MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Nowadays, consumers go the extra mile of meticulously researching items they’re interested in. In fact, shoppers turn to YouTube to watch reviews and compare products, and 88% of them said that YouTube creators give them the best information about products and brands.
Such consumer behavior makes YouTube a viable and easily accessible solution for advertisers. But this doesn’t mean that you can run just about any ad and start raking in the clicks and sales. There’s a right way to go about it, and it requires a lot of effort, thought, creativity, and research. Award-winning marketing strategist Ashik Ashokan, head of strategic consultancy firm WARC Advisory APAC, has tried-and-tested methods to get YouTube ads to generate the leads and conversions brands want.
“By skillfully using video creative features and formats that online viewers are drawn to, the winning brands fully maximize YouTube marketing’s ability to drive sales,” said Ashik Ashokan. “The result: digital video marketing campaigns that connect meaningfully with people at every stage of their shopping journeys and win them over as customers.”
Deliver relevant content on the right platform
The best way to get your potential customers to listen to you is to make yourself relevant to them. Brute- forcing your ads by casting a wide net would be useless especially if what you’re saying isn’t what they’re looking to hear.
“Less obvious to some [brands] is how to identify the right platform, deliver the most relevant content, and make customer engagement and sales conversion happen at scale,” said Ashik.
He cites the successful example of Indonesian financial services provider OCBC NISP, which ran a campaign that aims to get young adults to save more. They used Google’s Ads Creative Studio to create different versions and variations of their ad, which YouTube would serve to the right customers based on their interests. For example, a viewer who was interested in gaming content would get a version of the ad that says that money saved could go toward buying a new gaming console.
OCBC NISP’s campaign ended up becoming one of the most-watched and least-skipped commercials, averaging an impressive 42% view-through rate, meaning almost half of the audience watched the whole ad. This resulted in the company enjoying 48% higher acquisition since the launch of the campaign.
Create videos people would watch
More than hearing what they want to hear, viewers also look forward to watching something entertaining, compelling, and relevant. Finding out what makes your target audience tick can give you a homerun ad.
“[Lean] into native creative formats and features that people enjoy and [turn] the audience from engaged viewers into excited shoppers. Video formats that captivate include immersive creative such as ASMR videos, and long-form video entertainment such as full-length music videos,” advised Ashik.
Nestlé Thailand ran a successful video ad for Bear Brand ImmD targeted specifically to viewers in rural Northeastern Thailand. Data showed that the Northeastern Thai audience really enjoyed musical content, so the campaign focused on a music video with thoughtful details: written in their dialect, shot in a local setting, leveraged on popular celebrity ambassador Mario Jok, and a seamless integration of the product into the story.
The resonant ad resulted in a whopping 10 million organic views on YouTube, an 18% increase in ad recall, and 17.5% more sales for Bear Brand ImmD.
Intentionally connect with shoppers
By using built-in YouTube tools such as TrueView instream and non-skippable instream ads, Korean flower store Kukka Flowers was able to create YouTube ads that remind people that giving flowers is not just for special occasions. They also combined this with in-feed video ads for people searching for relevant keywords, and call-to-action overlays that could take potential customers to the Kukka website so they can make a purchase.
This strategy of actively using the different tools available on YouTube resulted in Kukka’s brand awareness growing by 28%, keyword search volume for “Kukka” rising by 7.5, and most importantly, its sales increasing by more than double.
For more inspiration on producing award-winning ads, check out the full list of YouTube Works 2022 finalists from the Philippines! The winners will be announced on this year’s YouTube Brandcast event.
