Today we're announcing a new family of ad formats called
TrueView Video Ads. TrueView Video Ads give viewers choice and control over which advertiser’s message they want to see and when. And we charge advertisers only when a viewer has chosen to watch your ad, not when an impression is served.
We believe offering a cost-per-view video ad model is good for everyone: consumers choose ads that are more relevant to them; you more precisely find the audiences you want; and content creators continue to fund great content with an ad experience that is less intrusive. Our
experience with Promoted Videos, which you buy on a cost-per-click basis, shows that viewers will choose to watch ads that are relevant and engaging.
Our first available cost-per-view format is TrueView Video Ads - InStream. Viewers can choose to skip a video ad after 5 seconds, and you only pay when the viewer has watched the full ad or 30 seconds, whichever is shorter.
We’ve tested this ad format across thousands of viewer hours, serving millions of video views for a wide range of advertisers. If you counted up all the video views watched, they would stretch out for nearly five years. Early results are encouraging with view-through rates of 20-70%. A view-through rate measures how many viewers have opted-in to watch your ad - a valuable signal which you can use in connecting the right message with the right audience at the right time.
Check out the experience of some of our early advertisers.
GoPro makes and sells the HD HERO line of wearable, gear-mountable HD cameras. Lee Topar, Director of Online Marketing for GoPro, says, “We like how TrueView Video Ads give us the ability to target our audience, and gives viewers the choice to opt-in to watch our ads. Thus far, we’ve seen about a 40% view-through rate -- and since we only pay when potential customers actually watch a video, we have more control over our budget.”
In the run-up to the recent US midterm elections, many political campaigns tested TrueView with positive results. Peter Pasi heads up
Emotive LLC, an online marketing firm which recently helped to elect Senator-elect Rob Portman and Governor-elect John Kasich in Ohio. He says, "TrueView allows us to deliver our message in a scalable way specifically to the voters we want to reach. For example, we used its geo-targeting capabilities to execute a county-by-county media strategy. TrueView also provides a rich experience for the voter and allows the viewer choice and freedom. It’s easy to deploy, and it's a fraction of the cost of television."
Robert Wray served as the director of technology in Governor
Martin O’Malley’s re-election campaign in Maryland. He says, “The Governor had used YouTube prior to the re-election so it was a no-brainer to use it in the campaign. We achieved a 45% view-through rate with TrueView ads and found them to be effective when you look at the raw numbers of total video views and the amount we paid for them.”
This ad format is available for customers in the US and Canada and in limited testing for advertisers in the UK. We are working to add availability in additional countries.
Several other developments are also in the works. Soon, you'll be able to use TrueView Video Ads to increase a video’s view count. We are working to make TrueView Video Ads available for our self-service customers and to simplify the buying experience and reporting for everyone.
If you’re interested in trying out
TrueView Video Ads, contact your account manager today.
Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew
