15 minute Guide to Google Ads Client Reports [Free Sample]

“Hand me your empty beer cans and I’ll take care of your ride home.” Sounds good?

Apparently, for the carnival-goers at the Rio Carnival in Brazil, this is an awesome idea, which is why the Beer Turnstile marketing campaign worked like a charm.

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Developed by advertising agency AlmapBBDO to promote AmBev‘s Antarctica beer, the campaign invited carnival goers to keep their empty beer cans with them until the end of the event, so they can use it as a “ticket” for a train ride back home. As a result of the campaign, “the turnstile saw around 1,000 users per hour, 86 percent higher than usual traffic. The number of drunk driving incidents that evening also dropped 43 percent,” according to Cool Australia.

Now, this is something not every campaign can achieve. Some campaigns work some don’t. The point is going by the trend lets you achieve your goals better. Coming up with a usual ad campaign might not have such a great impact that an in- trend ad format might have. So,here is the easiest solution!

Catch up with the trend: Get the infographic on doing video ads here!

Videos, in general are extremely effective, which makes it one of the best ways to advertise. It doesn’t matter if it’s a welcome video or an advertisement. People remember videos. In fact, a research found that 80 percent of Internet users remember seeing a video on a website they visited in the past month and nearly half of those users took some action after watching the video they saw.

Google Ads for video has hence come up at the right time owing to the drift in the ad formats from a single image to a video ad.

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Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. -Arnold Bennett

The new feature in the Google Ads interface- Google Ads for video must have had the same thought-over which takes place for every new feature launched. Most of you might be a little hesitant to just uproot your family of campaigns/ad groups/keywords, etc. and move them to a new area. So, I’ve decided to scout the new neighborhood to see, “How does the new house differ from my old place” and “What’s it going to cost to move in”? This will help you appreciate these new features for videos in Google Ads better.

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I. What to watch for when starting Google Ads for video?

Before we go on to know about how to create the video ads from Google Ads, there are a few things that you need to know which will help you work with Google Ads for video better.

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A. There are no Ad Groups – So choose your audience targeting wisely!

The rough equivalent for this seems to be Targeting Groups but they don’t work the same way. Targeting Groups are targeting methods like demographics, topics and interests that can then be grouped together and assigned to videos which then form ads. And these are available targeting methods for video ads:

1.Demographic groups: You can choose the age, gender, and parental status of the audience you want to reach.

2. Interests: You can pick from available audience categories to reach people interested in certain topics, even when they may be visiting pages about other topics. Learn more about audiences.

• Affinity audiences: Raise brand awareness and drive consideration with your TrueView video ads by reaching people who already have a strong interest in relevant topics.
• Custom affinity audiences: With custom affinity audiences, you can create audiences that are more tailored to your brands, compared to our broad, TV-like affinity audiences. For example, rather than reaching Sports Fans, a running shoe company may want to reach Avid Marathon Runners instead.
• In-market audiences: Select from these audiences to find customers who are researching products and actively considering buying a service or product like those you offer.

3.Placements: Target unique channels, websites, or placements within them. For example, you can target an entire high traffic blog or the homepage of a popular news site. These include YouTube Partner Channels, YouTube Videos and Sites (Display Network – includes YouTube.com as a publisher site).

4.Keywords: Depending on your video ad format, you can show your video ads based on words or phrases–keywords–related to a YouTube video, YouTube channel, or type of website that your audience is interested in.

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B. Call-to-Action Overlay

In a “Video” you can assign Call-to-Action Overlay, something that could not be done in the old All Online Campaigns area. This is great because it adds an additional ability to drive traffic from video assets on YouTube to off-YouTube landing pages where conversions can be made.

If you have a YouTube channel linked to your Google Ads account, you can create CTA overlays for video plays across YouTube (whether the video play is triggered by a video ad or not). The overlay will appear as soon as the video begins to play and can be closed by the viewer. When viewers click the overlay, they’ll be redirected to your external site as specified in the overlay’s final URL.

