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With over 2 billion users, YouTube is the place to be when trying to reach a large audience with video content.

But after you’ve uploaded those fantastic videos to your channel, how will you gauge what’s working well and what could use some improvement and optimization? 

That’s where YouTube metrics come in. After all, it doesn’t make sense to spend hours upon hours creating a beautiful video to have it seen by only a handful of people.

This article outlines why you need to keep track of YouTube metrics, which ones are most valuable, and how to get the most from this ongoing exercise.

Let’s get into it!

Why You Need to Track YouTube Metrics

Yes, YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine, which is why video is becoming an increasingly important part of the modern marketing mix. But putting all that effort into content creation doesn’t make sense if you ignore how it’s performing.

And while it may seem like a hassle to keep track of numbers, it’s the only way to get ahead of the competition. Think about it– identifying any data trends helps you to uncover a winning formula for sustainable YouTube success.

By monitoring YouTube metrics and setting KPIs, you’ll understand the following:

• Who’s watching your videos
• The average amount of time viewers look at your videos
• How often actions are taken (e.g., whether a viewer clicks the website link you included,
• or navigate to other videos on your channel)
• What type of video content resonates most
• Areas for improvement (e.g., having a better-designed thumbnail to increase clicks)
  

Once you get into the habit of monitoring the right YouTube metrics, you’ll quickly see how they help you in the long run–so don’t neglect the importance of it.

The Top 7 YouTube Metrics You Should Know About

Wondering where to begin with YouTube analytics? Have no fear–we’ll break down the most important metrics to keep an eye on. 

1. Average Watch Time

Watch time is one of the core YouTube metrics because it lets you know the average amount of time a viewer looks at your videos, which also provides insight into the exact time (or window) you may be losing viewers.

A short watch time typically means that your video failed to capture–and keep–the viewer’s attention. On the flip side, a significant watch time may mean that viewers find your content intriguing, which is what every YouTuber wants to see.

While watch time is a good metric to keep on your radar, it doesn’t necessarily paint the entire picture. You must consider and contextualize what’s happening with other YouTube metrics. 

This metric also ties to the average percentage viewed, which takes the average watch time and divides it by the length of the video. As with the Google helpful content update, the algorithm rewards content that is deemed “helpful” to the audience. And watch time, alongside the average percentage viewed, helps give the algorithm a sense of whether or not the content was relevant to the search query. 

2. Engagement Rate

This consolidated metric summarizes how a viewer interacts with your video by adding likes, shares, comments, and other user actions. 

Keeping tabs on engagement helps you to identify what resonates most with your YouTube audience and how to leverage video content effectively (e.g., expanding on a well-performing YouTube series).

Like watch time, it isn’t a tell-all of your channel’s overall performance, but it’ll give you some level of insight into what’s going on. 

Engagement rate joins watch time and average percentage viewed as one of the top metrics that YouTube uses inside its super-secret algorithm to decide which videos get those coveted results at the top of the search pages. 

3. Unique Views

Video views in isolation are one thing, but the unique views metric lets you know how many individual users have looked at your content (without counting duplicate user views). That way, you’ll have a better understanding of your content’s exposure to new pairs of eyes.

A climb in unique views indicates that your YouTube videos garner traction and possibly reach a broad subset of viewers. 

Not that a bump in video views, without a corresponding bump in unique views is always a bad thing. That is usually an indication that people are watching the same video multiple times. 

Pro-tip: To maximize your YouTube content reach, be sure to optimize for mobile placement also. In fact, 70% of YouTube viewers are using a mobile device, so you make sure that text and other graphic elements are large enough that they can clearly be seen on a mobile device.  

4. Subscriber Growth Rate

As you put effort into disseminating great YouTube video content, you’ll want to see an uptick in subscribers (especially if you’re aiming to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or increase revenue).

A stall in subscriber growth (or even a decline) should be looked into further and may mean your content needs re-evaluation or improvement in some way (if, of course, you’re looking to grow your YouTube channel). 

It’s also important to tie the subscriber growth rate to the other viewer metrics. For example, keep an eye out if your videos are getting a lot of watches, comments, and engagement, but you’re not getting very many new subscribers. This could be something as simple as adding a “Please Subscribe” request near the beginning and at the end of your videos.

