Video Advertising
How to Market to Multiple Generations on Social Media
When it comes to social media marketing, there are many factors that contribute to success, including quality content, algorithms, engagement, and peak posting times. When playing the social media marketing game, the best strategy for success is knowing where your target audience resides on the social playing field and catering heavily and consistently to those platforms. Each generation leans toward varying social media platforms for a number of different reasons. Learn which social media channels cater to your target audience (and why) to devise a stronger strategy for turning likes and follows into conversions and sales.
Baby Boomers (Born 1946 to 1964)
Baby Boomers favor Facebook over other social media platforms. A Pew survey found that about two-thirds of 50- to 64-year-olds (68%) and almost half (46%) of those aged 65 or older are the most active on Facebook. The older generation prefers sharing and reading articles and other forms of text-based content, which is why Facebook is so attractive to them. They are invested in traditional media, so marketing through concise messaging and informative content is appealing to them.
The boomer’s second pick for a social media platform is Pinterest. Pinterest is appealing to the older population due to strong home ownership and spending power stats within the generation. Pinterest has shareable text-form content full of DIY home improvement projects that appeal to the ‘do-it-yourself’ generation.
Generation X (Born 1965 to 1980)
Generation X witnessed the invention of the internet and bridged the gap between traditional and digital media. They seek out content in both video and text form due to their appreciation of both established and new media, making Facebook, YouTube and Twitter their preferred social media platform choices.
Facebook covers traditional media content streams that Generation X loves to consume. YouTube delivers digital-forward media through soundbites and informative video, and Twitter combines the two.
Millennials/ Generation Y (Born 1981 to 1996)
Millennials were born into the cusp of the digital age. Due to the rapid proliferation of digital media outlets during this generation’s lifetime, their preferred channels are all over the map.
Millennials share a love of tech and being the first “digitally native” generation. Because of this, Millennials are most active on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. The customer journey of a millennial is driven by online reviews and word of mouth recommendations. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube cater to this demographic through strategic advertising and the use of loyalty driven influencers to reach their target audiences.
Millennials are also the most prominent generation on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the most sought after B2B social media marketing channel to distribute content. It is used by 60% of people ages 25-34.
Generation Z (Born 1996 to 2012)
Gen Z was born well into the digital age. These kids grew up playing with their parent’s iPhones. This generation prefers visuals and short, motion-based content. Gen Z prefers Instagram, TokTok, Snapchat, and YouTube. Gen Z is drawn to the hyper-personalization brought by these platforms.
Gen Z tends to want to consume as much content as possible in the shortest amount of time. Gen Z also favors video that supports social causes and will make purchasing decisions based on the impact that a product or brand will have on a cause they support.
Understanding your audience is critical to success on social media. Trying to advertise equally across all social media platforms will cause average or below-average conversion rates. Generations consume content and respond to marketing tactics differently on each platform. Play into where your audience is active, and how they respond to content, adjusting your marketing initiatives accordingly to drive higher quality conversions.
- Published in Automotive Marketing, Video Advertising, Video Marketing
Facts About Video Ads
If there’s one thing any marketer should know in 2017, it’s this: video marketing works.
Since people spend one third of their online time watching videos, it’s understandable it influences their behaviour.
Videos influence viewers into taking action, whether that is visiting a page, giving their email address to a company, or buying a product.
Still, video marketing isn’t enough. If you don’t have a large enough social media following or email list, you may not get enough views to bring the desired results.
That’s why you need to use ads. Ads can help you increase the distribution of your videos.
What’s surprising is people like video ads more than they like regular ads. A Nielsen report from 2012, showed that 36% of people trust video ads. Not only that, but the people who enjoy watching video ads increase their purchase intent by 97% and brand association by 139%.
Considering that few people trust advertising these days, video ads become a highly effective way to reach new audiences and influence their behaviour.
The power of video marketing starts with the fact people like video over text. It’s human nature: it’s easier to watch something that’s both entertaining and easier to understand than to read something.
According to Animoto, there are 4 times more consumers who would rather watch a video about a product than reading about it. At the same time, if a consumer has the option to choose between text and video on the same page, 69% of them would prefer to watch a video to learn about a product or service.
Video also affects the way people use a website. Wistia, a video hosting company, found people who watch a video, on average, spend 260% more time on pages with video than those without them.
