Google Shopping Ads On Youtube Expands Advertising Platform
Throughout the year, Google has made consistent efforts to integrate video and retail advertising with their latest platform, TrueView.
Now, instead of having to go to a special section within AdWords to create, manage and optimize video campaigns, retailers can manage their “Google Shopping Ads on Youtube” advertising efforts within the core of AdWords interface, joining Search, Display, and Google Shopping campaigns.
“This is definitely a big step. It will be interesting to see the different targeting methods available in here,” Josh Brisco, Senior Retail Search Manager said.
This announcement is a pretty big deal to advertisers who can access AdWords bulk tools and reporting metrics for video marketing within AdWords.
Google Shopping ads on YouTube provide an entirely new revenue stream for retailers.
They also give shoppers an enhanced interactive buying experience, providing them with the opportunity to shop directly from videos.
In March, YouTube introduced a program called Cards, which gave retailers an opportunity to insert product information within their videos across all screens.
TrueView for Google Shopping, which Google describes as “a bit like automatic Cards” connects a retailer’s Google Merchant Center feed to their TrueView campaign. The program dynamically inserts product cards within their in-stream ads, based on the products that are most likely to lead to a conversion.
Expansion of Google Shopping Ads On Youtube Advertising
Google has decided to expand the video advertising platform so that marketers can reach additional product-focused content on YouTube including unboxing, product reviews and how-to video.
Google Shopping ads for YouTube will allow advertisers to show a click-to-buy ad within partner videos on YouTube, going beyond their own videos to transform any relevant video into a digital storefront.
Following the same model as Google Shopping ads, advertisers only pay when a user clicks on their ad.
According to Google’s announcement, “We’ve kept the format similar to Cards and TrueView for shopping, so users can easily recognize and click on the “i” icon at the top right of a video to view the Shopping ads. Shopping ads on YouTube are built off of your existing product feed in Merchant Center. They will enter an auction similar to Shopping ads on Google search and are selected based on a variety of contextual signals.”
“Whether your goals are to drive direct response or to build your brand, you now have a single, unified tool to address your full range of marketing goals. Starting today, you’ll be able to upgrade your campaigns to the new ad group structure, and say goodbye to those days of going to ‘All Video Campaigns’ to get to your TrueView campaigns.”
Google’s latest Shopping feature is expected to roll out in the next couple months.
In a previous article, Jeff Coleman, Director of Account Management at CPC Strategy shared his perspective on the value of the Google TrueView advertising integration with YouTube:
“By not starting completely from scratch – this program is going to give retailers the ability to reach millions of people in an area. Previously, unless they could create quality video ads, this wasn’t possible. Now all you have to have is a feed,” he said.
“It’s an easy win and requires no extra work other than just creating the campaign. There’s no investment, retailers don’t have to produce video or codes. Everyone should be doing this.”
Additionally, for the first time ever, advertisers can target ads against customer-owned data through Google AdWords new feature – Customer Match.
Customer Match allows advertisers to upload their customer and promotional email address lists into AdWords. From these email lists, retailers can build campaigns and ads specifically designed to reach their audience.
Although Google Customer Match is designed to help retailers reach their “highest-value customers” by strengthening connections with their known customer base on Google Search, it also helps retailers forge new relationships across other channels including YouTube Trueview & Gmail Native Ads.
Google Shopping & YouTube TrueView
Now that video is available within Google AdWords’ interface, advertisers can optimize across their campaign types, take advantage of powerful bulk management tools and improve efficiency when working on multiple TrueView campaigns (as seen in the video below).
According to Google, now that all campaign types share the same structure, they can bring new features for video, faster than ever before.
4 Updates on Google Shopping Ads for YouTube
1) Campaigns
As seen in the example above, the top left corner is where retailers will find the Campaign type selector. This is useful to see only campaigns of a certain type. For instance, selecting “Video” gives advertisers a view of their campaigns that looks similar to AdWords for video.
What this means is advertisers will only see the tabs and columns that are most relevant for managing their video campaigns.
Pro Tip: The best part about this feature is that Google will remember your column preferences whenever you switch among views, so you don’t need to change them around each time you switch campaign types.
2) Ad Groups
Google is also replacing targeting groups with ad groups, the basic building blocks for Search, Display, and Shopping campaigns.
Though each ad group has only one format, campaigns can have multiple ad groups so that advertisers can still run both in-stream and in-display ads in the same campaign.
Pro Tip: To create a new campaign, just click the +CAMPAIGN button, click the new Video campaign type, and then create new ad groups within each campaign by clicking +AD GROUP.
3) Optimization
Now that Google Shopping ads for Youtube has joined the party in AdWords, advertisers will have access to a wealth of tools to manage, optimize, and report on accounts with lots of campaigns including:
- Bulk UI editing – Allows advertisers to modify information for multiple campaigns at once – directly from the UI.
- Bulk uploads – Allows advertisers to download a snapshot of their campaigns, make bulk changes at once, and upload the changes live to their account.
- Report scheduling – This feature gives advertisers the ability to set up a schedule for reports to run automatically, and have them emailed regularly to account users.
- Reporting for video campaigns – This feature is also more powerful as retailers can filter their results to isolate select identifiers like campaign name, label, cost, and conversions.
4) Video Remarketing & YouTube Linking
Video remarketing is now in the Google AdWords shared library and YouTube account linking is located in the Linked accounts section.
Retailers will also be able to see Google Analytics for their video ads within the new “Videos” tab, and manage their targeting within the “Video targeting” tab.
How to Upgrade Google Shopping Ads for Video
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- Go to Google AdWords
- Click All video campaigns
- Click the Upgrade Center to switch over all your campaigns
Pro Tip: All historical stats and targeting will carry over. Retailers can see this data by drilling down to the campaign level. All campaigns will automatically update, starting in 6 weeks.
For more on Google Shopping ads on YouTube advertising, email [email protected]
[bctt tweet=”Google Shopping Expands YouTube TrueView Advertising”]
Google Shopping Video Ad Resources:
Google Shopping Ads on YouTube: The Impact of TrueView on Retailers
Google Customer Match Allows Retailers to Target Consumer Emails
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