Retargeter

How to Use Video in Your Retargeting Campaign

?Business decision makers LOVE online video because it gives them the most amount of information in the shortest amount of time.? – Robert Weiss

What you’ll get out of this post:

• How to design a banner that maximizes CTR
• What kind of video will yield the most conversions
• How to use YouTube to drive more traffic to your site to retarget

How to Maximize Your Click-through Rate

Let?’s face it. We?’re all trained to ignore banners. We see them while we’?re reading our favorite online publications, blogs, and other media outlets. Our eyes have been conditioned to spot a banner and completely ignore it. So how do you get your retargeting banner ads to stand out from the rest? Let’?s explore two surefire ways:

Use a Distinct Color

Think about the color schemes that most publishers have. I imagine you?’re picturing a simple color scheme on a white background. Correct?

Most publishers don?t want to alienate their readers by using too many bright and bold colors. This allows marketers to capitalize on their ?basic? color scheme by being bright and bold with their banner designs.

Let?’s use the ReTargeter? banners for example.  (By the way, I love the fact that a company eats its own dog food by using the same technology that they’?re selling. I see ReTargeter? ads in many places and they do a great job of standing out.)

The black and orange color scheme will stand out on 90% of the main publications that they’?re running on. It?’s no wonder that with this design ReTargeter was able to increase their CTR by 3 times versus their old design.

Incorporate Video

MediaMind reports that rich media ads with video generate nine times as many post-click site visits as standard banner ads. Internally, we?’ve seen email click-throughs increase by two to three times just by overlaying a play button on an image within an email.

Why not apply that same principle to your banners?

The play button has a way of creating a sense of curiosity that a normal banner would not. You’?ll certainly want to have a video on your landing page as well, but this is also another great way to make your banners stand out.

What Type of Video to Use in Your Retargeting Campaign

Video plays a huge part in the conversion process. Zappos estimates that videos have increased conversions on their product pages by 6-30%.

The secret sauce of retargeting is that you are only advertising to those who have shown interest in your product or company.

Therefore, your retargeting audience more or less has an idea of what you do. To capitalize on click-throughs you’?ll want to display content for an audience that is further along the sales funnel. Consider using a customer testimonial or even an in-depth product demo on your retargeting landing page.

If you need some inspiration, check out the post we did for Unbounce about 10 video landing pages that are crushing it.

Drive More Traffic Using Video

Did you know that YouTube is the number two search engine? And I bet you’?ve noticed that Google is incorporating more video content within their search results.

Companies such as Hubspot and Blendtec have embraced video marketing and have well over 1 million views on their respective YouTube channels. Blendtec has over 197 million views as of this post.

How can you use YouTube to drive more traffic?

Step 1 ? Keyword Research

Using the YouTube keyword tool you can see what others are searching for on YouTube. Another technique is to type your keyword into the search box without hitting enter. YouTube will auto-suggest popular searches related to your keyword, which you can then use to build out your keyword list.

Step 2 ? Watch What Others Have Created

Let’?s say you’ve decided that you want to target the keyword ?retargeting campaign best practices.? The next step is to watch what others have created to see if you can fill in any gaps and find out how you can stand out.

If others are producing ?talking head? videos then consider doing a whiteboard video or even a PowerPoint presentation with a voice-over.

If you do end up creating a presentation then you will also have material to put on Slideshare, further expanding your reach.

Step 3 ? Pay Attention to the ?Thumb? and ?Head?

YouTube now receives 60 hours of uploads per minute. So how do you make your video stand out?

There are two things you’?ll want to pay attention to: the video thumbnail and the headline.

The video thumbnail is the image that YouTube shows in the search results. This is important as it’?s the first opportunity to stand out. Try using a thumbnail that is different from the other search results. For photos, a good camera is a must. KLS (Kids Learning Songs) is a family channel aimed at younger children. The channel uses high quality thumbnails, descriptive and catching titles in order to bring in new viewers to grow their channel and bring in their revenue. To view their channel, Go here for more infomation on how they show off their work.

Secondly, pay close attention to your headline. A great headline should give viewers instant clarity. I love Dane Maxwell?s formula:

Great headline = End Result Customer Wants + Specific Period of Time + Address the Objections

For a ?retargeting campaign best practices? video, I would use the headline ?”5 Retargeting Campaign Best Practices in Under 2 Minutes.”? Here, you are giving the reader instant clarity and addressing the objection of having to watch a long video.

Lastly, make sure your URL is the first part of the description. YouTube will hide most of the description, so make sure you give viewers an easy way to get to your site.

Step 4 ? Tag with Laser Focus

Tags are a way of telling YouTube a little more about your video. Need some inspiration on the tags you should be using? Take a look at the tags for the top search result. Then copy all the tags that the video is using. This will cause your video to show up in the related videos section.

Step 5 ? Start Simple and Start Free

?Real artists ship.? – Steve Jobs

The easiest way to ship is to eliminate all objections. Start simple and start free.

One simple way is to screen capture a PowerPoint presentation with your voice. Two free tools I?’d recommend are Screenr or Jing.

If you want to learn more about video marketing, check out our post about how to use video to drive more customers.

About the Author:

Steve Young is the Director of Product Marketing for SmartShoot, where businesses and individuals connect with professional videographers and photographers through a crowdsource video platform.