Video advertising requires a different mind set to banner advertising for example. So to help you achieve success in your video campaigns, here are 12 video advertising tips from setting up your video test campaign to launching your full campaign.
#1 Getting more clicks
Before you begin… There are many factors involved in order to get the end user to click on your video ad and then convert by making a purchase:
The video ad creative
The video texts and CTA
Your Landing Page content and creative
Your pricing
The ease of your payment method(s)
#2 The importance of testing
It is very important you keep your test campaigns running for 7 days including the weekend, don’t give up after 2 days if you have few or no conversions. You need to test for at least a week to collect a decent amount of data. You will then use this valuable data to launch full campaigns.
#3 Create separate test campaigns
Create separate campaigns for In-Stream, Outstream and Slider video ad formats to test which format gives you the best conversions as well as separate campaigns for Mobile and Desktop, due to different performance on various devices and separate campaigns for each category you want to target.
#4 Target RON and Premium Traffic sources
Create separate campaigns for RON (run of network) and Premium. RON is a less expensive traffic source, and each day new traffic sources are added to RON, so it’s a great way to discover new ad zones from which you can create whitelist campaigns.
Premium are verified high quality traffic sites with more stable volumes than RON sites, this source is more expensive than RON.
If you target both RON and Premium together you can waste money on RON campaigns because you are bidding a higher price for the mixed in premium traffic sources. So better to create separate campaigns here also.
#4 Your bidding pricing model
For test campaigns always use Smart CPM, this will help you win bids within your set budget. We also recommend that you use AdNation’s Bidder.
#5 Use AdNation’s Bidder
You can use the Automatic Bidding Optimization tool to automate bids for you and automatically block non performing ad zones. We recommend not to set too many rules, this example is a good starting point for video advertising: Set a Target CPA slightly lower than the actual CPA, for example if the CPA is 2, set your Target CPA at say 1.9, then set your Maximum Test Budget at twice the CPA and don’t use any zone blocking rules. This might seem like a basic algorithm but it is very effective for video advertising.
#6 Use Frequency Capping
Ensure that you enable Frequency Capping, which allows you to restrict the number of times a unique user will see your video ad, to prevent video ad blindness. We recommend 1 time every 24 hours.
#7 A decent test budget
Aim for $50-$100 as a daily test budget, anything less will not get you enough data.
#8 Your traffic delivery mode
Select ‘Distribute throughout the day’ for your test campaigns, again this will help you gather more realistic data.
#9 Targeting tips
For test campaigns keep the Time Schedule field open, if you set specific time periods you will get less traffic, and that traffic will be more competitive/expensive. However make sure you do basic targeting such as OS, device, language, etc, only use targeting that is really necessary. Again this is to collect a good range of data, then after 7 days you can evaluate the performance of your test campaigns. For example, maybe after 7 days you see that your offer is performing really well on Android but not on iOS, so when it comes to launching your main campaigns you can target Android and block iOS. Maybe after testing you get no clicks on a Wednesday evening but lots of clicks on Saturday evening, so when you launch your main campaigns set the Time Schedule to focus more on Saturday.
#10 Use the Landing Page Algorithm tool
Use AdNation’s automated Landing Page Algorithm tool to test out different Landing Pages. Choose between three traffic share algorithms to automate testing your landing pages and see which converts the best. Even spreads out the traffic evenly between LPs, Fixed lets you set percentages of traffic share to LPs and Automatic sends more traffic to the LP that is performing the best.
#11 Keep checking
Don’t just leave your test campaigns to run, keep checking them everyday for any issues, including weekends.
#12 Launch your full campaigns
So now that 7 days have passed, you should have all the data you need to analyse and launch your full campaigns. Just bear in mind a couple of things: If you see that 1 publisher site or 1 ad zone is converting really well for you and therefore you have optimised your campaign accordingly, bear in mind that traffic can change from day to day, so you may have to re optimize your campaign. Be aware of different minimum bids on different ad zones, we recommend that you create different campaigns specifically for ad zones that you are targeting or you could burn money on cheaper ad zones, because you will be paying more for them than they are worth and keep checking those campaigns everyday!
Video advertising is very rewarding because of the high CTRs it generates, but only if you get most or all of the above elements right!
