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As the evolution of effective video ads continues, we constantly see trends that favor this ever-growing form of advertising. Case in point:
- Over 500 million hours of video are watched on YouTube each day.
- Each week, 45% of internet users watch over an hour of content on video share sites.
- 82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter.
- There is more video content uploaded in 30 days, than all of the major U.S. television networks have created in the last 30 years.
- Video share sites have over a billion users.
- Currently, 87% of marketers are already using video ads to get the word out.
Back in the day of traditional mass marketing, brands would have to reach their demographically targeted customers by putting a message out to the world via television, radio, billboards, magazines, etc., and hoping that the right people would happen to see it. It was referred to as the “Spray and Pray” method. While these mediums are still going strong, and still effective, there are ways to enhance them to boost their reach and refine their targeting by incorporating a programmatic platform into their marketing strategy. It can be compared to casting a large net behind your boat, hoping to catch one particular kind of fish. What you’d catch, though, is whatever happened to be swimming by at the right time (or wrong time, if you’re the fish)!
Nowadays, to continue with the metaphor, not only do we know where the fish are hanging out, we know when they are awake, when they like to eat, and what type of bait we can use to attract them. If one bait doesn’t work, we try another, and another, until we determine what they go for the most. That’s the magic of programmatic video advertising; using the consumer behaviors rather than demographics. No “pray and spray” here!
While we know how effective using data-driven, highly-targeted video ad campaigns can be, there is still much more to do. As an example, many advertisers are still drawing almost exclusively from demographic data like age, gender and income. While very helpful, this information is still rather limited. We want to know their online behavior, their recent online purchases, what applications they are using, what locations they are searching for in Maps, and what business emails they have responded to. Once we have this information, we can serve them creative that’s personalized and relevant, and we will know how and where they saw our ad, and what they did when they saw it, which is where attribution comes into the picture.
Businesses have traditionally implemented somewhat of a transactional approach to their advertising. The focus was on driving immediate spend as a result of their advertising efforts. Companies have also focused specifically on email, which made sense at that time. In this day and age, many of those who fall into the category of a targeted audience—such as millennials and Generation Z—don’t focus on emails so much anymore, as they are more prone towards mobile. Now that video has matured and become so essential, it’s beginning to be recognized in the marketing industry as more than just a passing fad, and is stepping up as an effective component in programmatic advertising.
Video has emerged, and has taken its place in the marketing industry. There is so much that marketers can do using sophisticated targeting data and other “personalization” tools that are at their disposal, that brands can now become personally, as well as contextually, relevant.
These videos can be adapted to individual marketing approaches that are geared towards the behavior and interests of the crowd that you are wanting to reach. In other words, grab ’em with what they want (and need) to see! For instance, the jetsetters would want to see travel-related videos, while parents with young kiddos would be prone to watching family-oriented videos. Anyone who shows an interest in cars would want to see something that has to do with the automotive industry, etc.
As your attribution is measured and validated, your methods can be refined and honed-in to a more specific audience, assuring that you’re targeting the crowd that is most likely to make a purchase. Maximizing acquisition by matching creative to the specific segments of an audience is the goal, as it can only lead to greater sales numbers and an increase in the bottom-line figures.
The amount of substantial changes that have taken place in the field of video marketing is exciting to brand marketers. So many of them are experiencing paradigm shifts that are enticing them to boost sales with creative, relevant video, and the trend is growing by leaps and bounds. There are new technologies on the horizon that include virtual, and augmented, reality. For now, however, the goal is to sharpen your targeting skills and administer creative videos that are directed to the right crowd, at the right time.