Plus, you can use YouTube Analytics to dig in and figure out exactly where your subscribers are coming from, including whether they subscribed from a particular video, your YouTube channel, or more. If most of your subscribers are coming from a specific video or a topic where you provide expertise, consider making more content like that. 

Pro-Tip: As an ongoing exercise, look at your channel’s demographics (such as age, gender, and geographic location. That way, you’ll know your YouTube audience’s characteristics, allowing you to create relevant content that speaks directly to them. It may even uncover insights into new target audiences. 

5. Impressions Click-Through Rate

When your YouTube video shows up on ‘Recommended’ lists or encourages users to follow through on a specific action (such as visiting your website), it’s important to understand how many people follow through.

That’s where impressions click-through rate comes in. It gives you insight into user intent and how compelled a viewer was to take a prompted action. In turn, it lets you know just how impactful your video content is. 

YouTube thumbnails are one of the most significant drivers of clickthrough rate on YouTube but are often overlooked or undervalued by YouTube creators. Your YouTube thumbnails should clearly align with the topic of the video, catch the eye, and–ideally–highlight the keywords you’ve identified as part of your YouTube SEO processes. 

6. Traffic Sources

To capitalize on the most high-traction traffic sources, you’ll need to know what’s working best and generating a significant number of views.

If you’ve embedded your YouTube content on your website or perhaps reference it regularly on your social media channels, monitoring traffic sources will help you to optimize your YouTube content further and focus on the most promising outlets. This metric also shows you internal traffic sources, which also gives you an idea of where it’s showing up on YouTube (e.g., Suggested Videos, search results, etc.). 

Pro-Tip: See which keywords YouTube users typically use when they click on your video(s). That way, you’ll better understand user search intent and which topics are most applicable. 

7. Most Popular Videos

If you’ve got a YouTube channel with a significant bank of content, ‘Most Popular Videos’ will provide insight into what resonates most with your target audience and what type of content viewers typically gravitate towards.

After learning which videos have performed best, dig a little deeper to figure out why. Did you provide insight into a complex topic? Was it your delivery or offering a unique perspective, perhaps? Whatever the case, use this information to narrow down what works best and how to guide future video content accordingly.

Keep Your YouTube Game Strong by Tracking Metrics

And there you have it! Posting videos to your channel is just one part of the equation.

Metrics and setting appropriate KPIs will help you to meet your YouTube goals, tie them into your big-picture strategy, and keep you on top of your game.

It doesn’t have to be a complex, painstaking activity. By getting in the habit of regularly monitoring YouTube data, you’ll position your YouTube channel for long-term success.

Pro-Tip: Not every metric needs to be a KPI. When deciding on your YouTube goals, determine which metrics affect your brand’s strategic goals (e.g., does watch time directly affect the number of online transactions you want to achieve? Probably not. But it is a good measurement of engagement if that’s the focus of your YouTube channel). So while YouTube metrics are helpful to understand, there’s no need to get lost in a sea of data. Distinguish what’s most important and what should be secondary to keep a clear eye on the growth of your channel. 

The post Most Important YouTube Metrics and KPIs to Track? appeared first on noupe.

Business owners have access to many tools that are vital to their success, data being one of them. Data can be precious to a business that knows how to collect, analyze, and use it. 

Staying on top of your company’s data protocols is also essential. You must continuously update and adapt your rules and procedures for handling data to your business’s evolution. Doing so will give your company an advantage in various ways. Let’s explore this further. 

Provide Better Security for Company and Customer Data 

Regularly revising your company’s data protocols is critical to ensure you always provide the best security for your business and customer data. Outdated data protocols can lead to serious data breaches and security issues. 

For example, when employees aren’t following your most recent procedures to secure data, they’re more vulnerable to scams like phishing. 

Phishing is a cybercrime that involves being contacted by someone who seems legitimate via email, phone, or text message. They aim to get you to give them confidential information like business account numbers or your customers’ personal information. 

If you aren’t following the most up-to-date data security protocols, you open yourself, your customers, and your company up to phishing and other scams that could cause serious harm. 

Leverage Modern Data Analytics Tools 

When you consistently review your company’s data protocols, you may find that you need better tools at some point. You’ll have opportunities to bring in modern data analytics tools that can take your collection and analysis processes to the next level. 

For example, analytic process automation (APA) can drastically improve the efficiency of your collection process and how you use the data you gather. However, as powerful as data can be for a business, too much of it can leave teams unsure of how to proceed. 

