Video view campaigns (VVC) use Google AI to optimize TrueView views across ad formats and supports maximizing your return on ad spend. In this article, you’ll learn the best practices of VVC and how to optimize them to help you reach your audience and drive video views.
Learn more About Video views.
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Best practices for Video view campaigns
Campaign setup
During campaign setup, using all 3 available formats (Skippable In-stream ads, In-feed ads, and Shorts ads) can help drive additional TrueView views, consideration lift, and increased Search lift. Using all available formats with corresponding creatives has been shown to deliver 94% higher average return on advertising spend compared to using Skippable In-stream ads alone.
Bidding
Leverage bid guidance to optimize budget utilization across various YouTube surfaces. These data-driven suggestions are tailored to your specific campaign configuration to help ensure your ads deliver efficiently.
Network and device
Include Google video partners in your video campaigns. By expanding your campaigns to include Google Video Partners (formerly Google Video Network), you can access brand-safe third-party video and audio inventory with the same ad formats, pricing, and transparency as YouTube. Learn more About Google video partners.
Target all devices so that the system can optimize and serve on the device best suited for the view. Device level reporting is available in Google ads. Learn more About device targeting.
Targeting
- Avoid contextual targeting (keywords, topics, and placements) as it will restrict serving on Shorts feed.
- Include all relevant audiences in the same ad group as consolidating audiences improves the performance.
- Avoid overlaying audience targeting (except gender and age) with contextual targeting (keywords, topics, and placements) in the same ad group as overlaying will significantly limit the available users.
Creatives
- Use at least 3 video types to maximize consideration lift, one horizontal (15 seconds), one horizontal (60 seconds-3 minutes), and one vertical (10 seconds-60 seconds). Assets that are greater than or equal to 12 seconds count as TrueView views and populate remarketing lists. We don't recommend using videos equal to or less than 6 seconds in Video view campaigns as they’ll be served without the skip button for users to skip the ads, effectively forcing a Trueview view.
- Add horizontal, square, and vertical videos in the same ad. The model can optimize for the right asset in the right format if you place them in the same ad group. Learn more about Video resolution and aspect ratios.
- Square and vertical assets will not serve on in-feed. Learn more About Video views.
- View how your videos perform as different formats by segmenting the reporting table by ad format. Learn how to Analyze your performance by ad format.
- Refer to the ABCDs of effective video ads.
- Enable a Call to Action (CTA) in order to increase engagement.
Recommendations
Tracking engagements
- If you have a Google Merchant Center (GMC) feed, use a product feed to track engagements, otherwise use sitelinks.
Brand Lift study
- Ensure you comply with the minimum Brand Lift requirements for your country. We recommend running the campaign for at least 10 days, as the budget must be spent in the first 10 days. Learn more About Brand Lift.
Search Lift study
- Ask your Google Ads representative to set up Search Lift. It doesn’t cost you and can offer valuable insights on how your ads led to searches. Learn more About Search Lift.
Shorts actions
- Video view campaigns now optimize for Shorts Ads actions, such as like, comment, and share. Make sure you turn on the Shorts video comment feature in YouTube Studio so that viewers can comment on your Shorts ads. Learn how to Choose comment settings.
