jellyfish agency video pov

© Jellyfish Online Marketing Ltd 2011

Jellyfish POV Video in focus 28 | 10 | 2011

Jellyfish POV Video in focus

PAGE 2

For years Google has been promoting the use of online video content to add to the user experience, perhaps unsurprisingly after their investment in YouTube. However, with evidence as to the tangible benefits of aligning your video content with the user journey and subsequently achieving your business goals, it is fast becoming the area of focus for online marketers. Jellyfish is a strong advocate of utilising video content and recognises the need for optimising video content and consequently the user journey. Google provide the basic recommendations on best practice for your online video: • Ensuring that the video is well produced and adds to the

customer journey • The information in the video should be concise and to the

point • Video should not auto-play and the information provided

should not be solely provided in the video in case people don't play it

• Make sure the controls for the video are also easy to find, i.e. play, stop and pause Google refine the integration of PPC & Video It‟s pretty undeniable that a presence on YouTube and having strong video content is becoming a more and more important part of a company‟s online presence. Video is engaging and informative and is still an ever-growing vehicle to reach customers. Google has always been aware of the growth of video and the role it will play in the future of internet marketing; after all YouTube has become the 3rd largest site on the web, and the 2nd most popular search engine. Google‟s next focus, integrating YouTube advertising even further


PAGE 3

into its AdWords platform, comes as a surprise to very few. This will also be a welcome change for anyone who has struggled to make sense of the numerous options currently available.

YouTube Video Ads: TrueView

YouTube is a Google Display Network placement as well as a search engine within its own right, so the targeting for ads has been seen as a bit confusing for many amateur advertisers. Google have subsequently made setting up ads easier, as well as rolling out some interesting new ad types. You can now link a YouTube account with an AdWords account, similarly to how Analytics is linked. Previously, any advertiser could create an ad for any YouTube video, this new link with adwords opens up a world of possibilities for greater control over video ads. The Promoted Videos ad type has been replaced, in name if nothing else, by TrueView In-Search ads. These are displayed alongside YouTube search results and can be triggered by keywords just like the search network and also from certain Google Display Targeting options such as interest targeting. TrueView in-stream ads appear at the beginning or the middle of existing videos; and TrueView in-slate appear along with other promoted videos before longer videos. TrueView in-display are video ads which appear on Google‟s Display Network, similar to the older click-to-play format. The TrueView branding reflects the fact that advertisers only pay once the video begins to play, so as not to pay for clicks that never result in a video view. Generous it may seem, but a necessity in reality if advertisers are to embrace paying for traffic going to slower-loading pages, especially when they have little or no control over loading times.


PAGE 4

Jellyfish are always keen review the benefits of Google‟s various Beta roll-outs, and as an agency we have a wealth of experience of being early adopters of these initiatives – and seen how they often contribute to increased ROI for those campaigns. Anything that makes such a growing area of online advertising easier is welcomed, especially when powerful targeting options such as demographics can be brought into the mix. The challenge that remains is how to turn a video view into profit. Video is undoubtedly engaging and in demand by users, but video content may still be seen as an enigma for some advertisers who are nervous to move away from the traditional last-click wins conversion model and embrace the concept of a path to conversion. At Jellyfish we understand that a full online presence is the key to success for any online marketer and that video forms an integral part of this. Recent innovations from Google such as the multi-channel funnels functionality in Google Analytics help with tracking the path to conversion and we can now analyse the effect video has in the customer buying process. An advertiser who believes that only the last click offers a worthwhile contribution to the creation of a sale will miss out; both in the short term and longer term as the growth of their brand is inhibited. Video increasing your natural search results When Google first appeared on the scene, its ability to index more data, combined with its relatively unique focus on user experience differentiated it from the competition. Google could 'see' more information and balanced this raw keyword-related data with information about how 'popular' it was. At that time, internet bandwidth was still at a premium, YouTube and their competitors did not exist, and the only thing search


PAGE 5

engines could 'see' in terms of a video's relevance were the words used on-site and off-site to describe it. As indexing technology improved, indexing robots were able to 'read' all of the words, and we are now seeing a similar phase of development with the indexing of videos in the recent past. Google's ability to 'see' the inherent relevance of any given video can only have been helped by their ongoing copyright struggles in YouTube. It is not the only imperative behind improvements to video indexing but it's a strong one, backed by moneyed interests, and it is easy to see how this challenge in particular has been driving improvements. If for example, you use copyright-protected music on your video, then YouTube can 'hear' it and will issue and automated warning. If you use copyright-protected footage, YouTube can 'see' it, but does not at this stage recognise it when you flip the image horizontally as many malefactors do. Rather than look at the current limitations of search engines, we can see the ideals that they are aspiring to, and a window into the potential future rewards of following them on the journey. As mentioned in a previous „Panda' POV document there are two important aspects; one obvious and one only a theory at this stage: 1. Google has been penalising websites that use text that *approximates* relevance; if the content is just a wash of keywords and/or does not visibly excite users, then the relevant page/site is robbed of visibility. 2. Recent statistics published by Search Engine Watch suggest that the Panda update favours video content: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2113724/Latest-Google-Panda-Update-Favors-Video-Big-Brands-Google-Properties These are only indicative, but in keeping with the notion that Google is increasingly confident in its ability to determine the


PAGE 6

relevance of video content, and therefore more likely to reward it accordingly. That said these rewards are designed for material that is visibly relevant. Throwing a video together in an effort to appear relevant is as likely to be effective as throwing text together to appear relevant. “Google video relevance Panda SEO word word word (surfing bird!)” for example, is a meaningless string of words and Google is increasingly able to detect this kind of nonsense in text, and is most likely able to take a more sophisticated view of video than many of us suspect. Google seeks to determine the actual relevance of material, and it always has. This being the case, you should seek to use video as a communications device, and approach the problem by first asking how video can be used to enrich the customer experience.

Improved conversion through onsite video

Econsultancy, a client and educational partner of Jellyfish, has studied the impact on conversion of implementing onsite video. http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/6834-why-etailers-need-product-videos This article looks at the use of 360 product images and videos, across seven online stores and their effectiveness. It offers interesting insight into how video and product photography has improved conversion rates, examples include: • Using video demos of items on product pages increased sales by between 6% and 30% • The conversion rate for shoppers viewing video on product

pages increased by 400%, while return rates dropped from 12% to 9% • Shoeline.com improved the conversion rate by 44% for Product pages containing videos


PAGE 7

In this article technical ski clothing was demonstrated in-video using advisors to highlight product features, akin to the type of expert advice you might expect „in store‟. Adapting the style of video content to suit the product is as important as adapting it to suit the site. High street metrics such as return rates are as applicable to the online arena, and for these online stores they are now closer to that of a normal high street retailer than of other e-commerce sites. Whilst impressive, these results require investment in staff and technology, and can represent a large up-front financial commitment for any business. When in-house resources are not available, specialist agencies such as Jellyfish offer an alternative, cost effective route to adding high performing video content to sites. Jellyfish Creative Director, Mark Deeprose comments: “Quality video content not only helps the consumer engage with products and services but can also communicate complex offerings. Jellyfish help our clients to develop effective video content, which aids conversion at the various points in the digital use

jellyfish agency video pov

Technology