To help you achieve more conversions at an efficient cost, we’re evolving TrueView for action and scaling its best features to more places with Video action campaigns. Video action campaigns allow you to reach more customers in high-performing places on and off YouTube— all within one campaign. When you create a Video campaign that uses the "Sales", "Leads", or "Website traffic" goal, it will run as a Video action campaign.
Before the upgrade occurs, you can:
- Create new Video action campaigns. Any new Video action campaigns that you create are automatically opted into all available video networks (such as YouTube and Google video partners).
- Copy existing TrueView for action campaigns and paste them as Video action campaigns. You can also copy and paste existing ad groups in your campaigns.
- Continue making changes to your existing TrueView for action campaigns. Keep in mind that once your existing campaigns stop running, you’ll need to create new Video action campaigns.
Differences between Video action campaigns and TrueView for action campaigns
- Ad formats: Video action campaigns include a mix of skippable in-stream ads and in-feed video ads within one campaign and use responsive ad groups, while TrueView for action campaigns only include skippable in-stream ads and use standard ad groups.
- Inventory: Video action campaigns are designed to get as many conversions as possible, so they show in more places on and off YouTube (for example, the YouTube Home feed). TrueView for action campaigns only show on the YouTube watch page and Google video partners.
- Ad assets: Since Video action campaigns allow you to use in-feed video ads, you can add a longer headline and a description to your ad (in addition to the ad assets that come with skippable in-stream ads). The longer headline and the description appear when the ad runs on the YouTube Home feed.
Changes that will be applied during the auto-upgrade
Transition your TrueView for action campaigns to Video action campaigns before the auto-upgrade by creating new Video action campaigns or converting TrueView for action campaigns to Video action campaigns. If you don’t transition your TrueView for action campaigns to Video action campaigns, the following changes will be made on April 25, 2022, when we start the auto-upgrade:
If you have actively spending campaigns in the last 90 days:
- Standard ad groups with a status of “enabled” or “paused” will be upgraded to responsive ad groups. The original standard ad groups will be updated to a status of “removed”. They can be viewed along with past delivery data by filtering to a status of “all”.
- The default values for long headlines and descriptions will be used. These values are “headline”and “Call to Action” respectively. They can be updated after the auto-upgrade is complete. Upgraded ads will have a label of “Pasted as responsive video ads”. Refer to the Instructions section for actions to take after your ads are auto-upgraded.
- Campaigns that are opted-out of Google video partners or YouTube Search will be updated to include both for optimal campaign performance.
- Campaigns opted-out of YouTube Search will be updated to include YouTube Search.
If you don’t have actively spending campaigns in the last 90 days:
- Standard ad groups with status of “enabled” or “paused” will be marked as “removed”. They can be viewed along with past delivery data by setting the filter to a status of all.
- Campaigns that are opted-out of Google video partners or YouTube Search will be marked as “removed”, which means these campaigns can’t be viewed by default. You will need to update the filter status to all to display the campaigns.
Instructions
Create a new Video action campaign
To get started, create a Video action campaign in your Google Ads account.
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
.
- Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
- Click Campaigns.
- Click the plus button
, then select New campaign.
- Select the Sales, Leads, or Website traffic goal.
- Select the Video campaign type.
- Click Continue.
- Enter your campaign settings, such as your bid, budget, and content exclusions.
- Create your ad, then save the campaign.
For detailed instructions, go to Create a Video action campaign.
Convert existing TrueView for action campaigns to Video action campaigns
If you want to run new Video action campaigns with the same settings as your TrueView for action campaigns, you can copy existing TrueView for action campaigns and paste them as Video action campaigns.
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
- Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
- Click Campaigns.
- Click the filter button
above the statistics table.
- Add the appropriate filters to find the campaigns that need updates:
- Campaign type: Video
- Campaign subtype: Drive conversions
- Ad group type: Standard
- Click Apply. The table updates to show campaigns that match your filters.
- Check the box next to each campaign that you want to upgrade.
- If you want to convert the ad groups and have them run in the same campaign instead, select the campaign to move to the ad group-level, then check the box next to each ad group.
- From the "Edit" drop-down menu, select Copy.
- Open the "Edit" drop-down menu again, and select Paste. A paste menu appears above the statistics table.
- Select the option to paste responsive video ads (these are the ads included in Video action campaigns).
Note: Selecting this option also automatically selects the option to show all ads on all video networks.
- (Recommended) Select Additional assets to enter a headline and a description for the in-feed video ads included in the ad group.
Tip: In-feed video ads have a headline and a description field, which allow you to add more information about the product or feature in the ad. The headline and description show when the ad runs on the YouTube Home feed. If you don’t add a headline or a description, we’ll use text assets from your skippable in-stream ads (that are included in the same ad group) to automatically generate text assets for the in-feed video ads.
- Click Paste. A new campaign with responsive video ads is created and a confirmation message that says "Your changes have been made" appears at the bottom of your window.
- In the pop-up window, click Review ads to review the changes made to your ads. (If the pop-up window doesn't appear or you close the pop-up window, navigate to the "Ads" table in Google Ads.) The ads are labeled with "Pasted as responsive video ads" under the "Label" column in the "Ads" table. Each label includes the date for when you pasted the ads in the campaign (for example, "Pasted as responsive video ads on 2021-07-31"). You can use the filter button
above the statistics table.Update long headlines and descriptions of your auto-upgraded ads
If you didn’t convert your standard ads to responsive before the end of April, your ads will be auto-upgraded. After your ads have been auto-upgraded, we recommend that you update the long headline and description fields to get the best performance since default values are used during the auto-upgrade process.
- In Google Ads, go to the Ads page.
- To display the list of ads that were auto-upgraded, add a filter to the “Label” field, and select the value “Pasted as responsive video ads”. This value was added during the auto-upgrade to make it easier to find ads that were upgraded.
- Edit the ads in the filtered list.
Note: When editing the ads, a new ad will be created. You can still see the current ad by setting the filter status to “all”.
- Update the values of long headlines and descriptions for each ad to your preferred values.
- Save the ad.
