, if you attract 1000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours, you can monetize your channel and make money from your video content.

Is TikTok video content relevant for business? 

TikTok is another fast-developing social media network with over 1 billion active users reported in Q1 2022. Video advertising has the potential to reach over 885 million TikTok users over the age of 18, and that figure is likely to increase as the platform expands.

Businesses didn't take the platform seriously at first, but now you can find many companies generating business on the platform. TikTok content used to be limited to less than 60 seconds. However, TikTok has rolled out video length this year to up to ten minutes.

User-generated content is rife on TikTok, and if you can find an influencer in the relevant demographic, that can help leverage your product or service to a captive audience of millions. This form of video marketing can jettison a business into becoming a profitable brand with many loyal customers.

Video advertising insights and trends

According to Statista, online video has a reach of 90%, which continues to grow as more viewers embrace video content each year. In addition, the same data report states that around 50% of businesses worldwide add videos to their email marketing messages. In addition, there are similar figures for videos on company landing pages.

Such insights can significantly impact website bounce rates because 85% of people make up their minds about a website in the first 90 seconds of viewing. If your competitor's website has a captivating video on the home page and your company doesn't, it could result in lost revenue.

In mid-2021, video content was leading the way for digital consumer engagement. Indeed, the survey reports that 81% of marketing experts used videos in their marketing strategies.

Video advertising has been one of the most successful ad formats in recent years. In 2019, consumers spent more than 50% of their media time with digital video and mobile devices. Consumers watch over 4 billion hours of video on YouTube daily and can't get enough of it.

What KPIs are measured in video advertising?

There are four core KPIs to measure for video ads. Each one is equally important:

1. Views: The number of views for your video

2. Engagement: How much users engaged with the video, commenting, liking, and sharing

3. Conversions: How many people clicked on an ad and then made a purchase after viewing it

4. Click-through rate: The number of people that clicked on the CTA (call to action)

The different types of video ads

There are multiple ways to create video content to promote your company and products. The following shows a few of the most commonly used examples: -

• Company Culture: This video is to encourage top talent to your business and positively present the company brand. It can feature happy employees speaking about the workplace culture.

• Spot: A short video ads (15-30 seconds) to distribute whatever message you need to convey. For instance, spot videos are on YouTube (at the beginning or occasionally at various intervals during the video) and Facebook adverts.

• Explainer: An explainer video helps explain your product or service, often found on landing pages or the website homepage. Read more about explainer videos.

• Behind-the-scenes: Video content ideally suited where you can demonstrate a product creation process. For instance, many artists film their art process.

• Product Demonstration: A video to showcase a product and highlight its benefits. This video type can feature animated content or a charismatic speaker/demonstrator.

• Employee Portrait: Instead of having a photograph and blurb about company leaders, such as the CEO, CTO, etc., a short video from each adds a touch of warmth and encourages customer engagement.

How much should you invest in video advertising?

A successful video marketing campaign depends on many factors, including the available budget.

The first question is, "How much should I spend on video ads?" A good rule of thumb is to allocate at least 10% of your marketing budget to video advertising. This figure may seem like a lot but remember: the average cost per view for Facebook video views is $1 to $15 per click for YouTube video ads, it's $0.01 to $0.03 cost per view. That's relatively low, considering how much time people spend watching videos on these platforms daily!

For example, if your annual marketing budget is $150,000, only $15k needs to be spent on video ads; however, if it's $1 million, you'll need to invest $100k into video advertising. The primary concern is that your video ads hit the mark. If you have zero or little experience creating video ads, it is best to get help from a video marketing professional.

If you genuinely cannot afford a complete video advertising campaign, it might be best to wait until you have sufficient finances. Trying to do video ads cheaply does not usually generate a good ROI.

Tips for creating effective video ads

Learn how to create the perfect video ad with our video commercial production guide, for a TLDR format, click the button below to download our video ads creation infographic.

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Use a call to action

Always add a CTA to your video ad. It needn't be complex, but a "click here" is not a compelling CTA. Ideally, tie your video advertising with a time-themed offer, such as "Get 20% off XYZ product. Valid until 27th September 2022". A time-themed offer creates a sense of urgency, appealing to consumer psychology of missing out on something good.

Avoid information overload

Inexperienced video ad creators tend to cram too much information into a video. To be effective, keep the message short and sweet. An impactful video ad with a punchy message has more chance of getting a good result.

Remember, quality always wins over quantity

you want your audience to remember what you are selling and come back for more! Trying to do it yourself can be counterintuitive. Cost-cutting on video marketing usually costs a business more because of a disappointing ROI. Hiring a video marketing expert can produce far superior results. They know how to write video ads to support your brand and encourage customer engagement.

