Last updated on July 12th, 2020 at 07:47 pm
What kinds of data can you find in YouTube Analytics? How can you best use TrueView for e-commerce?
HOSTS:
- Dane Golden: VidAction.tv | Twitter | LinkedIn
- Jake Larsen: Video Power Marketing | YouTube | Twitter
Tip #1: What Kinds of Data Can You Find in YouTube Analytics?
Cue dramatic music: Dane Golden says that, yes, you know about the world of YouTube videos. It’s an all-singing, all-dancing world where dreams come true, where everyone is famous, where products and services are promoted and fortunes made. YouTube is a place so incredible that we can help cure disease by simply pouring ice water over our heads. It is indeed a magical place.
But today Dane tells us about the other YouTube, the reality behind the fun. He wants to tell us about what happens when you take the red pill and find out what’s really going on in a place he likes to call “YouTube Analytics.”
This is a world we see every day, but yet we do not see. Maybe we just don’t want to. But let’s say you have taken the red pill, what will you find? You will find the true, gritty reality of the numbers that make YouTube happen. … end dramatic music.
With YouTube Analytics, you can learn about audience engagement, traffic sources are driving to your videos – and if you’re a creator, your AdSense earnings. You can sort by video, date, and geography.
Dane’s favorite feature, “Audience retention,” will show a heat map that tracks every second of the video to see when people are leaving. He likes to track which point in the video it drops below 50% audience retention. This feature will also split out how long viewers who watch via TrueView In-stream (pre-roll) vs. organic viewers. This can help you learn how effective your videos are in relation to their content, style and length, as you can track it to the exact part of your video where you are losing audience. This is truly an unsung, incredible feature.
Under “Engagement reports” you can also see how many people liked or commented on a particular video, and which videos got users to subscribe. And much more. So Dane encourages you to take the red pill, and look at your channel’s YouTube Analytics.
Jake Larsen’s favorite metric is “Traffic sources,” which tells you where users were immediately before they came to your video.
Find out more: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1714323
Tip #2: How Can You Best Use TrueView for E-commerce?
One of Jake Larsen’s clients, Real Truck, sells truck accessories. Before working with him they were doing PPC (pay per click) advertising where they were doing well. And they were looking to build on that, so they tried skippable YouTube ads (TrueView in-stream). They did a $5,000 campaign but got no customers from it.
When Jake began working with them he quickly identified the problem. He helped them revise their approach and ran a $10,000 campaign which resulted in $70,000 in sales. The problem? Real Truck was just making videos for people to watch, rather than building the videos around the click. Building videos around the click is Jake’s secret sauce. Because when you’re talking about YouTube advertising you have five seconds to get the viewer’s attention. And you’re spending money, so you don’t just want people to watch. The goal is to get people off YouTube and on to your landing page or website as quickly as possible.
Jake asked them to instead have a person in the video from the start, addressing the audience with a qualifying statement such as (paraphrasing): “Hey, do you own a truck. If not, skip this ad, because we don’t want to talk to you.” The client’s customers are truck owners, they don’t want to talk with anyone who is not because they will waste their ad spend. Then they said “Click now to see our deal of the day” or “Click now to see our best deals.”
The Formula:
- Call out who your target person is.
- Get their attention
- Show them the value
- Give them a call to action. Give the viewer an actual button, a physical-looking button to press. Give them something to do.
Jake builds videos around the action. His philosophy is “Click It Or Skip It: either way you win.” as an advertiser. Because not everyone is a potential customer. If uninterested people skip the ad, it’s a good thing. It prevents you from wasting your ad spend on people who will probably never buy your product. Jake says this doesn’t have to be a big spend – a few hundred dollars a month is sufficient. You can start small, anyone can do it.
