Jonathan Saipe

Google Video Ads – Is this the Future for TV Advertising?

12 March 2009, Jonathan Saipe


Last week, Michael Grade, Executive Chairman for UK based broadcaster ITV scrapped the financial targets he set 18 months ago commenting that the outlook was “as bad as anything I have seen in 30 years of broadcasting*”.
*(Source: Financial Times, Thursday March 5 2009).

The future of traditional TV advertising appears equally bleak among other advertising reliant broadcasters as well, with lack of further investment currently leading to potential merger talks between UK state funded Channel 4 and privately owned Channel 5.

The Start of a New Era
I believe that we are in fact now entering a new era of opportunity where the very powerful visual impact of precisely targeted online “TV advertising” now becomes a freely available and highly relevant marketing tool to any business whatever the size of their marketing budget.

It’s no secret that Google’s largest source of revenue in its 10 year history to date has come from the “2 lines of text” AdWords™ pay per click ad delivery system.

If highly targeted AdWords™ adverts (that all look exactly the same as one another on the screen) have proven so successful in the last decade, then what if the “2 lines of text” ads were replaced by unique (300 x 250pixel) click-to-play “TV adverts”, targeted in the same way as traditional text based AdWords™?

Surely no SME (especially in the current economic climate) is going to risk £20k+ to produce their own TV ad on the off chance that their CTR may improve a little?

It would make far more sense to invest a fraction of that cost on a pay-per performance basis. This takes the idea of “pay-per-view” one step further and becomes “pay-per-quality view”.

Current Reach of Google Video Advertising
Google video ads are currently broadcast on The Google Content Network™, the largest online advertising network in the World reaching over 75% of unique internet users.

Google has also been recently beta testing a “video plus box” button for a company’s own video advert to appear next to its text based AdWords ads on the Google Search Network™. (This is similar to the idea of “map plus box” or “share price plus box”).

What about the Quality of a Google Video Ads CTR?
By the time a user has clicked through to your web site from your video ad they have been filtered 3 times entirely by their own actions.

The user firstly types in their user query and a product or service relevant web site from The Google Content Network™ then appears.

If your Google Video ad “wins” the auction because the user query matches the keywords or phrases that you agree should trigger the ad, your ad appears within the relevant article as a still impression or “holding image.”

The user must then click to play, if they wish to view the video ad. Then the user must click the ad a second time if they wish to be taken to the advertiser’s web site.

Google Costs
Google charge the advertiser nothing for their “holding image” to appear on screen or for their Google video ad to be clicked and played.

They only charge for any secondary clicks on the video ad that takes the user through to the advertiser’s chosen landing page.

This makes Google video ads hugely powerful as no video advertising is ever “pushed” in front of a viewer like “pre-roll” video advertising on a news video for example.

I believe that the outlook for TV advertising or “VideoAdwords” created and delivered in this way is “as good as anything I have seen in 30 years of broadcasting”.

This article was written by Chris Baillie, CEO and Founder of admoogle™: a digital media company that specialise in creating and delivering bespoke Google Video Ad campaigns.

Visit Emarketeers’ Google AdWords training course for further information.