Cory Henke - Hacking YouTube Advertising to Drive Results
Cory, an expert in Facebook and YouTube advertising, took the stage and shared a few key insights into the YouTube platform, and why it’s an effective vehicle for reaching your organization’s audience.
Why?
YouTube is a rapidly growing platform with a large audience. Cory talked about how more and more individuals are consuming video content these days, and that YouTube is the place to be to get your brand in front of the right people, for less money than other forms of advertising. He also gave us an in-depth analysis of strategies he currently uses for many of his campaigns and clients.
Free Advertising
Ads on YouTube can show in a few different formats, one is as an ad that shows before video content. These ads can be 30 seconds or less, or they can be long-form videos that are two or three minutes long.
The amazing thing is that if your ad is 30 seconds or longer, and a viewer skips the ad before 30 seconds, you don’t get charged a cent! That equals basically free advertising. Not a bad deal.
The Process
Cory also outlined a tried and true method for creating videos that are effective, while being only 30 seconds long.
- First 5 Seconds - Hook
- 5 - 25 Seconds - Engage Viewer/Illustrate the Problem
- 25-29 Seconds - Establish Brand/Qualify Viewers
- 27-30 Seconds - Re-hook
Other Tips
Cory emphasised that the creative matters, and it should be used to affect the results of your ads.
Variation in video ads is also crucial. The videographers might hate you for it, but having many different variations of one video allows for critical testing of calls to actions, hooks, engagement etc.
Remember that you may not understand your YouTube audience until you test it, you might be surprised by the results. The ideal audience on YouTube could be very different from audiences on other platforms.
YouTube allows you to use sequential messaging that allows your ads to be effective across the entire funnel.
Utilize custom affinity targeting. Develop very creative and effective audiences by combining interests and related websites.
Takeaway
Test, test, test! Then analyze your test to discover actionable data that allows you to make even better decisions with your marketing dollars. Just because YouTube can be cheap, doesn’t mean you should waste your money on things that don’t work.
Dennis Yu - Hacking Facebook: Upside-down Funnels, Competitive Intel, Inception Tricks, and What Facebook Won’t Tell You!
Dennis, an internationally recognized lecturer in Facebook marketing and all around fun guy, started things off quickly with a unique look at the inner workings of the Golden State Warriors Facebook account. His secret to great ROI on Facebook advertising and marketing? Boosting posts. The reason for boosting posts as a primary strategy? Boosting posts drives engagement and conversions.
Boost It
Dennis noted how organically engaging content becomes even more engaging when boosted to a specific, audience. This creates a form of “social proof” that says to new viewers, this content is important, I should also engage with it.
He explained that utilizing the native boosting features on a Facebook page versus using the Ads Manager platform is crucial. The native facebook platform provides crucial data that Ads Manager does not. For example, understanding how the money spent to boost a post, also influences organic reach.
According to Dennis, more important than the amount of money spent on boosting posts, is for how long the post is boosted. Posts that are boosted for long periods of time allow for evergreen content which is particularly great for B2B.
Call The Plumber
Your marketing “plumbing” is far more important than anything else. Dennis explained that getting your plumbing right means that you need to have all your tracking organized and running smoothly across all marketing channels. He highly recommends implementing Google Tag Manager on your site.
He said that 99% of problems you may be having with your Facebook marketing/advertising are actually outside of the Facebook platform. So get your plumbing right!
The Bow Tie
We all know what the marketing funnel looks like. It’s drilled into our subconscious. Dennis outlined what he calls the Bow Tie Funnel. Which is essentially a typical sales funnel but with a reflection. A normal funnel goes from top to bottom with audience first, then engagement, then conversion.
The funnel doesn’t stop there! The reflection involves driving value from your conversions and customers by encouraging them to be advocates for your brand. An entirely new audience will learn about your brand by word of mouth, not from ads, and these people are much more likely to convert. Dennis emphasised that the true ROI of Facebook is offline.
Takeaway
After a wealth of info from Dennis, a few key points really stuck out.
- Social proof in advertising and marketing works.
- Make sure your digital plumbing is in order.
- Develop personal relationships with customers and peers if you wish to truly succeed in digital marketing.