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3 tactics you need to know to optimize your video ad performance online

Author's avatar By Expert commentator 31 Jul, 2017
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Are your video ads optimized to their full potential to improve audience watch time and engagement rates?

If no was your answer, then this is the article for you!

It's easy to get lost or confused in the array of technology that is now readily available for marketing your brand or product online. The benefits of video marketing can provide effective ways to advertise your product - with your creatively the only limit to success.

But how can I improve my video ad performance?

There are three key processes that help optimize video ad performance. Video ads now exist as a powerful marketing medium that maintains double digit growth at ever increasing accessibility and availability. Still, marketers often do not seem to leverage its full potential. Let's look at some ways of achieving this without breaking the bank.

1. Focus on the Right Metrics

As much as 70% of marketers say that video performs better at conversion than any other type of content aimed at ensuring it. The good news is that demand for it is increasing as well, with 43% of consumers desiring more video content from marketers.

One thing remains constant -  the message about your products and services must reach the right audience at the equally right time. Identification of target audience directly correlates with improved ad performance, which is driven by focusing on the right metrics.

First, think about viewability. Are your video ads 'within view'? This is crucial in order to keep your viewers interested. Keep an eye on metrics such as completion rates and levels of engagement.

Make sure to add interactive segments to your videos, such as buttons or CTA overlays to get insight into the length of the interval of the ad staying in view, the number of users who watched it in its entirety and what they did after watching it.

Take into consideration the fact that measuring completed views as metrics can be more advisable than focusing on click-through rates, as mere clicking on your ad does not necessarily mean that your ad hit a home run.

2. Reduce Bounce Rates

Engagement and bounce rates are another example of metrics you need to monitor to ensure better ad performance. A genuine detective-style investigation is in order, as you need to ascertain what makes the customer visit your website and leave it immediately.

One of the crucial reasons for high bounce rates are ads that are either irrelevant or placed within a page of content that does not correspond to the ad. Therefore, it is necessary to find tools that allow for automatic placement of ads on websites or within apps based on the relevance to their content.

This may also mean the restructuring of the site as a whole, together with optimizing its loading speed and general performance. In the business of video advertising, even a single wasted second is a luxury that you cannot afford. It can be all that stands between keeping your viewer or having them bounce from your website.

3. Optimize Watch Time

Determining an optimal length for your video ad needs to be balanced against watch time. Make sure you know how long your audiences are watching your videos for, this will help you determine how long your ad should be without losing the interest of potential customers. Also, use this knowledge to strategically place call to actions.

When search engines rank your video, they take into account the watch time as a primary element. The longer the watch time, the more likely they are to treat your video as being higher quality. Therefore, optimizing the content and interactive features of your video will get you increased watch time and, in turn, ensure a higher ranking.

Here are 4 ways to improve your video ad watch time:

  • Start by captioning your ads. Video viewing increases by 40% percent when the video content is captioned. 8% of viewers said they were more inclined to watch videos to completion when captioning was made available together with subtitles in multiple languages. Make sure you know where in the world your audience is watching.
  • You can also tweak your video ad content by creating video thumbnails. Facebook users often deactivate the autoplay feature, you need to grab their attention via thumbnails. First, you need to consider their appearance and suitability in relation to the content you offer. The easiest way would be to put yourself into you viewers’ shoes and ask yourself if would you click on?
  • Research keywords that your potential customers are searching for. Once you detect adequate phrases, make sure that you add them to the titles and descriptions of your videos.
  • Also, do not forget to secure clear visibility of your call to action (CTA) button in form of offers, subscription or links to your main website. You do not want your viewers to leave without knowing what to do next.

Navigating the platforms of video ad campaign management takes a combination of various skills that include creativity, fine tuning and careful monitoring of various elements related to it. As we have seen, the path to success lies not only in keeping an eye on what happens under the hood of your video ads themselves but rather in making sure that none of these components remain neglected.

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By Expert commentator

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