Google has launched a video version of its AdWords advertising platform aimed at small businesses that want to utilise video, but can't afford to get their business on TV.
Video adverts on the Internet have been restricted to large companies with big marketing budgets, however a new service Google AdWords for video will allow businesses to create their own highly-targeted videos using AdWords and videos on YouTube.
Google and other advertisers have previously priced video advertising on a cost per thousand for pre-roll ads – ads that appear before videos -, but advertisers will now be charged on a cost per view model, only paying for ads people watch.
AdWords for video links YouTube and AdWords together and gives advertisers the ability to put video in to various locations around the web including;
In-search - Your video appears in a special promoted section of the video search results pages on YouTube and Google video results
In-display - Your ads appear alongside other YouTube videos, or on websites on the Google Display Network that match your target audience.
In-stream – Which plays like a TV-style ad before, during or after another video from a YouTube partner
In-slate - In-slate ads show before YouTube partner videos that are 10 minutes or longer
For example if you run a hotel in Brighton then you can shoot a video tour of your rooms and promote it as a TV-style ad before other YouTube travel videos. Or put it next to video search results for "Brighton hotels," or on Brighton travel websites where holidaymakers will see it as they browse on their tablets, PCs, web TVs and smartphones.
The new ads are very flexible and advertisers will be able to target countries and locations in those countries eg United Kingdom or just viewers in London, chose languages to advertise to, add a companion banner, change the delivery methods and optimise for views or conversion, and cap the number of impressions the advert gets. Additionally the advertiser can target particular audiences, including age, gender, topics and user interests as well as keywords used.
"We think this has tremendous potential," group product manager on video monetisation at Google in the US, Baljeet Singh said. "We have had this in beta and we have already seen 10 times the number of advertisers."
