A few weeks ago Google announced a new form of pre-roll Video Ads that would run on YouTube.

TrueView video ads are unique in the market since they give viewers the choice whether to watch them or not. Advertisers only pay when the ad gets watched, not just for a video impression.

Only Great Ads will get watched

Google cite this innovative use of video as an opportunity for truly great video ads to shine, since they are the only ones that’s end up being watched. This also overcomes the TV advertisers’ fear that people leave the room to make a cup of tea during the ad breaks. And for consumers it’s good too, since they will only watch the adverts that they actually want to.

Tracking hotspots & engagement is easy

And because it’s part of YouTube – and therefore integrated with a large part of an advertisers AdWords search and Display activity, this means that tracking the effect of the ad is so much easier. The response to the ad – whether it’s a search or a click through to a merchant site – will be all part of the same online user journey, whether in this session or the next.

At the moment the only cost per view format is InStream. Viewers can choose to skip a video after 5 seconds, or watch it. The advertiser gets charged after 30 seconds, or the full ad if it’s shorter than that.

At the moment TruView is only available for the US, although it’s coming to the UK soon. Find out more here.

Happy Christmas from Barracuda Digital!

If you’re a B2C retailer then you will have spent the last 3 or 4 weeks packing padded envelopes with products at a breakneck pace. For B2B December is a time to take stock, and make sure your website and marketing are ready for the January surge.

It’s been a busy month in search and social media, so we still want to keep you up to date with the latest developments

How to set up a YouTube campaign

YouTube on it’s own is the world’s second largest search engine. Behind Facebook it also boasts the longest dwell times. So as a marketer it’s a channel that just can’t be overlooked. And the upside is that there aren’t many advertisers making use of YouTube, so the traffic is low cost too. Here are our 9 tips for setting up a YouTube campaign.

SEO News

There’s been quite few developments in SEO since our last newsletter. Local SEO continues to evolve with the launch of Google Place search. Google have started showing more results from single websites - handing a potential SEO gift to well optimised sites. And the introduction of Instant Previews means that in order to maximise organic traffic sites need to not only rank well but be appealing too.

Display Advertising Tools have evolved

Barracuda Digital took part in the closed Beta for the Google Display Campaign optimiser, and due in part to the results we achieved this product is now available to any advertiser with robust conversion data. It’s an opportunity for many advertisers to expand their Display advertising campaigns.

Mobile News

Sitelinks were a great innovation in desktop search, and Google have now made them Sitelinks available for mobile. These can boost traffic and reduce CPC. Contact your account manager to set up your first mobile campaign.

New researched showed that whilst desktop search volumes peak in the morning, we’re much more active on our mobiles in the evening. It’s an important factor to take into account with your mobile search campaigns.

Understanding what happens on each page

Google analytics have announced a new beta which makes understanding how people look at and click on each page of your website much much easier. Read more about in-page analytics. Visualize

And Finally…

In a typical end-of-year-what-have-we-been-up-to fashion, the Google Zeitgeist 2010 makes interesting visual round up of the year.

That’s it!

ThaIf you’ve any feedback on this news or anything else be sure to get in touch.

(This is us at the .Net Awards by the way!)

YouTube is massive. As a stand alone search engine it’s the second largest. It is the third biggest online destination behind Facebook and Google. Those facts alone mean that is has to be a part of your online media mix.

But when consider how engaging video is, YouTube becomes even more important. Consumers like watching video online. YouTube offers a fantastic environment for it.

As a marketer YouTube also gives you lots of tools. It’s possible to target people by groups, video, and by channel. YouTube makes it easy to forward and share your video content to others or on their own website.

As YouTube is a search engine you can use your video content to answer users search queries, putting brand in front of others people looking for your services.

YouTube also makes it easy to link other content, closing the loop between YouTube and your website tools.

And currently YouTube is currently very cost effective. Apart from the effort, a user or enhance channel is free to set up. You buy ads on a CPC or CPM basis. And at the moment there are more eyeballs than advertisers.

