In this article we are going to talk about what should be taken into account before creating, designing and launching a Youtube SEM campaign, addressing the main basis on which they must be based so that they are measurable, profitable and prosperous, synthesized in 4 main steps to follow:
Table of Contents
1. Step #1: Have your goals defined for the Youtube campaign
Before doing any kind of research, the first thing to do is to ask yourself what exactly you want to achieve with the Youtube campaign: notoriety? Visits to your website? engagement?
The objectives must always be concrete, achievable, measurable, realistic, limited in time; what has always been called following the SMART criterion (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-related).
Example 1: I want to get 10,000 views of my ad on youtube in the next 2 months, investing € 600.
Example 2: I want to increase 5% of my total traffic to my website from Youtube, in the next 3 months, investing € 1200.
Once you have it clear, it is time to assess how to measure that objective is being met, the indicator or key indicators so that you know that your campaign is on the right track and things are being done well: we talk about KPIs.
2. Step #2: Set your KPIs for your goals (examples)
Now you will have to know how you are going to measure them and check their effectiveness and efficiency.
For example you are a start-up company and you are interested in increasing notoriety, your main KPI will be impressions, it will be the way to know that you are impacting enough, although eye here: “an impression does not mean that you have been seen”,Discovery ads, for example, impact in the upper right and that is considered an impression every time they appear, however, a user may not pay attention perfectly even refuse to direct the view towards “the area of the ads”.
If what you want is visits to your website, you must make sure that they see you and “put yourself in the middle”, and this is achieved with ads that provide a certain degree of security in terms of actually having seen you, the CTR or Click Through Rate and especially the Display Percentage are good relevance indicators that help you assess whether your ad is meeting your expectations or not.
To improve engagement, the indicator that will tell you if your ads really like would be those related to the complete visualizations, reproductions obtained (+ interaction) and of course the interactions with the video, (comments, likes, times shared etc …).
“Objective and KPIs always go hand in hand: there can be no KPI if there is no set objective that gives the range of “key” to that indicator
3. Step #3: Have your target audience perfectly defined
This may seem obvious, but nowadays with the tools that exist you must address exactly a certain profile that you have to have as a central pillar of any action or decision making because depending on how well you have addressed your ideal audience, the results will be very different.
The segmentation in Adwords that it offers for Youtube gives you the opportunity to segment by demographics, interests (audiences), keywords, placements, topics… so you can expand or contract the coverage of your campaign depending on your objectives, budget, among other variables.
*Important:it is advisable to perform a less restrictive segmentation at the beginning,for example by creating an ad group with a segmentation of “demographic data and interests”; another ad group with “demographics and themes” and thus do A/B testing. With this, apart from discriminating what best tea result, you will be carrying out a segmentation that is not too limited and that allows your videos to print normally. If you target too much, your ads probably won’t print, you don’t have views, and you’re wondering why.
4. Step #4 Create and edit the video for your Youtube campaign
We know from experience that users are becoming more impatient, quick to act, discriminate much more information than years ago, all this due to the enormous amount of information and advertising to which we are being subjected.
With this in mind, there is a fundamental rule that you have to keep in mind when editing: “the 5/5 rule”:
- The first 5 seconds of the video
It’s the length of time users have to decide if they’re going to watch your video or not. So in that time you have to convince the user that what he is going to see is going to be worth it.
How is it done? Knowing your audience, their tastes, what can make them stay, studying and analyzing the perfect communication that you should use to address them, direct, intrusive… depending on its characteristics (it is clear that you will not capture the attention of an 18-year-old user in the same way as you would with a 50-year-old).
- The last 5 seconds of the video
This is the other most important moment, in which users decide if they have liked it enough to access your website, if you have matched or exceeded their expectations. The use of appropriate calls to action, having created a thirst for information in the user, and encouraging them to access your website and know who you are, what you do and where you are, is fundamental in this section.
How is it done? Adding the logo well visible, with the right and necessary information to be contacted. Another call to action. Know how to communicate to the user why they have to know more about you.
Of course, the video must have each and every one of its audiovisual aspects adapted to the target audience (music, duration, content …) in order to encourage complete viewing, interaction and prescription with other users.
*Important: be careful with the frequency of publication and printing of the videos,limit it to a reasonable amount that does not extend the user and makes him hate you. In bumper ads for example 1 or 2 / day is enough per user since you will see it yes or yes. In skippable in-stream ads for example from 3 to 5 maximum per day. And this depending on your data and your interests must be modified. If you just want notoriety limit it to the maximum to impact less but more people; if you want to create brand positioning increase but without going over. And be very careful also with hourly programming,which is what it is about is to be seen when your target audience has the most open eyes and demand you.
This is all you need to know and do before considering the realization of a Youtube campaign; as a result of this, it only remains to choose the most appropriate ad formats for your target and your objectives.
In the next article, we will see in depth the types of ad format that there are for Youtube,its characteristics, and fundamental aspects to take into account, already focusing on the operation of the process.
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