Author Archives: Nicole Burgan

It’s Now Easier than Ever to Find the Right Google Partner

Three years ago we launched Google Partners to help businesses connect with online professionals and agencies. Top Partners began earning their Google Partner badge by demonstrating their business was healthy, their clients were happy, and they were up to date with the latest product knowledge.


Since then, we received a number of requests from our Partners asking for a way to further differentiate themselves. Today, we’re excited to share the addition of Google Partner specializations.


 


The new feature is embedded into the Google Partner badge and designed to help businesses identify the right Partner for their specific business needs.


Partners can earn specializations in 5 areas of expertise:
  • Search
  • Mobile
  • Video
  • Display
  • Shopping


To earn a specialization, badged Partners will need at least one certified individual and a history of consistent product performance.


“The changes to the Google Partner program are exciting for potential advertisers and our company,” says Neal Gann, CEO of Showroom Logic. “These new specializations show Google’s commitment to better serve their Partners and help us highlight what makes our technology and team so unique. It should also help prospective clients make a clear choice because it's now easier for them to find top Partners that are aligned with their immediate goals.”


Additionally, we’re introducing a new Premier Google Partner badge.




The new badge is designed to recognize Partners who manage a substantial portfolio of Google advertising campaigns and deliver great results for their customers. Premier Partners will be required to maintain additional certification requirements and will receive increased support from Google.


"Google identifying and recognizing highly experienced agencies is a great step and a distinctive honor. We are thrilled to be a part of the new designation and look forward to displaying this badge," shares Joe Chura, CEO of Launch Digital Marketing.


We hope these updates will help businesses find the right Partner for their needs and allow our Partners to better differentiate themselves. Learn more at the new Google Partners homepage.


Posted by Allan Thygesen, VP Global Sales & Operations




6 Online Video Insights from comScore to Inform Your 2017 Media Plan

As marketers kick off 2017 planning, consumer preference for online video is higher than ever. Today’s study from comScore, commissioned by Google, shows that adults are 30% more likely to prefer online video platforms over TV when given a choice where to watch video content. Does your media plan reflect that kind of preference?

If online video is your audience’s priority, it should be your media plan’s priority, too. We dug into the recent study and came up with six things to keep in mind about this changing audience as you develop your 2017 plan:

1. They Prefer Online Video Platforms to TV

The popularity of online video continues to grow. Today, when given a choice where to watch video, adults prefer online video platforms 30% more than watching on TV. Among millennials, that number jumps to 105%.
2. People Watching Long & Short-Form Video Prefer YouTube

Among viewers that watch both long and short-form content, 81% cite a preference for YouTube, making it the #1 choice. Compare that to the next-highest choice, TV, which earned just 56% of viewer votes.

3. They Choose YouTube Over Other Online Video Providers

YouTube also wins when compared to other online video providers. When asked to pick one online video platform, 48% of adults chose YouTube (vs. 29% for Netflix and 10% for Facebook):
4. Viewers Take Action on Video Ads, Especially on Short-Form Content

Online video has forever changed the media landscape, with more than half of all people regularly watching short-form videos (like branded content or viral videos), and two-thirds of millennials watching short-form weekly.

That’s good news for brands: comScore’s research shows viewers are more likely to take action after watching ads on short-form content compared to traditional content (like movies and tv shows). Taking action could include sharing on social media, looking for more information about the brand advertised, recommending the brand or product, etc.

5. They Prefer YouTube for Branded Content and Videos Uploaded by Users.

We already heard that adults who watch short and long-form content prefer YouTube, but it’s also preferred across multiple content types. For example, 74% of adults prefer YouTube for videos uploaded by users and—critically—69% prefer YouTube for videos uploaded by brands, companies, and institutions.

6. YouTube Super-users May Surprise You

The final part of comScore’s research examined YouTube’s most passionate fans—“die hards”—and they aren’t who you might expect. Many are parents, live in a city, and 49% are women:
Posted by:
Celie O'Neil-Hart, Product Marketing Manager, YouTube B2B
Howard Blumenstein, Product Marketing Manager, Strategy and Insights, YouTube B2B

Need Help Navigating The World of Video? We got you covered.

We’re announcing the launch of the YouTube Brand Partner Program Certification (youtube.com/certified) live from two of the year’s biggest advertising industry events -- The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France and VidCon in Anaheim, California.
Three years ago, we created the YouTube Brand Partner Program to provide inspiration, education, and support for marketers looking to build content strategies for YouTube. Since then, we’ve welcomed leading brands from all over the world around the globe into the initiative and watched their creative teams adapt our frameworks into innovative campaigns.


