Google has this week unveiled a new UK auction-based video ad platform for YouTube based around the current YouTube Promoted Videos format, in an attempt to increase ad revenues and attract new advertisers.

YouTube Promoted Videos are YouTube videos – from movie trailers to product demos to really almost any kind of video on YouTube – promoted by their creators so they can reach a wider audience. (As described in the latest Inside AdSense blog, which can be found here: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/10/youtube-promoted-videos-to-appear-on.html)

Promoted Videos aren’t anything new – they’ve been helping video creators give their videos greater visibility on YouTube.com since November 2008 (although in the early stages, they went by their previous name of YouTube sponsored videos). What is new however, is Google’s decision to extend the visibility of Promoted Videos to its AdSense network, opening up a whole new wave of possibilities for advertisers.

With the popularity in YouTube advertising growing, and taking into account Google’s latest innovation, here at Epiphany, we’re asking, is this the future of paid search?

The Rise of YouTube and Promoted Videos

YouTube Overview:

• Officially launched in December 2005
• Now attracts over 14.6m unique users per month in the UK alone
• 6th largest audience on the internet

How does the current Promoted Videos platform work?

People are watching hundreds of millions of videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. In fact, every minute, 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.com.

With so much video footage at a YouTube visitor’s disposal, the author can often face the disappointment of seeing their ‘masterpiece’ suffer from a complete lack of visibility, or fail to meet their expectations. Promoted Videos work by giving individuals and businesses the ability to make their videos stand out from everybody else’s on YouTube.com. An advertiser targets specific search terms on a CPC-style auction, and when searches are made on YouTube.com, their video is given greater visibility as a Promoted video, with costs incurred when a user clicks on the video in question.

At present, Promoted Videos are highlighted in the related videos sections and also at the top of search results when certain keywords are triggered on YouTube.com.

How will Promoted Videos work on AdSense?

Through YouTube, advertisers will again be able to enter an auction-based platform but instead bid on contextually-based keywords they deem relevant to the messages in their video, brand or business in general (just as an advertiser currently would target Google’s content network in their Adwords campaign). The Promoted Videos will then be displayed across a range of websites in the AdSense network that Google deems relevant to your contextually-based terms. The videos would be served as thumbnail images with three lines of text and will only be served if there are enough advertisers entering the auction to display them. Should there not be enough advertisers bidding for YouTube Promoted Video slots, then standard text-based adverts will be served instead. When clicked, the user will be brought back to watch a video or view a channel on YouTube that had been previously created by the individual or business.

An example of such a video or channel is shown above. The whole channel is engineered around marketing their product with numerous links back to the brand’s website for further information.

What does this mean for the future of Paid Search?

The question that needs to be asked is why are so many individuals and businesses promoting their videos on YouTube at present? The answer is simple; firstly the exposure they gain, and secondly the message you are able to put across in a video far exceeds many of the other paid search methods at present. When you think of how you could promote yourself in 3 lines of a text ad compared to a 2 minute video about your business or product, there really is no comparison.

But that’s not to say that this form of targeting will eventually replace all forms of Paid search – there will always be a place for traditional search engine text ad campaigns. What it does bring however, is a new way of trying to engage the user, and Google have recognised this.

As YouTube say themselves, when people run a search, they think Google, when they want to view a video, they think YouTube. With the growth of TV content online through mediums such as BBC iPlayer and Channel 4’s 4oD, online video is big, and is only going to get bigger – the success of YouTube is testament to this.

With the success of YouTube promoted videos on YouTube.com it makes logical sense for Google to open this platform to the AdSense network. With Google’s AdSense network encompassing a huge network of websites covering many industries, age groups and themes, the potential for advertisers is frankly, huge.

Successful advertising on Google’s content network in our experience can vary depending on industries; for some it is very worthwhile, and for others it just doesn’t work. What has to be remembered when you are running a Content campaign is that the users didn’t arrive on that website you have targeted with the intention of clicking on an advert – they are there to browse the content of the website. Content network adverts therefore need to catch the eye in order to be effective, which can often be a struggle with only 3 lines of text to play with. Replace the traditional text ads with a YouTube video thumbnail and text alongside and suddenly your chances of engaging a user shoot up. Better still, when your advert receives a click, off you take them to YouTube to engage them for a further length of time with your video, in which you can broadcast all sorts of messages.

So is this the future of Paid search? It certainly looks like it’s going to have a big part to play. Especially so if advertisers seek to engage with their potential customers further, which is something we strive to do on behalf of all our clients, so you can count us in.