Video Ad Creation

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Create a video ad

To create a new video ad, we'll go into our new campaign, navigate to Ads and Extensions, click the plus to create a new ad, and select which ad group we want this to go into. We'll start by entering the URL of our video that we already uploaded. We can choose which format this is.

And we'll enter our display URL, the URL that will appear in the corner of the ad. This doesn't have to match your final URL exactly. Our final URL is our landing page.

And we'll give our ad a name. We'll come back to companion banners later in this segment. The steps are much the same when we are creating a true view discovery ad, up until the point that we choose our ad format.

Create a TrueView video discovery ad

For the discovery ads though, we must choose a thumbnail for our ad. Think about how this will serve as a teaser for your ad on the networks that you select. You will write an ad copy to accompany your thumbnails. And when a user clicks on your discovery ad, you can choose to bring them either to the video's watch page on YouTube, or to your YouTube channel. You cannot directly link to an external website.

Include companion banners

It's also important to remember your companion banner when creating your video ads.

A companion banner is a clickable thumbnail that will accompany your true view in-stream ad. On the YouTube watch page, it appears next to the ad, at the top-right corner of the screen. You can choose from auto generated companion banners or upload your own.

Create a bumper ad

Our third format is the bumper ad. It's a short, non-skippable format that is no longer than six seconds. You will have to have your video creative already edited to that required length. You will create the bumper ad in the same way that you've created your previous video ads. You will also have to bid on a CPM basis for these ads, as they are not view or click-based.

Bumper ads examples

Here are some real-life examples of where three brands have used bumper ads in different forms of storytelling, from remarketing to very simple stories. They're great examples of using short form content to achieve your goals effectively.

• Xbox used the launch day of their Xbox game, Halo Wars II, and invested heavily in remarketing with bumper ads.
• La Mer used bumper ads to effectively drive awareness of their brand's new makeup suite. They created a bumper ad for every product in their suite.
• Survey Monkey used bumper ads to highlight the value and ease of their tool.

Create a universal app campaign

Advanced advertisers may also choose to run a universal app campaign to promote their app across the web. The solution is not advanced as you may think once you already have the app in the Play Store.

You would create a universal app campaign in the same way you would a standard display or video campaign.