APA technology can take those large datasets, analyze them for prescriptive and predictive insights, translate those insights into tangible actions, and share them with the appropriate team members. 

Neglecting to revise policies and procedures for your data won’t allow you to leverage modern data analytics tools that can collect and house information critical to the success of your team and company. 

Standardize Your Data Collection Process 

One of the biggest mistakes companies make is not having a standardized process for data collection. They just implement analytics tools and collect as much data as possible without any real direction after gathering it. 

As a result, these companies aren’t collecting the data they need, nor are they putting whatever they gather to good use, keeping them a step behind their biggest competition.  

Regularly revising data protocols can help you refine your process for collecting data so that it’s done in an organized, productive way. 

Improve Your Use of Data 

In addition to standardizing your collection process, bettering your company’s data protocols can help you improve your use of data. Collecting valuable data is only part of the responsibility. 

The other, and maybe the most critical part, is how you analyze and use that data to better your business. When you review and revise your data protocols, you should be looking at the effectiveness of your analysis process as well as your utilization procedures. 

Doing this often allows you to constantly refine:

1. How you pull meaningful insights from the information you collect;
2. How you turn those insights into tangible actions that move your business forward.

Enhance Your Marketing and Sales Campaigns 

Two departments that rely heavily on data are marketing and sales. Both departments use data to understand customers better and create campaigns tailored to who they are and how they behave. 

The more personalized your marketing and sales campaigns are, the more likely they will resonate with your customers and drive conversions. However, the continued effectiveness of your marketing and sales campaigns relies on revising your company’s data protocols often. 

Managing and adjusting your data protocols ensures you always collect the most accurate, useful data. It ensures you’re studying it effectively. Revising your protocols also formalizes how you use data in marketing and sales, so the experience is consistent for your customers. 

Define Guidelines for Data Classification 

How you classify your data is essential for all of your departments. If each department organizes data in different ways, chaos and confusion are pretty much guaranteed. Silos will form, and your teams’ won’t share data effectively, let alone understand and use it. And the customer experience will suffer because of it. 

Reviewing your data protocols ensures everyone in your company follows the most up-to-date data classification guidelines. No matter their department, your employees will be on the same page about where data belongs and why.

Create a More Cohesive and Collaborative Team 

One of the most significant benefits of regularly revising your data protocols is creating a more cohesive and collaborative team rooted in digital culture and data. 

Every department uses data in some way. But you don’t want each person to handle data in their own way because it’ll lead to a disjointed workflow and inefficient data collection, analysis, and use. 

On the other hand, when you give your team data best practices to abide by, you can develop a more cohesive operation. Consistently revising your protocols will ensure your team knows the following:

• How to identify the most valuable data to collect;
• What to do once they gather data;
• Best practices for examining data for meaningful insights;
• Whom to contact for help with data;
• Steps to take to turn insights into actions.

Keep your team cohesive, collaborative, and productive by establishing guidelines for data use in your company and constantly adjusting them to better fit how your team works.  

Stay in Line With Laws and Regulations 

Data collection and analysis are becoming more conventional practices in the business world. However, that doesn’t mean companies can just collect whatever data they want whenever they want. 

There are laws and regulations that dictate how companies can collect data and what kind of information they can gather about their customers. Neglecting these laws and regulations can cost you financially and stain your business reputation. 

Regularly revising your company’s data protocols can help you stay in line with laws and regulations. This ensures you’re collecting and using data ethically in your company, which is especially important if you’re in a high-risk or highly regulated industry. 

Conclusion 

Regularly revising your company’s data protocols is crucial for many reasons. Data will become an even more powerful tool for businesses as time goes on. So, make sure you’re adjusting your protocols consistently to ensure data’s influence on your business is meaningful. 

The post The Importance of Regularly Revising your Company’s Data Protocols appeared first on noupe.

If you’re a creative entrepreneur or content creator for a business, service, or advocacy, you’ve probably experimented with several mediums to get eyes on your social media platforms. It’s a tough job, and competition is fierce. Everyone and their grandmother is taking advantage of the latest content creation tool, whether Instagram filters or AI images, as soon as it drops.