Make sure your video is professionally edited

If you create videos without the help of a video professional, you'll need a grasp of video editing principles. There are many video editing software options, some free and some paid, but there's a steep learning curve for most. Editing videos is incredibly time-consuming. You can lose yourself editing a five-minute video shot and suddenly discover several hours have passed. You have to pay attention to details such as lightning, keying, coloring and more.

Hiring a video editing expert can be an excellent choice. If you want your video marketing campaign to get results, it pays to produce a professional video that people want to watch. Video editors know how to get the best from your video content.

Measuring the success of your video ad campaign

Measuring the success of your video ad campaign can be done by looking at the number of views, clicks, and conversions. You can also measure the impact of video ads by assessing the uplift in sales.

Views: This is an easy metric to track since it's part of YouTube Analytics and Facebook Ads Manager. Look for "Views" in your reports and see how many times people have watched your video.

Suppose you're using other platforms like Vimeo or DailyMotion. In that case, you'll have to use third-party tracking tools such as Tubular or Vidyard that integrate with YouTube Analytics data so you can access all this information together in one place.

Clicks: If someone watches your video but doesn't click on anything else, then they aren't engaging with the video ad. Even if someone watches 30 seconds of your 60-second content before clicking off, count those views toward total reach. The consumer saw some part of the message shown during those 30 seconds—and hopefully, something will stick with them too long enough for them to not only remember seeing it but want more too.

Conversions: The purpose of video ads is to drive conversions like purchases or sign-ups within a specific time frame after consumers see the advert. We recommend setting campaigns up with tighter targeting parameters based on particular customer types/demographics rather than broad categories like age groups or geographic regions.

As a result, there's less chance someone who shouldn't see these messages accidentally clicks through while browsing around unrelated topics online. Video ads directed to a targeted audience have the potential for better returns.

Videos ads case studies examples

When preparing your video ads, it can help to refer to some of the most successful campaigns from other companies. 

Dove

Dove's Real Beauty video is a successful advertising campaign using a commercial format. In the video, a forensic artist draws a woman from another woman's description after briefly meeting in the waiting room.

The concept of the video message is that women see themselves differently (often negatively) from how a stranger sees them. This video advertising works because it's relatable and has an emotional message for women to love and accept themselves as they are.

Dollar Shave Club

The Dollar Shave Club creates successful video ads that get a message across with impact, and this 30-second advert features the double razor share pack. It shows a woman in the shower. She chooses her partner's Dollar Shave Club razor instead of her own, and later, her partner finds out she has used his razor.

The Dollar Shave brand personality is known for its quirkiness, so they style their video adverts true to the brand. The advert is relatable as most couples can relate to partners sharing personal items.

Burger King

Burger King's successful short 14-second advert shows two men sitting in a Burger King restaurant. They're complaining about YouTube ads because they want to watch a video without adverts.

At the bottom of the video advert, a Burger King deal pops up that says, "stupid incredible deal", and one of the men tries to brush it out of the way. The advert closes with the Burger King logo and the words, "Taste is King".

The advert works because it is short, simple, creative, and humorous.

The above three examples demonstrate different styles and approaches to video advertising. The overriding message is that they all stayed true to the brand.

Video Advertising Tips

Video advertising has proven to be one of the most effective forms of video marketing. If you want to grow your brand, few other options can deliver as much return on investment as video ads.

Video Timing

Consumers have a diminishing attention span. It used to be 15 seconds but is now 8 seconds. You have a small window to capture the attention of your audience. Text-based advertising no longer hits the spot. Today, consumers want and expect dynamic video content that delights and surprises.

UGC Video

An evolving video marketing process is user-generated content. There are two ways to use a service such as UGC. Firstly, you can select an unknown but proficient video producer to do a short video about your products or service.

Ambassadors & Influencers

Ambassadors are an excellent way to get case study testimonials and free video content. Post on your social media account asking for interested people or contact your customer list and invite them to be an ambassador. If everyone wants to do it, limit the numbers and, for the final list, ask them to submit a sample video so you can choose the best people for the job.

The other alternative is to work with an influencer who can showcase your products to their audience with a "shout out" to their followers. It's a widely available service as many influencers have excellent reviews, so you can feel confident about them promoting your business.

With so many different types of videos available and dozens of variable metrics to measure success, it can be hard to know where to start when planning an ad campaign. We hope this guide has given you some ideas and tips on utilizing video to maximize its effectiveness while remaining budget conscious too.