Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Does YouTube advertising work?

One of the largest google traffic sources besides its own search engine is YouTube. Needless to say, Google made the right move in acquiring YouTube. The volume of traffic and potential of earnings from advertisers are huge! In the past, I would say Youtube traffic doesn’t convert because most of the visitors are repeated users. They are most likely in watching videos than responding to advertisements that they have seen thousands of times.
However, the result has proven me wrong. If you are an online retail store owner, the CPC ads on youtube would definitely do you some good. Regardless of branding, Google report has proven that Youtube traffic is the most converted advertising source from the display network. There are two suggestions in maximizing the returns on your YouTube CPC ads:
1.       Only run Graphical Banners on Youtube traffic, or I should say Graphical banners on display network shall bring you a good return on investment (ROI) rather than text ads. You can simply run a test on the exact campaign of text ad vs graphical ad with same targeting, and you will see what I mean.
2.       Build up a Youtube channel for your retail store. This definitely allow visitors to recognize your store if they are watching your competitors videos on youtube. More recognized stores would lead to sales rather than unknown stores with CPC ads.
If you are running affiliate offers, you can try running on Youtube ads if the CPA is relatively high. Keep in mind that visitors are usually repeated visitors, and you may need a certain number of clicks before turning them into sales.
With that said, do allow longer term for Youtube traffic to show conversions in your report. It may take higher spending than other websites in the display network.

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