As new tools proliferate, the content from those tools becomes more ubiquitous and homogenized, and then it’s off to find the next magic button out there. This is why it pays to have some hard designer-y skills under your belt. One of the skills that design students or anyone tech savvy with an artistic bent are quickly adopting these days is 3d rendering. Once relatively niche and primarily used in the gaming and VFX industry, working with 3d today is as accessible and inexpensive as picking up Photoshop, thanks to software like Blender 3d, Unreal Engine, and the online community built around these programs. 

3d rendering (or 3d production, to be a little more accurate) takes some effort to learn, but the rewards are worth it. By working in 3d, you can build a vast library of different materials that you can mix, match and place in front of a virtual camera to come up with captivating pieces of content for your socials, and in much less time than you’d think. In this article, we’ll look at the philosophies at play in the medium of digital 3d, and go through the process of creating an exciting piece of content from start to finish. 

Core Advantages of 3d

A Logistical Dream

The primary advantage digital 3d has over other media is that it has all the perks of working in a (simulated) physical space without the constraints you might experience working in the real world. Consider, for example, a post meant to promote a product- a new soda brand, let’s say. You might schedule a photo shoot with your photographer, travel to the studio on the agreed day, wait for post-processing and then finally have your content, only to realize that perhaps an outdoor setup would have been more appealing. With a digital 3d representation of the product, this sudden change of mind would not be as expensive.

An example of the aforementioned fictitious soda brand

With a digital 3d representation of the product, you can act on your creative whim immediately and, within half an hour, have an alternate shot ready!

Proceduralism

Modern 3d programs have proceduralism as a major focus since creatives from any industry benefit from being able to work faster. There are too many features to discuss at any length in this article, but here’s a glimpse of how a 3d project might be drastically altered just by fiddling with sliders or pressing buttons.

Here is another fictitious post for a fictitious courier service. Let’s assume the client isn’t too happy with the figure’s layout and the orange accents on the runner. Fortunately for us, the graphics were made in a 3d program.



On the right of this image is the 3d model’s material, which affects its color and surface properties. The colored rectangles on the panel correspond to the different colored areas in the character’s suit. 

We made the changes in a matter of seconds by simply clicking on these fields and choosing a new color.

Likewise, we could reposition our camera and adjust the lighting streaks by adjusting the sliders on the modifier panel on the right.

This is the essence of proceduralism in digital 3d. You can set up a workflow that frees time to work on the bigger picture instead of getting lost in the minutiae of a larger project when the time comes to respond to feedback. You can automate smaller tasks and focus on things like your composition, colors, and storytelling. Some parts of production in 3d are already procedural, but virtually anything can be set up to work procedurally – even creating models in some cases. 

Abundance of resources/ Community

Well and good, you might think, but not everyone has the luxury of spending a few days learning the ins and outs of digital 3d. For the busy designer or anyone with time constraints, there are many resources to shorten or even bypass the learning curve for some 3d tools:

Asset providers like Kitbash 3d, Sketchfab, and Polyhaven have a large collection of pre-made models you can use in your projects instead of creating everything from scratch.

Developers create plugins or modifier setups that can simplify arduous but necessary tasks. Gumroad is a great repository for such things.

Channels on Youtube or aggregate websites are perfect for keeping your ear on the ground for the latest game-changing tools.

All images thus far contain CC-0 or CC-BY assets, generators, or plugins available online. While some resources are free to use with no restrictions, others are for sale or require you to credit the original creator. As in any form of digital media, it is always wise to read carefully the terms of use for anything you might use in your work.

In-Practice Example

The examples above were for static images, but where 3d can really shine is in animation. Halloween is just around the corner at the time of this writing, so we’ll go over (in very broad strokes) how I created an animated skit for GarageFarm.NET that would suit the occasion.

Concept

GarageFarm.NET is an online render farm that allows 3d artists to meet their deadlines and save time by distributing the render process of a project over a host of high-powered computers. I decided that the skit would be about the Grim Reaper coming to claim a character only to realize that it had been beaten to it by long render times on a single workstation (a common pain point that 3d artists trying to meet short deadlines face). I used Blender 3d – an open-source 3d program available to everyone. 

The final result was completed within a total of 14-16 hours. You can check out the final video here.

Collating Assets

To manage this time constraint, I used a combination of assets that I had saved from previous projects and assets that were shared in online hubs like BlendSwap and Polyhaven – limiting my hand modeling to elements that would take less time to create than to search for online. 