As watch time on YouTube continues to grow year over year, advertisers are taking note of trends and embracing originality when it comes to their content. The old saying about content being king continues to ring true whether you’re posting game reviews, comedy sketches, political discourse, or, you guessed it, promoting brands. The stats back it up, too. New research released by Pixability today shows the top 100 brands garnered 50 percent more views this year than last.


Now, we want to continue empowering the agency community to lead the charge by providing easy-to-follow lessons so anyone can construct impressive content campaigns no matter how experienced.


The YouTube Brand Partner Program Certification is an online curriculum designed to equip agencies with the knowledge and tools they need to design effective video content strategies. From publishing frameworks, to how to best partner with YouTube creators, to campaign optimization, the certification provides a guided learning path that will help agencies create successful YouTube content and distribution strategies for their clients. It will be available online for agencies across the globe in 22 languages.


We’ve tapped YouTube thought leaders, as well as popular YouTube creators, such as Hannah Hart, MysteryGuitarMan, Veritasium, My Cupcake Addiction, and Flavia Calina so you get insight straight from the best in the business. Instructors use personal anecdotes and real-life experiences to share best practices for a firsthand account of what works best.


Among the first agencies to sign up for the program as an early adopter was MEC’s Wavemaker who also made a commitment to certify all employees globally in the coming months.


“The launch of the YouTube Brand Partner Program Certification is incredibly timely and exciting for MEC," Global COO Alastair Aird said, "With MEC Wavemaker we have a different kind of content offer, one that helps our clients see exactly what role content and platforms play in their customers’ lives and how that will directly impact their brand’s performance.  
It’s different because we have the data to identify precisely what consumer behaviour needs to change along the purchase journey and create content that’s specifically designed to make that change happen.  Equipping our people with the necessary knowledge to design the most effective video content is key to our service to clients.”

Marketing is evolving. Agencies are leading that change. And YouTube is here to help. If your agency would like to request an invitation to the program, please reach out to your representative or submit your information here.


-Torrence Boone

VP, Global Agency Sales & Services




Your art, our science: Video creative that drives impact on YouTube

With more than a billion viewers each month, YouTube is the place the world chooses to watch. As a platform dedicated to sight, sound and motion, great video ads work well here.  Whether they’re 30 second spots built for TV, 4 minute short films, or 6 second bumper ads, we work to make every video ad have the greatest Watchtime, Audibility, Viewability and Engagement (WAVE), to help ensure you get the full impact of your work.

As thousands of creatives gather at Cannes Lions this week, many are thinking about what makes great video ad creative. Great storytelling in the digital age is both art and science. While we prefer to leave the art up to you, our science has shown that the ads that tend to work best on YouTube are the ones that tend to work best for today’s viewing experience. Whether you are building for our TrueView in-stream ads, which let viewers skip after 5 seconds, or for TV, today’s viewers are impatient. They have a trigger finger on their phone, tablet or remote.  So you better catch their attention right from the start.  

In multiple research studies we did last year, which analyzed hundreds of TrueView campaigns, we saw four key elements emerge:

  • Brand placement matters: Ads that showed the brand visually in the first 5 seconds had higher ad recall and brand awareness lift.
  • No sound? Less impact: We tested 280 campaigns and found that among users exposed to ads with both sight and sound, ad recall had a lift of 43%. Among users exposed to video ads that had no sound, ad recall was significantly lower at 31%.1
  • Calls to action drive impact: We saw higher brand awareness lift among ads with clear calls to action, such as an invitation to visit a YouTube channel or brand website.
  • Time counts: We found that there is a consistent relationship between how long an ad is viewable and increase in brand awareness and consideration. The longer a user views your ad, the higher the lift in these two metrics.
  
All of these factors help ensure engagement. On average, we’ve seen that viewers who completed TrueView ads are 23x more likely to visit or subscribe to a brand channel, watch more by that brand, or share the brand video. And you can amp up Brand Lift results by targeting great video ads on top channels through Google Preferred. When you combine these, you can ‘ride the WAVE to success.’  

For more insights on video creative, check out our latest Unskippable Labs Experiment with Mondelez International and Droga5. If you’re in Cannes this week, swing by our lightning talk,  Advertising in an Age of Infinite Choice, and come relax at #YouTubeBeach.

