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author
Erik Newton
M Posted 8 years ago
t 5 min read

YouTube marketing is a great strategy. YouTube is a solid resource for reaching broad audiences and introducing the brand. The platform has an estimated one billion users from around the world. A well-maintained video channel can help brands promote their story and increase their reputation as thought leaders and innovators in the industry. You can see the BrightEdge YouTube channel. Youtube marketing logo black - brightedge For many brands, however, the chief frustration with YouTube comes from taking the engagement that occurs on the platform and translating it directly into measurable results. Countless people browse YouTube videos, stop to watch particular ones that they find interesting and then click away to look at other, related videos. The brand is left wondering the about the amount of influence that video had on the person and their interest in the company. On top of that, video is probably the most demanding content to produce. With a little bit of technical prowess, companies can actually create a clickable overlay for their YouTube videos that will provide easy access for interested visitors to visit the brand website and learn more about the company. Best of all, this process is completely free.

The value of YouTube marketing and free video overlay

When thinking about YouTube advertising or marketing, this system of creating the overlay through Google Adwords now gives you even more insight into your viewers’ behavior while they are on YouTube. Since video watches will be tracked as a part of the campaign, you can see valuable information such as how many people are watching the video all the way through and how many impressions your ad had. This insight will help you understand how well your YouTube marketing strategy is and how your videos are reaching your intended audience on the platform. You will be able to better target your optimization efforts as well as gauge the scripts and actors for your videos to see how well they engage the audience. By creating a clickable overlay for your videos, you will also have the opportunity to further interact with your audience and learn more about them after they finish the video. With the ability to track traffic coming from your videos, you will have a much better picture of which videos are not only engaging customers, but motivating them to learn more about the brand. There is a difference between a video that people find entertaining but then results in little future engagement with the company and one that inspires people to investigate the organization to see if this is the business that can solve their problem. When you bring YouTube viewers to your website, you will be able to track their movements and invite them to convert into leads. This will empower you to collect data about what your video audience is most interested in learning and see how well you are addressing their needs. You can compare the performance of different videos and monitor the behavior of users who arrive from the various links. This will all offer you greater insight into how to improve your YouTube channel and make yourself more relevant to your intended audience.

Video Overlay Directions

Creating a free overlay for your YouTube videos requires a Google Adwords account in addition to your YouTube account. Here is what you will need to do:

Make sure your Google Adwords account is linked to your YouTube account. This is an important step for YouTube marketing. You can do this by logging into your Adwords and looking under the Shared Library section. There will be a Linked YouTube Accounts button you can click.

video marketing for youtube - brightedge

Create a New Video Campaign through your YouTube account. At the bottom of your YouTube page, there is a link that says, ‘Advertise’. Begin a new campaign to get started.

understanding video marketing - brightedge

You will need to mock-set up the ad campaign. Since this is not going to be run like a traditional campaign, it does not really matter what settings you select. Set the bid to the lowest amount.

video marketing advertisements for youtube - brightedge

Link this new video campaign to the YouTube video that you want to use to display the banner. You will need the URL from this video. After you make your pretend bid, click through until you see the button for a new video ad. Click on this, and where it says ‘select a video’, you can put in the URL.

On the next page, you want to select ‘Let me choose’. This will enable you to select YouTube Videos and In-display. Everything else on this page is not needed. You can fill in the rest of the ad attributes with anything you desire. Once this step is completed, save your progress so far.

Pause this campaign by going to the campaign dashboard.

Finally, add your overlay by going to the Videos tab. This will allow you to select ‘add call-to-action overlay’. Here is where you design the ad that you actually want to have appear on your video, so pay attention to your text.

Monitor your campaign to see how well your overlay and your videos are performing.

And as always, you should do proper video on-page efforts: keywords in the title, metatags, and a detailed description to help the video appear in YouTube and search engine SERPs. You can also add a link to your site in the description, but it is a NoFollow. This process of creating a YouTube video overlay is a fantastic way for brands to not only better monitor how their videos are performing and the engagement levels of their audience, but to also see how well those videos are translating into interested customers. By following these simple steps, you can empower your ad campaign and gain the insight you need to reach your YouTube marketing goals.