The opening scene layout consists of a few elements from the talented artists who contributed to Polyhaven arranged around planes that would serve as the walls and floor of an interior setting.

The skeleton asset was from an older post I made years ago. I used clothing from a human generator plugin for Blender called HumGen, available on BlenderMarket.

Staging the scenes

Animation

With everything prepared, all that was left to do was animate the characters. I used a pointing animation from Mixamo to animate the Grim Reaper, which left only the cameras, the door, and the skeleton to think about.

Mixamo is a library of motion capture data that allows users to choose animation and quickly transfer that animation to their custom 3d character.

Sound

For the Grim Reaper’s voice, I used Replica, a program that reads text input using a selection from a library of AI voices.

And I used the YouTube Studio sound library for the music and sound effects. 

Conclusion

To go into more detail would require its own article, and I am by no means suggesting that you can pick up 3d software and instantly create something like this. Still, with dedicated study and practice and the modern tools available, I believe any creator can leverage 3d to create diversity and more interest in their social media content within a year or two. 

Whether you’re considering learning 3d or are an experienced user, I hope this article gave you a glimpse of new possibilities and inspired you to try something new. Best of luck, and happy creating!

The post Why 3d Rendering is Perfect for Creating Captivating Social Media Content appeared first on noupe.

Shadow data is, first and foremost, a concern for the security and compliance teams. What can they do to ensure the security and compliance of data stores they are unaware of or have little or no control over? 

There is an inherent tension between DevOps and security teams amplified by regulatory frameworks, such as GDPR and CCPA, that set and enforce high privacy standards for data.

In this blog post, we will discuss what shadow data is, why you should not ignore it, and how to secure it effectively.

What Does Data Shadow Mean?

The term shadow data refers to your organization’s data that is likely copied, backed up, or located in a data store that is neither governed, under the same security structure or updated on a regular basis. The following are examples of shadow data:

• Customer data that has been copied from production to development for testing purposes
• Data stores that contain sensitive information for an application that is no longer in use
• An application’s byproducts, such as log files, may collect sensitive information
• Applications that use hard-to-find local databases
• The data generated by shadow IT 
• A siloed set of data that is only available to a specific line of business

As a matter of fact, shadow data is primarily a problem for security and compliance professionals. If they are not aware of or have little or no control over data stores, how can they be responsible for their security and compliance? Regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA, that establish and enforce high data privacy standards have amplified the tension between DevOps and security teams.

Shadow data also affects operations teams since unmanaged data sprawl can increase infrastructure costs. Cloud budgets are exceeded, with little or no visibility into how the overspend was incurred or how it can be contained. Here are some real-life examples of shadow data

• Public, unmanaged databases: The developer implemented an SQLite database for storing sensitive data input by web application users. What is the problem? A standard web server was used to deploy the database, which was, by definition, publicly accessible. The company’s security and compliance guardrails were violated, exposing sensitive data to threats without the security team’s knowledge.
• The data generated by backend applications: Backup files, log files and debug dumps serve the needs of DevOps engineers but are typically not monitored by security professionals. Shadow data, however, may contain sensitive information. 
• Unmanaged cloud resources: Developers may create an S3 bucket in restricted geolocation as part of internal testing procedures that are not audited. These testing resources unnecessarily add to infrastructure costs if they are not properly decommissioned, posing security and compliance risks.

It’s time to stop ignoring shadow data

It is now challenging to ignore shadow data due to the prevalence of hybrid and multi-cloud environments. According to a recent report, 92% of enterprises today have a multi-cloud strategy, of which 82% have adopted a hybrid approach. A lack of visibility in these environments makes it difficult to monitor them effectively, and shadow data is likely to accumulate as a result.

Shadow data is also increasing due to the adoption of cloud-based continuous integration and delivery methods. In today’s market, developers have more freedom to introduce new products and features. Additionally, the self-service cloud model allows developers to provision data stores with just a few clicks, often without consideration of the organization’s governance or compliance policies. 

The proliferation of cloud-native applications based on micro-services, containers, and server-less functions has brought the issue of shadow data to the fore since decentralized workload-based data stores contribute significantly to data sprawl.

What is the difference between shadow data and dark data?

The term dark data refers to all the data within an organization that is unused, untapped, and unknown as the result of users’ daily interactions online with countless devices and systems – everything from machine data to server log files to unstructured data derived from social media interaction.