Adelie Studios, a video marketing company, found the average user spends 88% more time on a website that has video in it.
Pinterest Gets In On The Video Ad Game
Pinterest Inc. is starting to offer video advertising on its image-based social network, seeking to catch up in a fast-growing market.
While Facebook and Twitter have honed their video-advertising offerings for years, Pinterest pursued other priorities, like building its business model, improving search and making it possible to buy some items directly from the site. Now the San Francisco-based startup realizes that it’s behind on video.
“It’s something we’ve under-invested in in the past, and we’re changing that,” said Jon Kaplan, who was hired from Google earlier this year to be Pinterest’s head of sales. “This is all part of a broader push from the company to make video a bigger part of the consumer and advertiser experience.”
Pinterest’s site and app let people browse and save inspirational images of things they want to buy, make or do in the future. The company tracks a person’s activity to create personalized feeds of photos they think will appeal to that user. Within those feeds, more video has started to pop up — with YouTube now the top source of pinned items and video use up 60 per cent from a year ago, Pinterest said. The company is also working on a tool to let people post and view original video on Pinterest.
The new video ads will be interspersed with those personalized feeds, catering to the interests of whoever is browsing. If clicked, the ads will start to play with sound. The advertiser can choose to show as many as six related “pins” of items to pair with the ad. For example, if the ad shows video of a fashion model, the pins might be of items the user can buy to get the look. “Our video ads are going to be tailored to your interests,” Kaplan said. “We’ve added in additional features that allow the user to take action.”
U.S. digital video-ad spending will reach US$9.9 billion this year, and is set to almost triple by 2020, according to research firm EMarketer. Pinterest, which has more than 100 million users, was last valued at US$11 billion in a funding round in March 2015.
via Financial Post
- Published in Pinterest, Social Media Video, Video Advertising
Facebook Will Dominate Advertising For Years To Come
Despite the seemingly high bar set, Facebook’s second quarter earnings blew past expectations. However, the bigger issue here is that Facebook’s longer-term picture is probably one of the best on Wall Street (maybe the best) and CEO Mark Zuckerberg hinted on the earnings call Google’s search business is in his sights.
On the earnings call, Zuckerber said that users are doing more than 2 billion searches per day, a significant amount.
This isn’t the first time Facebook has talked about search — you have to go back to 2012 (such a long time ago in tech) to hear where Zuckerberg first talked about search. Since then, the company has continued to innovate and experiment with the search bar at the top of the app or the website, but it was something Zuck said afterwards, when talking about commercial search that caught the eye of Wall Street.
When asked by an analyst how far the company was from commercial search, he responded: “We’re in the “second phase” of three phases of monetization.” That right there signals that while Facebook is still more than happy to generate revenue from mobile ads (mobile ad revenue this quarter was $5.2 billion, or 84% of all ad revenue), it’s looking at going after the lucrative search market as well.
This is music to the 3 million companies that advertise on Facebook, with the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company’s marketers’ ears, with Facebook’s 1.03 billion mobile daily active users (it ended the quarter with 1.71 billion monthly active users in total, a mind boggling number!) and 1.13 billion daily active users searching left and right for things like the Democratic National Convention, Chewbacca Mom, or whatever else their heart desires.
As if that wasn’t enough, Instagram just surpassed 500 million monthly active users (300 million of them check the app/site once a day), Messenger just surpassed 1 billion monthly active users and WhatsApp, the seemingly forgotten platform (at least as it relates to Wall Street’s eyes), has over a billion monthly active users.
Add all of that up, along with the increased push towards video ads, which have higher CPMs (cost per thousand views), plus increased engagement on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger (Zuck said time spent increased double digit percentages, up from 50 minutes a day the last update given) and you have the makings of a company that Wall Street hasn’t seen in a long, long time.
Maybe ever.
Long live the ‘book.
via Nasdaq
- Published in Facebook, Social Media Video, Video Advertising
YouTube Tweaks, Expands Video Ad Format
Google says it’s ditching the name for its YouTube video ad format, officially moving away from calling it “TrueView in-display.”
Well, sort of.
The world’s largest video platform will now refer to the format as “TrueView discovery ads.”
