Data proves overwhelmingly that video works to capture and hold the attention of potential customers in practically every format available. According to a study by Social Bakers, the average video post on Facebook generates 135% greater organic reach, when compared to photo posts. Facebook now serves a staggering 8 billion video views per day. 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week. (HubSpot, 2016) 100 million hours of video are watched every day on Facebook. (TechCrunch, 2016)
The problem with posting video content or creating live videos, particularly in social media, has been that people will watch, but rarely engage beyond the view. Many brands and marketers find it frustrating to succeed in holding audience attention and not getting an further follow-through.
Thanks to a new retargeting option released a few weeks ago in Facebook and a little savvy about creating remarketing audiences in Google AdWords, marketing teams can turn a passive video audience into qualified leads.
Facebook Engagement Custom Audience
As the name implies, Facebook has now given advertisers the ability to create custom audiences based on engagement with content published to a Facebook page. In particular, you can now target Facebook users based on how they watch your videos.
When you select this option to build a new custom audience, the top option is for video engagement. You are now able to “create a list of people who have spent time watching your videos on Facebook,” and target them with related content.
You can refine that audience based on how long they spent watching your Facebook videos.
Google Remarketing to YouTube Viewers
For businesses that have their AdWords account linked to their YouTube channel, there is an option known as video remarketing. You can create campaigns that target people who have watched, liked and/or commented on you videos, visited and/or subscribed to your channel, or any number of combinations of those factors. Marketing teams are not limited to only showing more videos to this audience. A video remarketing audience can also be used for search and display ads.
Time for an example:
While video is a natural for introducing consumers to a new brand or product, video is also an excellent medium for explaining a service offering or complicated concept.
Let’s consider a hypothetical yet practical example.
A big factor in deciding to hire an agency like Gemini is the expertise and experience that our team brings to every project. We often need to demonstrate that expertise. In an effort to introduce more decision makers to our brand, we might consider doing live “Ask Me Anything” style videos on Facebook or YouTube.
Since we are also very practical marketers that need to realize a high return on the investment of time to promote and create videos like that, we need to get more than video views out of the exercise. We need to secure qualified leads.
That’s where remarketing to viewers plays a huge role. Once someone watches an “Ask Me Anything” about social media advertising, for example, we can then retarget that audience with blog posts, case studies and webinars about social media advertising in Facebook, in the Google Display Network, and in Google search. We take a relatively passive but highly interested audience and draw them deeper into the customer journey.
Since their video viewing behavior creates a very strong positive connection to the brand, the next time they see branded content elsewhere on the web the more likely they are going to feel comfortable in clicking-through.
To generate solid leads for a business, we would recommend targeting people who have watched 10 seconds or more of video content with an opportunity to sign-up for a webinar or download a white paper that provides more information on the content covered in the video.
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Have other questions about your specific digital advertising or video content? Our in-house Paid Search, Social Media, and Content Marketing experts can help. Contact us today to learn more.