Currently, CTAs remain on the video for as long as the video owner chooses, even if the video is no longer being promoted.

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C. Views Vs. Clicks

There is of course an emphasis on calling actions “views” instead of “clicks” which is obviously appropriate but also a distinct and necessary change in paradigm. Along with this comes the ability to know when users stop watching the ads. This is great because it allows future videos to be crafted based on proven performance with historic data.

The Core performance of the campaign talks about:

• Views, which shows you the number of times people watched or engaged with your video. For TrueView video ads, the number of views also counts towards your public YouTube account.
• View rate, which shows you the number of views or engagements your video ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown (video and thumbnail impressions).
• Avg. CPV, which is the average amount you pay when a viewer watches 30 seconds of your video (or the duration if it’s shorter than 30 seconds) or engages with your video, whichever comes first. Note that your average CPV may not be the same as your maximum CPV. Your maximum CPV is the most you’re willing to pay for an ad view.

D. Remarketing

Remarketing lists are generated based on current or historic marketing efforts in video in the account. There are some really interesting targeting methods including the ability to remarket to users that have been to a channel before or people that have seen other videos associated with an account. This is also interesting because remarketing efforts are not based on pixels but instead, Google’s data. Remarketing can also be targeted to users for up to 540 days which is a pretty significant amount of time. Users can also apply re-targeting data to Google Display Network efforts.

You can create remarketing lists that reach people who have done the following You Tube-related actions and you can then use these lists in your targeting settings for new or existing video campaigns:

• People who watch any of your videos.
• People who take an action (like, dislike, comment, or share) on any of your videos.
• People who view your video as a TrueView video ad.
• People who visit or subscribe to your YouTube channel

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E. Frequency Capping

Frequency capping is a feature that limits the number of times your ads appear to the same person on the Display Network.

When you turn on frequency capping for a campaign in Google Ads for video, you set a limit for the number of impressions you will allow an individual user to have per day, per week, or per month. You also choose whether the limit applies to each ad, ad group, or campaign.

This is how yo can set Frequency Capping: Go to the Google Ads Interface > Click Your Video Campaign > Go to the “Settings” Tab > Scroll to the bottom category “Advanced settings” > Click “Ad delivery” > Edit Frequency capping.

F. Experiment with Max CPV Bids

So the way Google Ads for video works is that you are paying per view of your video ad. A “view” is only counted when somebody watches at least 30 seconds of your video (or the entirety if your video is shorter than 30 seconds).

Now, by default, Google Ads tends to choose your Max CPV value for you, which may be automatically set at something around 10-20 cents per view. But you set your own Max CPV and experiment with the bid that will generate you the most number of views for the least amount of money.You can test Max CPV Bids by starting at around $0.10, then slowly decreasing by 1 cent until your campaign stops using the budget and you see a decrease in impressions/views.

These were some things that you needed to know so that you could work better with Google Ads for video.

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II. How to create Trueview video-ads from Google Ads?

Next, this guide walks you through using the new campaign interface, the new ad positions and how you can create Trueview video ads from Google Ads.

A. Choosing Your Ad Formats

From there, you fill in your ad’s creative and preview the video formats your ad will be shown in. You can also choose which formats to include from the following:

Very little about the new interface will seem different. Primarily, you’ll note a new option to navigate through video campaigns (on the left-hand side) and the option to create a new video campaign (found in the “New Campaign” drop-down in the campaign menu).

From there, you’ll see a screen that has several familiar fields including the campaign name, budget, language, locations, ad delivery, and scheduling options.

Once you click “select video,” you’ll be taken to a menu of all the videos that have been uploaded to your connected YouTube accounts. You can also use this pane to search for videos or preview your content. You can also upload video directly from the interface.