Yet a second, and likely more important change, will give marketers access to full inventory across the YouTube app, making it the first time that TrueView ads can appear in the app’s mobile search results. Google also said it has tweaked its system so more relevant ads appear in the search results. Citing several experiments it conducted prior to today’s news, the company said its adjustments were able to improve click-through rates by 11%.
YouTube typically shows TrueView ads just before a user consumes content on the platform. There are four different types of TrueView ads, the best-known of which lets viewers skip to their content after watching at least five seconds of an ad. TrueView ads have also been available in desktop search results.
The new features are expected to roll out in the “coming weeks.”
Both changes underscore the search giant’s priorities as it goes all-in on mobile.
“TrueView discovery ads are such a powerful format because they deliver high engagement when viewers click on your video, that’s a strong signal that they’re interested in your brand,” Nicky Rettke, group product manager at YouTube, said in a blog post. “It’s why on average, users view one additional video from your brand within 24 hours of watching your TrueView discovery ad.”
The move also comes nearly a week after the company announced two new features for its TrueView video ads: a companion banner in carousel format that lets consumers scroll through products while watching videos, and a showcase for products that appear in whatever videos people are watching.
via Adage
- Published in Social Media Video, Video Advertising, Video Marketing, YouTube
Video Ad Spending on Social Platforms Rising Fast
Ever since Facebook began selling autoplay video advertising in 2014, the other major social properties—Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat—have become equally aggressive at courting video marketers. As a result, social video spending is growing quickly, as explored in a new eMarketer report, “Video Ads in Social Media: With a Full Slate of Ad Products, the Social Properties Take Aim at TV.”
In a February 2016 survey from RBC Capital Markets and Advertising Age, 12% of US marketers had already purchased autoplay video ads on Facebook and an additional 57% were likely to in the next six months. Only 7% said they definitely would not buy Facebook autoplay ads.
In a study of its clients’ advertising activity on Facebook in North America, ad automation software company Nanigans found that spending on mobile video ads increased 26% between Q4 2015 and Q1 2016. For gaming advertisers in particular, 35% of mobile ad spend in Q1 2016 went to video. Video’s share of gaming companies’ mobile ad spend grew 122% between Q1 2015 and Q1 2016.
via eMarketer
- Published in Facebook, Instagram-ads, Pinterest, Social Media Video, Twitter, Video Advertising, YouTube
Instagram Pushes Further Into Video Ads
Instagram is pushing further into video ad formats, adding video to the carousel product it launched last year.
Carousel, first announced in March 2015, offered advertisers a way to show multiple photos on the same sponsored post. Now advertisers will be able to add multiple videos to the same sponsored post. Videos can be up to 60 seconds in length. The format launches in beta today and will be rolled out wide in mid-May.
Among the first advertisers are Airbnb, Macy’s and Taco Bell. The carousel ads are being sold on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) basis.
“Brands are excited about this because it gives marketers better creative flexibility,” said James Quarles, global head of business and brand development at Instagram. “The hardest thing to do is to capture people’s imaginations, and carousel can help advertisers better achieve that with five pieces of content. As we see people watch more video, we think this helps business bring messages to life more.”
The move comes as Facebook, which owns Instagram, has made a massive push not only in mobile over the last few years, but more recently into video, both for consumers and advertisers. The company last week reported quarterly results that beat analysts’ expectations, posting $5.38 billion in first-quarter revenue, beating the projected $5.27 billion. For the quarter, mobile ad revenue was about 82% of the total, with $4.2 billion, up 75% from the same period last year.
Instagram’s ad business is still relatively young and accounts for a small portion of Facebook’s total. Instagram is consumed overwhelmingly on mobile and has no desktop ad product. From a report last July, eMarketer predicted that Instagram’s burgeoning ad products would account for 5% of Facebook’s total mobile ad revenues. That share will increase to 14.0% in 2017, eMarketer said, though Instagram will make much of its ad dollars in the U.S.
Instagram has introduced video capabilities for advertisers and consumers, with the ability to post 60-second videos rolled out at the end of March. Instagram originally launched video ads in November 2014, but now with longer time allotments, marketers can use Instagram to post 30- or 60-second ads more akin to TV or pre-roll ads.