Posted by Kate Stanford, Head of Global Advertiser Marketing at YouTube

Highlights from Tonight’s YouTube Brandcast Event: What’s Next for Google Preferred


Tonight, YouTube hosted our fifth annual Brandcast in New York, our digital Newfronts event, where we showcase the best of YouTube to advertisers and agencies. With a little help from Big Bird, the Whip Nae Nae, and Sia, we showed that YouTube is where the world chooses to watch: on mobile alone, we now reach more 18-49 year-olds in the U.S. than any broadcast or cable TV network.[1]


As a result, our influence is greater than ever. In fact, nearly 60 percent of YouTube subscribers say they’d follow a YouTube creator’s advice on what to buy over that of their favorite TV or movie star. And the influence of YouTube stars continues to grow—last year, 6 in 10 of the most influential celebrities among teens were YouTubers, and this year that number jumped to 8 in 10.


To help brands capture some of this momentum, we have a premium content offering called Google Preferred that features creators like Lilly Singh, sWooZie and Laura Vitale. Organized into 13 lineup categories—including Comedy, Music, and Food & Recipes—Google Preferred is easy to buy and gives advertisers access to the most-loved and most-watched content on YouTube. In fact, Google Preferred reaches more people in the U.S. on mobile than all full episode players combined.[2] And, we announced at Brandcast that Google Preferred just got better. Here’s how:


1. More Can’t-Miss Moments With Google Preferred Breakout Videos


Pop culture moments like the Harlem Shake and Let It Go are as unexpected as they are popular. While Google Preferred gives brands access to established creator channels, our new Breakout Videos offering lets them advertise on emerging content—the hottest and fastest-rising videos on YouTube. With the launch of Google Preferred Breakout Videos in the U.S., brands can be there alongside the next breakout star.


2. More Ease and Relevance With Programmatic Guaranteed for Google Preferred


To make it even easier to be there in the moment viewers are watching, upfront buyers will soon be able to execute their Google Preferred—and Breakout Videos—buy programmatically through DoubleClick Bid Manager. This means all video campaigns (including TrueView, Google Preferred, and cross-exchange) can be managed in one place.


3. More Sports Fans with NBA Highlights on Google Preferred


NBA Commissioner Adam Silver also took to the Brandcast stage to announce that NBA inventory is now part of Google Preferred. Top NBA highlights will surface in Google Search and on YouTube, offering brands access to the NBA’s loyal fan base across screens. In addition, the NBA will soon launch two new VR series on YouTube that give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at team arenas and their favorite players.


4. More Great Results for Brands


With new additions like Breakout Videos, Programmatic Guaranteed, and NBA highlights, Google Preferred will keep delivering massive reach, and strong results for brands.


Already this year, among the Google Preferred campaigns we measured, 75 percent drove lifts in consideration[3] and 61 percent drove lifts in favorability.[4] Google Preferred is driving results later in the consumer journey, too: it raised purchase intent in two-thirds of campaigns.[5]


Results like these have encouraged nearly twice the number of brands in the U.S. to take advantage of Google Preferred in the last year.[6]


Chime in with your Google Preferred questions and comments on #Brandcast, and check out six questions every brand should consider after Brandcast. We’ll post even more content after the show on the Brandcast website.


Posted by Kate Stanford, Head of Global Advertiser Marketing at YouTube

This post originally appeared on the YouTube Blog.

[1] Google-commissioned Nielsen study U.S., Dec. 2015. Audience Reach among Persons 18-49 for YouTube (mobile only) and 124 individual U.S. cable & broadcast networks (TV only)
[2] Google/Millward Brown Digital Google Preferred Mobile Clickstream Analysis US, October 2015 (Full episode players on mobile browser or app include: Netflix, HBO, Hulu, NBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, sourced from the 20,000 person Mobile Compete Clickstream Panel)
[3] Google Preferred Brand Lift Meta Analysis, 2015 and Q1 2016. Results for 242 US Google Preferred Consideration Studies
[4] Google Preferred Brand Lift Meta Analysis, 2015 and Q1 2016. Results for 44 US Google Preferred Favorability Studies
[5] Google Preferred Brand Lift Meta Analysis, 2015 and Q1 2016. Results for 80 US Google Preferred Purchase Intent studies.
[6] Google data, US, Q1 2016 vs Q1 2015

Join us as we announce the latest Ads and Analytics innovations on May 24th

Tune in live to the Google Performance Summit Keynote on Tuesday, May 24 at 9am PT / 12pm ET to hear the latest Ads and Analytics innovations.


