Branding YouTube Campaigns Can Now Bring Sales

A new feature has been launched for Google Ads Video Campaigns: advertisers now can expose their products to all video campaign subtypes, including awareness and consideration.

It’s great news to YouTube advertisers, and it’s going to also help the ones that use video through Google Ads on other platforms. 

The new feature opens up an opportunity to test and try to obtain additional conversions coming from campaigns that were not focused initially on that.

Marketers will be able to link product feeds with a purchase CTA even in ads that are set to the top and middle of the funnel. 

Take a look!

Google’s mockup shows how product feed will appear on videos. Learn how to include a product feed in your video campaigns.

Get more conversions while advertising for the top of the funnel

Before this update, only Video Action and TrueView for Shopping campaigns, which are directly aimed at purchases (bottom of the funnel), could be linked to merchant center feeds.

In those cases, product feeds were a great addition to video campaigns, bringing a relevant source of conversion for ecommerce.

What changes now is the ability to combine video ads in campaigns that are targeted towards top or middle of the funnel audiences with the ability to display product listings. 

Also, Video Campaigns have more placements where your ads can be shown, and can use In-stream video ads, as opposed to True View for Shopping (launched in 2015) and Shoppable True View for Action (launched in 2020).

Another update in a series of changes for YouTube advertisers

This is one more in a sequence of relevant updates for video campaigns. Google has been moving to retire the True View for Action campaigns and replace it with Video Action campaigns since their launch last year. And this June, the company announced that TrueView for Action campaigns would no longer be available starting early 2022.

True View for Action video campaigns have been a huge success since their launch in 2016, being relevant for any PPCer working with video ads while focusing on conversions, especially for lead generation campaigns.

Video Campaigns came to stay, with larger inventories and more opportunities to show ads in different placements, such as the YouTube Home Feed, but with the limitation of not being able to opt-out of Google Partners. This can be seen as a hindrance by marketers who look for more control in their campaigns.

Ecommerce advertisers, on the other hand, will still be able to count on the old TrueView for Shopping for generating online sales.

Use it to pitch YouTube branding campaigns

As marketers, we know the importance of not only investing in direct return campaigns, but also allocating a budget for a branding strategy, and building the brand of your company in the long run.

However, sometimes it can be difficult to convince other stakeholders, such as your clients or directors, to invest not only in bottom of funnel campaigns. This update can be a good way to pitch branding video campaigns to stakeholders who might be reluctant in directing their spending to video campaigns that are not focused on direct return. 

The fact that these campaigns will not only strengthen your brand but also have an option for users to buy straight out of the ads can be one more selling point to allocate some of your online marketing budget for the upper stages of the funnel.

Set up tests and see what works for your accounts

If you are an ecommerce marketer and your team uses video campaigns, you probably already have Shopping and True View for Shopping campaigns in place, and the budget for those is focused on ROAS (Return on Ad Spend).

However, if you also have top-of-funnel campaigns running on YouTube for your brand, adding product feeds to those videos and checking their result is an interesting test to run. 

After running ads for some time, compare your conversions and ROAS with your regular True View for Shopping Ads, and evaluate how much this update can actually add to your bottom line.