The carousel, though, offers advertisers the opportunity to be more creative in how they market themselves, said. Mr. Quarles. For instance, Macy’s is using the carousel to post a video, and the follow up photos are close-ups of the clothes being worn in the video. There’s also the “shop now” button, which was rolled out in June 2015.
via Adage
- Published in Instagram-ads, Social Media Video, Video Advertising
YouTube Launches 6-Second “Bumper” Video Ads
YouTube has added a short-form video ad option to its lineup. Called Bumper ads, the six-second videos are available through AdWords and sold on a CPM basis.
Google is presenting Bumper ads as an add-on to traditional TrueView or Google Preferred campaigns. The short snippets are meant to complement the broader messaging and help extend the reach of a campaign.
Atlantic Records was among the pilot testers that combined Bumper ads with a TrueView campaign to promote an album launch. The company used Bumper ads to spotlight individual guest performers featured on the album, while the longer TrueView ads featured more about the album and the band. “When used in conjunction, TrueView plus Bumpers really work more effectively than either format on its own,” Fiona Byers, senior marketing manager of Atlantic Records/Warner Music Group told Google.
Audi tested Bumpers as a way to serialize its TrueView video ads, cutting up the longer format into six-second snippets.
The short ads will appear before videos and won’t be skippable.
Google says Bumper ads will be available in May for advertisers with access to account managers.
via MarketingLand
- Published in Video Advertising, Video Marketing, YouTube
71% Of Marketers To Run Video Ads On Social Media This Year
70.8% of marketers are planning on running video ads on social media over the next 12 months, according to research by cloud-based video creation service Animoto, as reported by eMarketer.
Of the marketers planning to run video ads on social, the majority plan to do so on Facebook (65.8%), followed by YouTube (42.3%), Instagram (27.4%), Twitter (21.6%) and LinkedIn (10.3%).
The study highlights the emergence of video for Facebook. Previous research from December 2015 by market research firm Advertiser Perceptions showed marketers favoring YouTube for video ads (72%) compared to
Facebook (46%).
Video is becoming an increasingly important medium on mobile and social.
Social media platforms are going all in on video. Facebook updated its news feed algorithm to emphasize video, while both Facebook and Twitter have been vigorously promoting new live video streaming features on their platforms.
Video is also one of the most popular content types for mobile users, while consumers are watching digital ads on mobile at a fast-growing clip. Facebook received a whopping 84% of its ad revenue from mobile during the last quarter, and Google announced earlier this year that it is now serving more search queries on mobile than on desktop.
Facebook VP Nicola Mendelsohn predicted that the social media platform “will be definitely mobile” and “probably all video” in five years.
Marketers need to understand where their target audiences can be found, but if they’re on social and/or mobile, it’s a good bet that video messaging is an effective way to reach them.
via MarketingDive
- Published in Automotive Marketing, Facebook, Instagram-ads, Pinterest, Social Media Video, Twitter, Video Advertising, Video Marketing, YouTube
Online Video Advertising Spends Increased 43% In 2015
Online Video Advertising Spends On The Rise
The year 2015 saw many more brands spending marketing & advertising dollars on online video advertising platforms. The research firm L2 found brands increased their ad spend last year on online video platforms by 43%.
L2 studied nine markets across the world, including the U.S., UK, Brazil, Germany, Canada, France, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. These markets, which upped their ad spend 43% on video platforms, also spent 42.5% more on social media and 12.5% more on search in 2015, but only 2.6% more on television advertising. Brands that increased their ad spend on online video platforms collectively preferred to advertise on YouTube, which claimed 59% of all brand interactions. Instagram came in second with 35% brand interactions, while Facebook claimed 6%.
This seemingly small increase in 2015 online video advertising demand on Facebook won’t stay that way, according to predictions. The firm cited the social networking site’s ad spend appeal, which already grew 9.6% in ad spend in 2015 (an increase of 1.6% over 2014’s 8% stat). L2 also believes, that despite YouTube’s “superior search advantages,” Facebook offers brands lower cost-per-million rates and therefore a greater opportunity to reach a larger audience with its marketing budget.
Regardless, L2 found brands aren’t as confident in creating their own online video advertising as they may seem. The firm discovered 46% of brands claimed compelling content was their primary obstacle in video marketing. Another 41% of brands say they have no budget for video marketing. For 2016, brands will have to get past these hurdles if they want to create their online video marketing content for distribution on social platforms.
via tubefilter
- Published in Social Media Video, Video, Video Advertising, Video Marketing