So here’s a 9 tips to make sure your YouTube campaign gets off to a good start.

1. Choose the right name

Your channel name should be keyword rich, to improving its chances of ranking in relevant search queries. If you have a well known brand then include that, so your video content shows up for brand searches, highlighting your great content to new and current customers.

2. Think about SEO

Make sure you use titles, descriptions and video tags that are keyword rich, and include links to your website. YouTube search results are based on these, assessing their relevancy and popularity. Just 1,000 characters show up in the initial search, so keep is short and sweet. Although you get 426 characters for tags, stick to 150 or less.

3. Customise your Channel

Brand channels used to cost £25,000, but in the last couple of months Google has allowed many advertisers to create ‘enhanced channels’ for no cost at all. These give you almost all the cool design elements of a brand channel, minus a bit of functionality. It’s a great opportunity to create a customised environment for your video content. See our Social Media Guides for how to do that.

Check out the British Gas YouTube channel for a great customised background:

4. Think about disabling comment options

Negative comments can harm a brand. Consider your Social Networking Policy and work out how you are going to respond to poor feedback. If you don’t have the time – or want to retain the control – consider disabling the comment option.

5. Keep it short

Before you start adding content, decide on some basic rules such as the length of each video, and the number of points you want to make. Although YouTube lets you add up to 15 minutes of video, users don’t often watch more than 1 or 2. And don’t forget your call to action too – give people something to do next.

6. Add plenty of video

Make sure you have at least 3 videos at the launch of your channel, to make it look at bit busier. It keeps users satisfied, and helps it gain popularity and visibility in the Youtube search results. And if you’ve paid for someone to click through to your channel, then it makes to give them plenty to watch once they get there.

7. Consider watermarking

Users love to share video content. Make sure you get the benefit of this share by watermarking your video, or including a call to action to your website.

8. Use Promoted Videos to drive traffic

One of the most effective PPC areas of YouTube is promoted Videos. These serve your videos at the top of the search results. Ads appear as a video thumbnail and several lines of text. Users just click to video. You can then use text overlays to push users onto your website.

The concept of promoted videos – giving users something they’re looking for – is broadly similar to regular paid search, and as such they can deliver an ROI in line with those.

9. Make us of Insights and Analytics

As a channel owner to you can use YouTube insights to find out lots of interesting stuff about viewers of your content. You can identify their demographic, and how they found your videos – through search, sharing or direct links. And you can also see which parts of your video they liked (hot spots) and what turned them off. Use this information to improve your campaign targeting and video content.

That’s it

When it comes to audience and engagement, YouTube is huge; but as a marketing channel it’s underused and undervalued. To find out how Barracuda Digital can help set up and market a YouTube channel for your business – get in touch.

YouTube as a media property is the fourth largest in the UK. In its own right YouTube is also the second largest search engine.

To that end, no AdWords campaign can be complete without an element of traffic coming from YouTube. Thankfully, Google have developed lots of tools to make advertising on YouTube really easy.

When it comes to creative, there are lots of options, including text ads, overlays, accompaniment videos, pre and post roll and more. Here are a few examples:

As for targeting tools, you can pick and choose placements on YouTube with the Google Ad Planner. And now there’s the Video Targeting Tool that lets you choose individual videos or channels on YouTube onto which you can overlay your text ad.

Google have now enhanced their targeting capabilities with the option to excluding individual videos or channels from a campaign.

All you need to do is to identify the individual videos or channels that you don’t want your ad to appear on then exclude them under the “Networks” tab.

For example, let’s say run a bakery. You might have decided to run a keyword based campaign on YouTube on bakery related keywords. But you might also have noticed that most of  FoodNetworkTV videos are about cooking meat dishes.  Just add in their channel URL as an exclusion.

If you want to find out how a PPC campaign targeting YouTube can help boost your brand, traffic and conversions just get in touch.