Google has been working its way on to unify its advertising interfaces, along with bettering their YouTube video ad reporting. To achieve these dual objectives, the search engine giant is launching a limited public beta of “AdWords for Video”, this would include four “TrueView” video ad formats. The advertisers would have to shell out money as soon as a video is viewed or started by a user. The release would integrate video advertising, which has been previously housed at YouTube.com, into the AdWords interface.
Lane Shackleton, product manager at YouTube was of the thought that this new form of video advertising would ease the processing of advertisers as he said, “Buying video has traditionally been a difficult process, especially within AdWords.”
Talking about the supported ad formats it would offer, it would include TrueView in-stream, TrueView in-search, TrueView in-display and TrueView in-slate. Some of these have already been offered on YouTube.
On the technical front, short or long-form YouTube videos have ads that appear as a pre- or mid-roll, which are the TrueView in-stream form of ads. TrueView in-search ads, show up when a user looks out for a video on YouTube or Google video search. These ad formats have formerly even been branded as Promoted Videos. The next type is TrueView in-display. This one is quite similar to the old Click-to-Play format. TrueView in-slate appears in a “slate” of multiple videos before long-form video on YouTube. It is being said that these in-search and in-display videos would even play on YouTube and can also have call-to-action overlay elements.
Google has a few value additions in this case as an advertiser would be granted the ability to manage and receive reporting on these video ad types from within the AdWords interface. Google has still made it clear that an advertiser would have to upload the video assets at YouTube. However, now they are allowed to connect multiple YouTube accounts to their AdWords account.
This gets better for the advertiser, looking at the overall aspect, as they would be able to target, place and bid on inventory via AdWords. They would even get reports on thumbnail views, video views, view rate (how many times people click to play after seeing an impression on display), an average cost-per-view, the total cost, and the number of click-throughs to the advertiser’s Web site.
Clearing confusion about the clicks, Google noted that the video views would be counted only after a user clicks on an ad to play it. In case of ads where a user isn’t specifically clicking on an ad (on in-slate or in-stream, for example), the video view would be counted once the video is played for 30 seconds or if the video is nearing an end, whichever comes first.
Targeting users can be on the basis of specific publisher placements, topics, interest categories, demographics and keywords.
Talking about Google’s latest strategy, the limited public beta would target new advertisers across the spectrum, but it has no further detailing as to where would it draw the line. A prospective advertiser can sign up and be considered on the AdWords for Video landing page. To lure the new advertisers, there is an incentive announced. Google would offer a $100 coupon for new accounts created.