Google Ads Tutorials: Creating Video action campaigns

Whether you're looking to generate leads, website traffic or online purchases, YouTube can drive results across the entire customer journey. This is done with: 1. Video action campaigns, a clickable video format that automatically scales across YouTube and its partners.

2. High intent audience types that help you reach the right people at the right time. And 3.

Conversion measurement that helps you understand the full value of your campaign. In this video, you'll learn how to set up your video action campaigns for success. Video action campaigns encourage engaged customers to take action by learning more about your product, asking for a quote, or even adding a product to their cart.

Thanks to a clickable and customizable call-to-action button that leads directly to your website. Video action campaigns allow your ads to scale to top converting places across YouTube and its partners. This added inventory allows you to optimize across more audiences than before.

Video action campaigns also incorporate Google machine learning to serve your ads to customers who are most likely to convert by optimizing and automating the process. Video action campaigns require Google Ads conversion tracking in order to measure all relevant conversions coming from your campaigns. For more guidance on measuring video action campaigns, watch our measurement Google Ads Tutorial.

Let's get started. In the campaigns tab click the “plus” button and start a “New campaign” As a first step, select your campaign goal. Select “Sales,” “Leads” or “Website traffic” goal.

Choose “Video” as your campaign type and click “Continue” Enter a name for your campaign. Don't forget to set your targeted languages and location. Now set your bidding strategy.

Video action campaigns work only with “Target CPA” or “Maximize conversions”. Choose “Target CPA” if you already know your desired CPA. If your primary goal is to drive as many conversions as possible, start with “Maximize conversions” bidding.

To set your Target CPA, use the recommendations supplied by Google Ads. Now set your daily budget. If you're using “Target CPA”, it's recommended that your daily budget is at least ten times your “Target CPA.

” If you're using “Maximize conversions” as your bidding strategy, it's recommended that your daily budget is at least ten times your expected CPA. These budget settings allow enough conversions for smart bidding to adjust and learn. You can set the start and end dates of your campaign if needed.

Many advertisers use this type of campaign as an always on campaign, in which case there's no need to define dates. Note: There's a learning period of up to 14 days to reach peak optimization. This can be shorter for campaigns with higher conversion volumes.

Add “Sitelink” extensions to your campaign to make your ads more actionable. You can select existing sitelinks or add new ones. Now enter a name for your ad group.

When thinking about your audience strategy, start your first campaign with high intent audiences like Remarketing, Custom audiences, and Customer match. These audiences tend to have a lower CPAs to reach more potential customers, ensure you're opted into “Audience expansion”. For more guidance on audience strategy, refer to our Google Ads tutorial on audiences.

Scroll down to create your video ad. Enter the “Final URL”. Enter a 10-character “Call-to-action”.

This should be compelling and direct people to the website specified in the Final URL. Enter your 15 character headline. This will appear as the primary line of text that promotes your product or service.

In video action campaigns, you can also enter a long headline and description that will show on some ad placements that allow for more text. Use the preview on the right hand side to see what your ad looks like across different formats, places and devices. Before moving forward, review the estimates on the right.

If traffic seems too low, you might want to raise your bid or budget to ensure your campaign serves. Then click “Create campaign”. Adding more ad variations can help the system optimize.

That is why we suggest creating at least five variants of your video ad to allow the system to experiment and show the better performing variants more often. These five variants could be different creative assets or even the same creative with different call-to-actions or headlines. After your campaign starts running, it's important to wait 7 to 14 days to allow smart bidding to adjust before making any changes.

For more step-by-step videos on Google Ads implementation and optimization, check out Google Ads tutorial. If you have any questions or for more information, please visit Google Ads Help Center.