We live in exciting times when technology seems to upend everything as we know, every few years. And nothing has changed consumer behavior and business innovation as much as the mobile phone. People are attached to their phones, tapping and swiping their way through places to go, stuff to buy, and things to do. This presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to connect with customers in more meaningful, relevant ways. And Google is a key partner for advertisers, providing the media and tools to help you make those connections and measure the results.

To ensure we are building the right products for consumers and businesses all around the world, my team and I make it a priority to regularly visit our ads and analytics customers. Last year, we met with advertisers in India, Japan, China, the UK and Germany, and gained new insights from every country.

For example, in Europe, we learned that universal app campaigns are effective at growing installs across a broad range of app users. Now, advertisers want the ability to reach very specific audiences. In Asia, home to three of the five top smartphone markets, advertisers asked for more control and flexibility on mobile devices for both creatives and bidding. And in every country we visited, we saw customers working hard to integrate data from across their organizations and transform it into actionable insights. Marketers want better data to understand the customer journey across devices, contexts and channels.

We were all grateful for these insights and have been using them to build a whole new generation of Ads and Analytics products. We look forward to sharing many new innovations with you at the Google Performance Summit on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 9am PT / 12pm ET.

Register for the livestream here.

Until then, follow us on our +GoogleAds page for sneak previews of what’s to come.

Posted by Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce

YouTube Goes to the Movies

With the Oscars® upon us this weekend, the competition is fierce. Will this finally be Leonardo DiCaprio’s year? Who will take home the Oscar for Best Picture?
As the world gets ready for Hollywood’s biggest night of the year, we partnered with Pixability to analyze the characteristics of the movie space on YouTube, where viewers are watching and engaging with their favorite film content. Here are some of the findings:
The Movie Space on YouTube
People are tuning in to YouTube to watch all types of movie content, across all genres. Of the top movie content on YouTube, trailers are the most popular followed by clips and reviews.1 And, among those trailers, fantasy trailers have the most user engagement, including likes, comments, and shares, followed by action trailers.1
“Most internet platforms feature marketing as interruption, while YouTube remains a platform of engagement for advertisers promoting content. It is still, by far, the go-to destination for people who want to find the latest movie trailers,” said Rob Davis, Executive Director of Social and Content at OgilvyOne.
Trailers are a great way for studios and other creators to tell their stories and get moviegoers excited. Pixability found that fans are significantly amplifying the conversation by posting their favorite trailers on their own YouTube channels, generating nearly as many views and engagements as studio content.1
Not surprisingly, Pixability also found that publishing of movie content peaks on YouTube during the summer blockbuster and holiday seasons,1 which is also when awards season kicks into high gear.1
YouTube Movie Trailers Leaderboard: Oscars 2016
With the Oscars just a few days away, we also took a look at how fans engaged with the eight best picture nominees on YouTube.  In 2015, the top performing trailers from each nominee have collectively been watched over 200 million minutes on YouTube -- that’s over 3.3 million hours,2 or the equivalent of nearly a million Oscar telecasts. So, which of the nominees walks away with the top spot according to fans on YouTube?


And the envelope goes to.... “The Revenant," which took home the #1 spot from YouTube viewers on our Oscar Trailers Leaderboard. Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian followed.2


For the full list, grab some popcorn and visit Think with Google.


1. Pixability, all time global data (2005 - Feb 2016)
2. YouTube Analytics. For nominees with more than one trailer in 2015, the most popular trailer was counted. Ranked in order of views including studio channels and some of the most popular trailer aggregators. Videos uploaded between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015. Global views from YouTube Analytics as of February 14, 2016.

And the winner is… #TheYouTubeAd of 2015

In partnership with The Webby Awards, we selected 25 of the most iconic ads on YouTube in 2015 based on this year’s YouTube Ads Leaderboard. And for the first week of December, we asked you to vote on your favorites across five fun categories -- and vote, you did! Nominees, marketers and fans alike came out in droves to vote (and tweet) to get your favorite videos to the top.

