Why Marketers Should Use Video Performance Ads?
NordVPN used performance ads on YouTube to drive conversions and increase brand presence and awareness.
In 2019, a Forbe’s article stated that “Performance video is the future of marketing”, thanks to features like higher conversion rates and reaching a wider audience. The same year, statistics showed 52% of marketers considered video to be the type of content with the best ROI.
It seemed that everyone was happy with video performance ads… everyone except NordVPN. In 2018, the company, one of the most trusted VPN service providers worldwide, was still skeptical about this format.
In a bid to reach new users, the company was relying heavily on Search, focusing on high-value markets including the USA, Australia, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, and Scandinavia. But NordVPN knew there was more to be done to increase brand awareness.
Join us as we take a look at this success case. One that strategically uses video performance ads and shows that a company can go from skeptic to believer if the strategy, targeting, and goals are done right.
THE CAMPAIGN
NordVPN wanted to drive conversions and increase brand presence and awareness but was skeptical about the effectiveness of video when it came to online conversions.
The company knew — as we all do — video was increasing popularity, but, according to Google, couldn’t get past some issues with the alignment of ad spend and concrete business goals. Also, NordVPN had had previous bad experiences with video campaigns and was not convinced video was the right path to drive conversions.
Still, the company knew it had to evolve and decided to give it a second chance: they agreed to test YouTube effectiveness in several markets. Google lent them a hand and invited their Paid Media team to attend a special YouTube training session.
Goals
- Test YouTube’s effectiveness in several markets
- Drive conversions and increase brand presence and awareness
The team explored how YouTube could help them take advantage of performance video ads, reach more users, secure more customers, and that this kind of campaign made tracking ROI possible.
Approach
- Customised video training with YouTube
- Strong focus on specific KPIs
- Align campaign spend with business goals
NordVPN started exploring with performance ads. The company started by adapting existing TV ads to quickly roll out campaigns on YouTube in five markets, including Nordics and Canada.
WHY VIDEO PERFORMANCE ADS
According to Google, more and more people are using the platform to research topics. The company also states 90% of people say they discover new products or brands on YouTube.
With users researching issues like Internet privacy by actively searching for topics like “what is a VPN?”, YouTube became the ideal platform for NordVPN to run ads.
The goal was to explore the platform as just not only a channel for entertainment but also a channel for education. The growing public interest in online security meant that the company had significant market potential.
“YouTube doesn’t just entertain, it educates”
Since YouTube and video performance ads are an optimal format to effectively convey messages, the path to success became clear for NordVPN in this subject. By positioning the brand as an expert in a category or niche, the company managed to get the message across.
The fact that consumers rely on video content during every step of the journey made the format and the platform used to run the campaign even more valuable from a performance point of view.
“Video advertising has changed. It’s no longer just about brand awareness and reach. It has become an effective and easy-to-use tool for performance campaigns” — Google
This new way of marketing based on performance opened a world of marketing exposure and value for NordVPN, making the company able to truly target campaigns in a strategic, high ROI way, all based on performance strategy.
“The lesson learned is that although some performance marketers can be initially skeptical of using video for customer conversion — hearts, minds, and budgets can be changed by sitting down, and showing them how video advertising has evolved” — Google
THE RESULTS
The company launched a highly successful YouTube campaign that delivered more conversions and pushed down the Cost Per Acquisition.
- 13K+ conversions in 30 days;
- On average 5–7 times lower Cost Per Acquisition;
- Significant lift in ad recall, consideration, and brand awareness resulting in a further boost in branded Search traffic.
In 30 days the campaigns delivered more than 13,000 conversions that were on average 5–7 times cheaper than their target Cost Per Acquisition in Search and Display ads. Alongside the trackable conversions, the campaigns delivered a significant lift in ad recall and brand awareness in the target markets.
The success of this campaign was so substantial that not only had an impact on NordVPN’s financial results but also transformed how the company saw video content and YouTube. Alongside this Marketing effort, NordVPN decided to expand its team and hired a full-time video curator to be responsible for the content on the brand’s YouTube channel. Additionally, a member of their PPC team was appointed to focus on YouTube advertising.
“We were skeptical about video at first, but finding ways to measure the results has changed everything. NoKAMw it’s an integral part of our digital marketing portfolio,” said Marty P. Kamden, NordVPN’s Chief Marketing Officer.
NordVPN went from skeptical of using video for customer conversion to a true believer in the effectiveness of video advertising and video content production. Nowadays, besides advertising on YouTube, the company manages a channel with more than 44K YouTube subscribers that shares videos every week — from cybersecurity tutorials to how-tos about the service they provide and tips to avoid online dangers.
WHY SHOULD MARKETERS USE PERFORMANCE ADS?
Performance Marketing is as it sounds — marketing based on performance.
This form of advertising is responsible for completely changing the way marketers measure the success of marketing campaigns. Today, performance marketing campaigns provide measurable results, like clicks on ads, ad impressions, leads, and sales on the website, to more effectively track performance and ROI.
Performance-base advertising has several benefits, including easy-to-track performance, low risk, and being ROI-focused, among others like:
- Better planning and easier to budget campaigns;
- Near-instant results and insight into performance;
- Increase awareness;
- Higher exposure to fresh audiences;
- Access to extensive data;
- Real-time insights and tracking.
But the main benefit of performance marketing is that it’s 100% measurable — which means less risk for the advertiser. Also, campaigns begin to generate data the moment they launch making it possible to instantly keep track of analytics and metrics to determine which sources of traffic are performing best, and then allocate ad funds accordingly.
Concerning performance ads on YouTube, measurement technology has become much more sophisticated, with marketers now being able to track conversions from digital video across different screens.
According to Robert Glazer, Acceleration Partners CEO, performance video is transforming the marketing world because the format gets higher conversation rates, reaches new audiences, and works on new platforms.
“Featuring more relevant content in an easy to package format, performance video is perfect for the modern marketplace” — Robert Glazer
There’s no denying video advertising has changed to become an effective tool for performance campaigns.
By being open to test this format’s effectiveness and give it another go, NordVPN was able to witness the power of performance ads on YouTube. It seems the key-element was having extensive knowledge about the subject to be able to create a robust strategy that ended being successful — contrary to previous efforts.
Video advertising has become an effective tool for performance campaigns and although some performance marketers can be initially skeptical of using video for customer conversion, success cases like these prove that, in fact, the results are real and attainable.
See the full NordVPN Case Study on Think With Google.
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