Create a video ad sequence campaign

Note: As we roll out enhancements to the campaign creation process, the workflow for new Google Ads users will appear slightly differently. This page will be updated throughout 2023 with more details.

You can create a video ad sequence to drive deeper awareness of your product or service. A video ad sequence is a campaign subtype available under the “Product and brand consideration” and “Brand awareness and reach” goals in Google Ads.

In this article, you will learn how to create and edit a video ad sequence campaign.

Before you begin

Make sure that you link your YouTube account to your Google Ads account, and use videos from your YouTube channel.

Optimize your campaign as you create it

As you create your campaign, you may receive notifications based on your setting selections. These notifications may alert you of issues that can result in decreased performance or that may be significant enough to prevent you from publishing your campaign.

The campaign construction navigation menu that appears as you construct your campaign provides a holistic view of your construction progress and will call attention to notifications that you may want to address. Move between steps in the navigation menu to easily review and resolve potential issues with your targeting, bidding, budget, or other campaign settings. Learn how to Set up your campaign for success.

Instructions

Create a video ad sequence campaign

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Campaigns.
4. Click the plus button , then select New campaign.
5. Select the Product and brand consideration or Brand awareness and reach goal.
   • If you don't have a goal in mind for the campaign, you can also choose Create a campaign without a goal's guidance.
6. Select the Video campaign type.
7. Select the Ad sequence campaign subtype.
8. Click Continue.
9. Enter a campaign name.
10. In the “Bidding strategy” section, choose a bidding strategy. The bidding strategy that you choose determines the ad formats that are available to you in the ad.
11. Enter additional details about your campaign, such as the budget.
12. Choose how you want to create your sequence:
    • Create a custom sequence: You control the order of videos in the sequence.
    • Create an automatic sequence: Google Ads optimizes the order of videos in the sequence.
    • Use a sequence template: Choose a template to build the sequence. Learn more about sequence templates.
13. Click New step to create the first step in your sequence campaign.
14. Enter an ad group name and YouTube video URL for the first step in the sequence campaign.
15. Choose an ad format, then fill in details like the display URL and the ad name.
16. Set a bid for the first step in the sequence.
17. Click Add to sequence to add the step to your sequence campaign.
18. Click New step to create the next step in your sequence.
19. Choose the interaction type that leads to the next step. The interaction type that you choose is based on the bidding strategy in your campaign:
    • Impression: The ad was shown to the viewer.
    • View: The viewer engaged with or watched at least 30 seconds of the ad (or the entire ad, if it was less than 30 seconds). Only available for campaigns using Target CPM as the bidding strategy and skippable in-stream ads as the ad format.
    • Skip: The viewer skipped the ad. Only available for campaigns using Target CPM as the bidding strategy and skippable in-stream ads as the ad format.
20. Continue to add steps to the sequence until you've completed all sequence steps in the campaign.
21. Click Create campaign.

Edit your video ad sequence campaign

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Ad groups or click Ads.
   1. For assets, click the Campaigns icon .
   2. Click the Assets drop down in the section menu.
   3. Click Assets.
4. Click the pencil icon .
   • You can also edit your video ad sequence by clicking Campaigns in the page menu on the left, and then clicking Settings. Under "Additional settings," click Sequence steps and then Edit sequence steps.
5. On the "Edit your video sequence" page, click New step to add a new step to the sequence or to edit the existing steps in your video ad sequence.
6. After you're done editing your video ad sequence, click Save Sequence.
7. To confirm the change, click Yes, change order.

View reporting for your video ad sequence campaign

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Campaigns.
4. Choose the video ad sequence campaign you want to view. You'll be taken to the "Ad groups" tab for that campaign. From this view, you can find the performance of each step in your campaign. Each step is represented by an ad group, where you can find metrics such as impressions or views.
5. Use the "Sequence path" column to locate where the step is in the sequence.
   • When you hover over the "Sequence path" for a step, you can find the path of steps and the interactions required to get to the step.

Fix issues with video ad sequence campaigns

Expand all

Change a video within an active sequence

If you change a video within a sequence that has started running, the following issues will occur:

• Some users will become ineligible to find your sequence and others will repeat the sequence to follow the new sequence order.
• Lift measurement for your campaign will be interrupted, which may cause inaccuracies in various Lift measurement metrics.
• Reporting may be impacted and may be inaccurate due to people repeating the sequence, missing steps, or other issues.

The next step in the sequence has more impressions than the previous step

A video ad sequence looks at the videos in the campaign and reports on the impressions from the video. For example, if a video in the ad sequence is also used in other campaigns on Google Ads, and a viewer is exposed to that video, the viewer will be eligible for later steps in the sequence. This makes it possible that later steps in the sequence will have more impressions than earlier steps.

An ad is missing from a sequence step

If an ad is removed from one of your sequence steps—either from the campaign itself or by unlinking the YouTube channel from the ad—people likely won't progress in your sequence. However, if a person finds the video that was removed as part of any other campaign, and matches your sequence's targeting, they can find the next step in the sequence.

You can't create a sequence step

You can't create a sequence step until you've linked a YouTube channel. If you've already begun creating a sequence campaign without a linked YouTube channel, save your campaign and go to "Linked accounts" to link a YouTube channel. After linking, you can add steps to your campaign.

You want to make changes in bulk

You will be unable to use bulk edits to copy and paste or delete an ad group for video ad sequences. If you try to copy and paste the ad group, this will result in a new ad group that does not contain any ads. Bulk removal of an ad group will also result in a step without a Video ad. In both cases, when you go to the "Edit your video sequence" page you will notice an alert that says "Step is missing an ad. Users won't likely progress in this sequence." Click Edit step to fix the issue.

Related link

• About video ad sequencing