Gmail and YouTube Advertising
Gmail and YouTube are two areas of online advertising that many webmasters are missing out on. On the surface, they may seem more difficult to get into. However, because both systems work through Google AdWords, Google’s self-serve advertising system, it’s very easy to learn slowly even if you’re just starting out.
Before starting with Gmail or YouTube advertising, you should already have some PPC experience. While Gmail and YouTube are different than PPC, they’re generally more challenging to master than generic search. Get used to the AdWords interface first by running some basic campaigns, then progress to Gmail and YouTube.
==> YouTube Advertising
YouTube advertising allows you to take advantage of the power of videos in several different ways.
On the most basic level, you have promoted videos. Promoted videos puts your videos above the “Related Videos” on the right hand side. Your video will be highlighted in yellow, positioned at the top.
You also have box ads that you can place on the side of videos. These ads can be still images, or you can have a “click to play” video in the ad.
You have in-line advertising. These are the ads that pop up along the bottom of the video. Users can click the “X” to close the ad, or click on the ad to have it open your website in a new window.
Finally, you have pre-roll ads where your video plays before the video that someone’s watching plays.
YouTube allows you to target your ads by keywords, or even by specific pages that you want your ads to appear on. Being able to target specific videos can work wonders for your targeting. For example, if you’re promoting a guitar course, you can specifically target videos of people playing guitar.
==> Gmail Advertising
Gmail advertising can get you more impressions than any other form of advertising that Google offers.
Gmail offers require a lot of testing. Though Google’s been working on the technology to serve contextual ads by “reading” email since Gmail was launched, it’s still highly imperfect.
Test the keyword groups you’re targeting. Test the times of day you’re running traffic. Test the geographic location. Test your landing page, and of course test your ad copy.
In short, test everything you can possibly think of to get your CTR up.
When someone clicks on a Gmail ad, it’s important to remember they’re in a different mindset than when they click on an AdWords ad. You can’t expect the same conversion rates.
When someone clicks an AdWords ad, they were looking for a solution. When someone clicks a Gmail ad, they were interrupted by something in your ad that caught their eyes.
These two advertising mediums can complement your search campaigns and help you boost your overall traffic levels significantly.
