{"id":3593,"date":"2022-09-14T01:35:12","date_gmt":"2022-09-14T05:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/advertisingweek.com\/aw360\/2022\/09\/14\/how-to-promote-a-complex-product-on-youtube-inside-one-companys-winning-strategy\/"},"modified":"2022-09-14T01:35:12","modified_gmt":"2022-09-14T05:35:12","slug":"how-to-promote-a-complex-product-on-youtube-inside-one-companys-winning-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advertisingweek.com\/aw360\/news\/how-to-promote-a-complex-product-on-youtube-inside-one-companys-winning-strategy\/3593\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Promote a Complex Product on YouTube: Inside One Company\u2019s Winning Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Elizaveta Orekhovskaya and Artem Ryzhenkov, video advertising managers at global SaaS company Semrush, share the step-by-step plan behind their company\u2019s initiative to increase conversions with no additional budget.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

At this stage of the pandemic, everyone is familiar with the laundry list of challenges faced by companies around the world: nervous customers, employee churn, supply-chain bottlenecks, and so on. Like the COVID-19 variants themselves, these challenges continue to take\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\nnew forms<\/u>\n\n\n

In 2022, with many small- to mid-sized brands embracing digital advertising strategies for the first time, one key challenge is to break through the noise created by this shift in consumer behaviors and subsequent marketing activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

At Semrush, where our business is to help brands manage their visibility on the internet, we faced this very problem as we set out to promote our own niche product with a complex funnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

In 2022, with many small- to mid-sized brands embracing digital advertising strategies for the first time, one key challenge is to break through the noise created by the shift in consumer behaviors.<\/blockquote>\n

Our customers use the Semrush platform to optimize search engine results and market more effectively online. Our platform simplifies content creation, social media, campaign creation, and competitive intelligence. Our primary goal with our most recent digital marketing initiative was to increase conversions with no additional budget. Here\u2019s how we did it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Experiment early<\/h2>\n

We started out by investing in search and display traffic. Using keyword-based targeting, we identified an audience of users who were in-market for our product and began \u201cwarming up\u201d these potential customers with display visuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Then we sought new media environments where we could drive performance without going over budget. We chose YouTube as one of these channels, given video\u2019s proven ability to create a story about a product. Our marketing team had tried YouTube before, but as we will see in a moment, its results left something to be desired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Initially, we set up our YouTube campaigns manually, rather than automating them. We did this mostly to understand the available optimization metrics. We launched a number of videos and analyzed them based on cost per impression, cost per view, cost per click, and click-through rate. With this knowledge in hand, our team began automating campaigns using performance metrics, such as cost per acquisition (CPA) and conversion rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Our team then tested every possible audience type, ad format, and bidding strategy. We found that custom audiences worked better for promoting a specific product.<\/blockquote>\n

The next step was to develop a system for conversion and attribution tracking. Whereas we had previously attributed most ad conversions based on the click alone, we now added view-based attribution of YouTube ads using\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\nGoogle Campaign Manager<\/u>\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

With this change, YouTube\u2019s provable value as an ad channel \u2014 particularly at the customer attraction stage \u2014 was far more clear. And these placements assumed privilege of place among our other paid channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Our team then tested every possible audience type, ad format, and bidding strategy. We found that\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\ncustom audiences, here on Google Ads help,<\/u>

Make your creative simple and clear<\/h2>\n

Once the preliminary results were available, we set out to optimize our ad creatives and landing pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Olga Denisova, our VP for digital marketing, observed that a better conversion rate at each stage is achieved by having videos of a certain duration, type of content, degree of complexity, and format \u2014 that is, animated or with human actors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

For example, at the upper stages of the funnel, we used short videos of up to 15 seconds that featured the product and encouraged trials. For lower-funnel marketing, we presented lengthier videos \u2014 up to a minute long \u2014 with more detail about a specific product feature or customer success story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Based on this insight, Denisova and her team began optimizing our video creatives according to the audience\u2019s phase of purchase consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Our earlier video creatives had basic graphics with lots of text but lacked voice-over and dynamism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Before<\/h2>\n
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