Video action

Core Best Practices

Guide for first time buyers of Video action

Why are best practices important?

Advertisers that follow best practices for their

Video action campaigns drive over

Higher
50% conversions per
dollar

40% Higher
conversion
rate

compared to when they do not follow best practices.

Follow the core best practices in this guide to drive optimal performance More

Source: Google data, Global, Aug 2020 - Jan 2021, 911 advertisers with a minimum of 1 campaign following best practices and 1 not
following best practices, delivering a minimum of 10 conversions per campaign
Video action
Core Best Practices
Guide for first time buyers of Video action

Launch & Establish Performance

Set your campaign up for success by using these best practices. Conversions & Budget best practices are minimum
requirements for optimal performance. Bidding, Audience and Creatives best practices are highly recommended.

Conversion Tracking:
Use Google Ads Web Conversion Tracking with gtag.js or GTM for accurate tracking and optimize to your

Requirements
desired conversion event. In addition, track lighter actions e.g. ‘add to cart’ to provide more signals to our

Minimum
machine learning algorithms and as a result, achieve your desired conversions faster.

Budget:
Set a daily budget that is at least 15x tCPA for tCPA campaigns and 10x the expected CPA of your Max
conversions campaigns to accelerate campaign ramp-up.

Bidding:
Start with tCPA bidding, if you know your video CPA. If your primary goal is to drive as many conversions
as possible through a flighted campaign, start with Maximize Conversions bidding.

Audience:
Start with either "Custom Audiences - search terms" or Remarketing or Customer Match or Similar
Audiences and opt-in to “Optimized Targeting” to show your ads to more people who are likely to
convert. For Custom Audiences - search terms, use 10-15 of the highest converting search keywords.

Creative:
Add sitelinks to your campaign / adgroup OR run multiple creative variants (at least 5 if possible, changing up
call to action button, headline text or core video asset) following these tips to optimize creative effectiveness :

Have a clear call-to-action Front-load your offer Repeat what you’re offering
Use clear phrases such as: ‘Learn Hook attention in the first 5 to 10 Repeat the call-to-action and
more,’ ‘Sign-up,’ or ‘Buy Now.’ seconds with a problem-statement and ensure it’s echoed in the voiceover
how your product or service solves it. & superimposed graphics.

Tip!
Monitor performance for 7-10 days
before making optimizations
More

*Videos must be 10 seconds or longer to run

Video action
Advanced Best Practices
Guide for existing buyers of Video action

Capture more conversions and run Always-on campaigns

After establishing performance, follow these best practices to expand your campaign’s impact.
Advanced best practices are recommended for the following campaigns:

✓ Core Best Practices: Campaign is optimized per the core best practices

✓ Volume: Generating at least 5 conversions per day for last 14 days

Budget:
If a campaign is budget constrained, increase budget. Follow budget expansion recommendations
under campaign settings in the Google Ads UI to understand expansion opportunity.

Audience:
Ensure that at least one campaign in the account is targeting in-market audiences and if your campaign has
demographic targeting layered, then remove the demo layering in at least one adgroup per campaign

Inventory:
To capture more conversions efficiently, simply activate Google Video Partners under campaign settings.

Measurement :
Uncover the full value of your campaign by understanding the role it played in your customer’s
conversion journey using Cross Network reports (under Attribution reports in Google Ads).

Creative:
Use Video experiments to identify best performing creative strategies for evergreen creatives and
consider ad optimization.

Discovery Campaigns :
Capture even more conversions by running Discovery campaigns in conjunction with Video
Action campaigns.

Tip!
Run campaigns for at least four weeks to gain up
to 15% higher efficiency More
(Source: Google data, Global, June 2019. Efficiency defined as total conversions divided by total cost)
 Troubleshooting and optimization tips

tCPA Campaigns
After any change, monitor performance for 7-14 days before following these optimization tips for tCPA bidding:

Scenario Recommendation CPA Bid

Expand audiences. 1) Opt-into Optimized PRO TIP:
Targeting. 2) Create ad groups for new Increase CPA bid. Slowly
Campaign is Add sitelinks or try
audiences to manually find users more likely to increase the Target CPA bid in
1. under-spending and
convert or add an ad group that has no 10-15% increments to
different ad variants
hitting Target CPA changing up text (headline,
targeting, giving Target CPA the widest improve delivery.
call to action) or the video
possible audience to capture conversions.
itself with the aim of
increasing conversion rate.
Change audiences. 1) Opt-into Optimized
Targeting. 2) Create ad groups for different
Campaign is audiences to optimize for users more likely to Maintain CPA bid. Ad delivery
PRO TIP:
2. under-spending but convert. should increase with
overshooting Target CPA Optimize for upper funnel: Use Campaign level expanded audiences. Implement Enhanced
conversion setting to optimize towards an Conversions to increase
upper funnel event conversion rates by 7-25%
and better equip your
Decrease CPA bid. Slowly campaigns to handle shifts
Narrow audiences. If current audiences are reduce Target CPA bid in in the measurement
Campaign is spending but
3. fairly broad, consider layering on audiences 10-15% increments while ecosystem.
overshooting Target CPA that you believe may be more likely to convert. monitoring conversion
volume.

Max Conversions Campaigns

Remember to wait one week (3-7 days) before optimizing campaigns. Then use these tips to improve
the performance of your campaign.

Scenario Recommendation
● Ensure Google Ads conversion tracking is set up properly
● Expand audiences by adding new ad groups for customer match, similar audiences or
1. No conversions in-market audiences
● Consider a lighter conversion event or extending the conversion window to better align with
time from view to conversion

2. Not spending budget ● Remove audience layering and opt-into Optimized Targeting

Remember that it can take 7-14 days for auto-bidding to reach efficiency.
If CPAs are still too high after 7-14 days:
● Consider a lighter conversion event or extend the conversion window to better align with time
3. CPAs are too high from view to conversion
● Create ad groups for different audiences to find users more likely to convert
● Add sitelinks or test different ad variants changing up text (headline, call to action) or the
video itself with the aim of increasing conversion rate