The data may be considered outdated, incomplete, redundant, or inaccessible due to a format that can’t be accessed using available tools. They don’t even know it exists most of the time.

However, it is essential to note that dark data may be one of an organization’s most valuable untapped resources. Data has become a major organizational asset, and competitive organizations must capitalize on its full potential. Furthermore, more stringent data regulations may require organizations to manage their data entirely.

Shadow data differs from dark data in that it is created within an organization’s IT infrastructure during routine business operations, serves no other purpose, and becomes unaccounted for over time. Shadow data can be viewed as a subset of dark data. A dark data set is a collection of sensitive information that was once used for legacy applications or irrelevant information generated by an application. 

Shadow data, on the other hand, is created in two main ways: by shadow IT, which is intentionally developed outside an organization’s IT infrastructure to leverage cloud-managed and SaaS applications that DevOps teams, DBAs, and others would not be able to access otherwise; or by over-sharing within an organization. Shadow data is unaccounted-for data that poses the same security risks in either case.

A three-step process for securing shadow data

1. Visibility: It is essential that your security teams identify every cloud-managed environment and SaaS application in which your organization may have sensitive data. There is no way to apply security controls to data that is stored in repositories that you cannot access.
2. Discovery and classification of data: Data in all of your repositories must be identified and classified so that security controls can be applied. There is a need to extend discovery and classification capabilities beyond traditional structured data; semi-structured and unstructured data must also be able to be classified. You can quickly detect anomalous behavior by consolidating your data repositories into a single source and allowing dashboard access to see what is happening across all data sources.
3. Control the privileges of data access: Shadow data can only be mitigated by preventing insiders from creating it inadvertently. When it comes to rooting out malicious user behavior, a rigorous analysis of anomalous behavior is very effective. It is possible to baseline typical access for privileged users and send alerts if it deviates from that. It is also possible to use machine learning analytics to determine what data is business-critical and if it can be accessed by privileged users.

Minimizing the risks associated with shadow data

Data management best practices can mitigate shadow data risks in several ways, including:

• Understand your data: Maintain a catalog of data assets that are categorized according to their sensitivity and criticality as you scan your workloads continuously. It is important that the data catalog is comprehensive, accessible to all stakeholders, and searchable according to a variety of parameters, such as owner, sensitivity, used by, version, and so on.  
• Follow your data: A next-generation data catalog should also incorporate visualizations that highlight relationships, flows, and dependencies among data stores in a typical mid-sized to large organization. The ability to build outflows and identify who is interacting with what data will allow you to identify shadow data that is not being used. It is not only a waste of storage resources to store this data, but it can also pose a threat to cybersecurity, such as data exfiltration, due to its unused nature.
• Clean your data: A key component of IT hygiene is keeping your data assets lean and mean. In general, each time a developer replicates a data store for testing or a database is mirrored before an upgrade, the developer or operation person should delete it when the testing environment is decommissioned, or a successful upgrade has been completed. Your environment, however, is full of redundant, incomplete, or low-value data. Ensure that shadow data is regularly disposed of.
• Protect your data: A risk-based data protection policy and process must include shadow data. Risk assessments, which should be as automated as possible, will take into account the type of shadow data and its location, as well as any compliance requirements related to its sensitivity. After establishing the appropriate guardrails, you should include access controls, minimal privileges, monitoring for anomalous behavior, alerting to threats, and resolving misconfigurations.

Conclusion

By eliminating shadow data and including new data that can be useful, businesses and organizations can significantly improve their analytics, reporting, machine learning, and AI. It consequently leads to faster, and more intelligent decision-making across the enterprise.

The best way to combat shadow data is to begin by educating your entire firm’s staff about the issue. 

Educate people in your vicinity about shadow data and why they shouldn’t ignore it. Engage experts who have demonstrated their ability to successfully manage data-intensive operations if you want to gain a greater understanding of the shadow data.

The post Tips to Secure Shadow Data appeared first on noupe.

Video marketing is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways to improve your business and get more sales/leads. With the popularity of online videos continuing to rise with the help of sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok, business owners must tap into this medium to stay ahead of the game. 

Yes, video ads are a big factor in both business success and failure. Video Ads are one of the best ways to attract customers and convert them into sales because they have the power to create an emotional bond with your audience. When done right and with great video production software, they can also be a powerful retention tool for your current customers.