B. Setting Up a Video Campaign

• In-search, formerly known as YouTube advertisements, which allows you to show your ad on the search screen of YouTube.com. Two different formats are available. Google is also showing in-search ads on Google video searches. Other properties may be added in the future.
• In-stream, the skippable long-form video content that is shown as a pre-roll to other video content.
• In-slate, which allows users to select your ad from several options as a non-skippable pre-roll to other video content.
• In-display, in one or more of three formats. These will be shown in the Google Display Network, with the displayed form being based on both the advertiser’s and webmaster’s settings.

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C. Targeting Your Video Ad

You can do a search for targeted keywords that apply to topics, specific search keywords, contextual themes, and/or placements. The webmaster also has the option to advertise within specific topics and demographics.

This screen also allows you to customize additional features, including the “call to action overlay,” a feature previously enabled only for YouTube advertisers. Once you save the campaign, you’re all set.

D. Your Video Ad Views & Stats

In your campaign statistics segment, you’ll see detailed feedback on the ad performance (impressions, view rate, cost per view [CPV], total cost, and website click-through) and any ad issues.

You can gain further insights by expanding each video which allows you to see the independent performance for a given ad in its alternate formats. You can also navigate to the “videos” segment which affords a broad view of how your videos are performing and compare that performance data with your other campaigns.

This is how you can create a perfect video ad campaign.

III. About Google Ads for video Reports / Dashboards / Templates

Talking more about Trueview and Google Ads for video, they weren’t exactly the same platform earlier. You had to go to a special section within Google Ads to create and manage your TrueView video campaigns. And you had to jump back and forth when you wanted to report and optimize across all your campaigns.

But now, TrueView is joining Search, Display, and Shopping campaigns within the Google Ads interface.

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Google has added three new measurement features to the Google Ads for video reporting interface. These enhancements are claimed to make reporting more goal-oriented and to make it easier to compare campaign performance across platforms and other forms of media.

The new dashboards pull in more data from YouTube so advertisers don’t have to toggle back and forth between Google Ads and YouTube analytics to understand how their videos are performing overall, both organically and as ads. So, there is a new holistic view of each video’s contribution to an account’s performance.

A.Reach & Frequency

Reach and frequency metrics, including Average Impression Frequency and Average View Frequency, have been added to the interface in Google Ads for video to give one more insight into how many unique viewers have seen your ad and the average number of times they’ve seen it. It’s now easier to tell if your ads are getting enough impressions to get noticed but not so many that they are bombarding users.

To view these metrics on a campaign, ad or targeting group level, click on Columns >> Customize Columns and look under the Performance section.

B. Column Sets Tailored to Marketing Goals

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New column sets feature-relevant metrics grouped by marketing objective:

• Views: Understand whether viewers watch more of your videos after viewing your paid video ad. Metrics include follow-on views and unique viewers.
• Audience Development: Understand how your video ads drove people to watch and engage with more of your content. Metrics include subscribers and follow-on views.
• Brand Awareness: See how broadly your video ad was viewed. Metrics include unique viewers, average view frequency and average impression frequency.
• Traffic & Conversions: See how your video ads drove viewers to action. Metrics include website traffic, number of conversions, cost-per-conversion, and your conversion rate from people who viewed your ad.

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C. Geographic Visualization

In the new map view to see you can see campaign stats by location including, Views, Costs, Avg Cost Per View, View Rate, Conversions or Impressions. To find this, click on the Map View button from the Campaigns tab.

These new functionalities give the user the simplicity of a single interface and a more consistent experience, which should make it much easier to optimize across different campaigns. Also, managers who set up video advertising campaigns can take advantage of bulk management tools when working on multiple TrueView campaigns. These features will try to incentivise advertisers to create powerful ads that people would love and would also help them gauge performance better.

So, having seen this great green neighborhood of Google Ads for video you can now decide upon to switch to this new area!

Learn more about how you can automate your Google Ads Client Reporting!

This post is a part of a blog series on Marketing Success by ReportGarden, a PPC & Google Ads Client Reporting Tool. You can try it for free here.

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