We’re pleased to share the results of the first-ever #TheYouTubeAd of 2015 contest:

Category: #TheYouTubeAd That Restores Your Faith in Humanity
Compassion. Understanding. Imagination. Which spot reminded you that we're all in this together?
Winner: Imagine The Possibilities | Barbie (BBDO, Starcom)





Category: #TheYouTubeAd That Gets You Going 
It's the ad that made you want to live the dream, put yourself out there, live for today. You voted for the ad that inspired you most. 
Winner: Always #LikeAGirl - Unstoppable (Leo Burnett, Starcom MediaVest Group)





Category: #TheYouTubeAd That Gives You Feels 
You're not emotional. It's just allergies. It's dust in your eye. You voted for the ad that created the biggest feels. 
Winner: Extra Gum: The Story of Sarah & Juan (Energy BBDO, Starcom Mediavest Group, Mediacom) 





Category: #TheYouTubeAd That’s Your Guilty Pleasure 
You know you want it even though you shouldn't. You voted for the ad you can't help but indulge in. 
Winner: Justin Bieber for Calvin Klein (Calvin Klein In-House) 





Category: #TheYouTubeAd You Wish You Were In 
It's time to live vicariously through someone else's imagination. You voted for the ad you most wish you could have been in. 
Winner: Omaze and After-School All-Stars: Arnold Pranks Fans as the Terminator...for Charity (Omaze In-House)




Thank you for voting and congratulations to the winners! And if you just can’t get enough of the top ads of the year, dive into the 2015 Year-End YouTube Ads Leaderboard.

Celebrate and Vote for #TheYouTubeAd of 2015

From realizing pipe dreams, to imagining possibilities and removing labels, the best YouTube ads of 2015 were full of energy and feeling. Viewers have been moved, enticed, entertained and surprised by the ads that top creative agencies have delivered this year.
We’ve partnered with The Webby Awards to select 25 nominees based on this year’s YouTube Ads Leaderboard for the most iconic ads of 2015 -- and now you get to cast your ballot for your favorites.

We’ve selected a few fun categories to highlight how some of the best of ads of 2015 have made us all laugh, cry, think, and feel inspired. Starting today, you can vote for:
  • #TheYouTubeAd You Wish You Were In
  • #TheYouTubeAd That Gets You Going
  • #TheYouTubeAd That’s Your Guilty Pleasure
  • #TheYouTubeAd That Gives You Feels
  • #TheYouTubeAd That Restores Your Faith in Humanity

Voting runs through December 8th - and you can help your favorites reach the top by voting once for each category everyday.

Winners will be announced on December 9th.

Dynamic creative comes to Google Web Designer

As the holiday season gets underway, you're likely focused on reaching holiday shoppers as they browse for gifts for their family and friends. Dynamic creative strategies are key to getting the most relevant messages and products in front of these shoppers. But with consumers' increased usage of mobile devices, you need to build your dynamic creative in HTML5, and this confluence of technologies can lead to complexity.

Streamlining production of dynamic creative in Google Web Designer

To make it easier for you to build relevant and engaging cross-screen creative, we're excited to announce the launch of simplified workflows in Google Web Designer that make it even easier to build dynamic creative in HTML5. You can now easily choose which data signals/feed attributes to connect to each dynamic element, pulling directly from the dynamic profile you've set up in DoubleClick Studio.
We've already seen some teams find success with the new dynamic workflow. Kaymu, one of the largest online retail marketplaces for emerging markets, used Google Web Designer to build an HTML5 dynamic remarketing campaign and show relevant products to shoppers. This strategy drove a 580% increase in CTR compared to their previous, non-HTML5, non-dynamic campaign, and the team's dynamic creative build time dropped from 3 days to 10 minutes.
CyberAgent, a media agency based in Japan, also used Google Web Designer for a recent dynamic remarketing campaign. To provide the time needed to focus on the creative strategy, the team first automated the bidding and targeting for the campaign. They then could build and test several dynamic templates, using advanced animations and multiple dynamic elements. Ultimately, these advanced creatives led to a 40% higher CTR and a 28% lower CPC compared to the previous dynamic remarketing campaign that didn't use Google Web Designer.
In addition to the new dynamic support in Google Web Designer, we're also excited to launch:
  • Animation improvements, which help you build smooth animations
  • Updates to our text authoring capabilities, which make editing and manipulating the text in your ad units much easier and more intuitive
  • Two new components in our components gallery: a Spritesheet component, so you can more easily build out your spritesheets, and a Streetview component, so you can add location-based imagery to your ads. (We've kept this component separate from the Google Maps component to help you keep your file sizes smaller.)

Upcoming Google Web Designer Hangout on Air

Want to learn more about the new features? Sign up for one of our Hangouts on Air. Sean Kranzberg, Engineering Manager for Google Web Designer, will walk through the new features and take your questions.
  • Wednesday, Dec. 9th @ 12pm ET / 9am PT. RSVP here
  • Thursday, Dec. 10th @ 5pm PT / Friday, Dec. 11th @ 12pm Sydney time (APAC Friendly time) RSVP here
Posted by Becky Chappell
Product Marketing Manager, Google Web Designer