The Concept Behind Video Ads

Video ads are similar to traditional display ads in that they’re hosted on a website or app where users can view them. However, video ads are made of moving images and sound instead of static images or text.

When users click on a video ad, they’re taken either to a landing page or directly to a website. This allows them to learn more about the advertised product without leaving the host site they were visiting.

Video advertising is a form of online advertising that uses short, entertaining videos to promote products and services. Video advertising is growing in popularity because it can be more cost-effective than other forms of online advertising while still being highly effective.

Video ads typically appear in one of two places: pre-rolls before a video plays on the page or mid-rolls interrupting an existing video. Pre-rolls are usually full-screen ads that play before the desired content is displayed, while mid-rolls take up less screen real estate but interrupt what’s already playing on a page.

Video ads can be used for almost any business, from selling products to promoting services and events to selling subscriptions or services like insurance or banking. When used well, video ads can be incredibly powerful tools for driving conversions for your business — but only if you know how to use them effectively!

Why Use Video Ads?

Video Ads can be a great way to reach your audience, but they don’t work for every business. Before you jump in with both feet and start creating videos, there are some things you should know.

Video Ads are one of the most effective ways to reach your audience online. They’re more engaging than text-based ads and can help you stand out from the crowd. If done right, they can even help you generate leads and sales!

But if you’re not using them correctly, they might not be worth the time or money it takes to create them.

Video Ads vs Standard Ads

The biggest advantage of video ads is that they are more likely to get noticed than standard banner ads or text-based content on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. This makes them more likely to drive traffic back to your site or to generate leads through calls-to-action (CTAs). The greater visibility of videos means that people are more likely to click on them than other forms of online advertising, such as banner ads or social media posts competing for attention alongside other distractions like news feeds and status updates from friends and family members.

Benefits of Video Ads

There are many benefits of video ads including higher click-through rates (CTRs). Video ads can also increase brand awareness and engagement with your audience. Here are some additional benefits:

Reach a wider audience

Video ads have an incredible reach. AdWeek says more than half of all internet traffic is from YouTube alone. Video ads can also be viewed on Facebook’s Audience Network and Instagram’s Stories, which puts your message in front of billions more people each month.

Video ads are one of the most effective ways to reach a wider audience. They can be watched on mobile devices and will automatically play when a user is using their browser. Video ads are more engaging than text or banner ads and encourage repeat engagement.

They can also help you increase your brand awareness and reputation by allowing users to see your products in action. By including a call-to-action button, users can click on it and be taken directly to your website, where they can learn more about your company and its products or services.

Video ads help drive conversions because they allow you to provide more information about your product or service than other advertising formats. This includes embedded links that viewers can click through on their terms and schedules, not yours.

Increased conversions

Video ads have a much higher conversion rate than standard banner ads because they grab users’ attention and keep them engaged. Video ads also tell a story and provide information consumers want when looking online for products or services. Users can also interact with videos by clicking on them or playing them in full-screen mode.

More engagement

The main benefit of video ads is that they get more attention from viewers than other types of ads. Video ads are often watched in full, which is not the case with many other ads.

Video ads have a higher click-through rate (CTR) than text and image display ads. A study by Animoto found that video ads have an average CTR of 4.8%, 

Data collection

Video ads allow you to collect data on customers’ behavior — when they watch the ad, where they click, and how long they stay on the page. You can use this information to understand your target audience better and create more relevant content for them in the future.

Video ads can collect data about visitors’ demographics, interests, and behaviors. You can then use this information to create targeted advertisements for specific audiences or adjust your website content based on what users want from it.

Success Measurement

Video ads are a powerful tool for measuring success. They allow you to track performance using different metrics: views, clicks, actions taken (downloads and registrations), and more. 

This means that you can adjust your strategy accordingly and improve results over time. Video ads also offer real-time reporting so that you know how many people are viewing each ad at any given time. This allows you to make adjustments quickly and effectively as needed.

Takeaway

Overall, it’s clear that attracting video ads positively affects a business’s success, sometimes even more so than with other forms of advertising. Within this context, the best advice for business owners is to experiment and see what works best for them. No matter what form of advertising you choose, it is essential that you be willing to try new things to stand out from the competition truly.

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