Tracking is harder than ever. Competition is fierce. But YouTube still offers the largest reach of any social media platform. It’s the most visited site on the planet behind Google. It also provides incredible opportunities to zero in on your ideal audience.
In this episode (taken from a recent talk given at Social Media Marketing World in San Diego) I break down two eCommerce case studies of companies who grew from $0 to over $1Million in profitable ad spend on YouTube. We’ll show you how you can do the same or better.
Mentioned in This Episode:
Brett Curry
Transcript:
Brett Curry:
Welcome to the Spicy Curry Podcast, where we explore hot takes in eCommerce and digital marketing. We feature some of the brightest guests with some of the spiciest perspectives on what it takes to grow your business online. Hey, I'm Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce. And today's episode is unique. You get a double dose, a triple dose, a quadruple dose of me. This is also unique because I'm sharing the recording from a live event I did recently in San Diego, California at Social Media Marketing World. And I talk about how to measure, master and scale with YouTube ads. I still believe, and I've been talking about YouTube ads since 2017, that this is still one of the biggest untapped opportunities for e-commerce companies. So, I'm going to lay out what's working now, how to approach your creative strategy, your audience strategy, and more. So, please enjoy my talk on how to scale with YouTube ads. The Spicy Curry Podcast is brought to you by OMG Commerce, Attentive, One Click Upsell, Zipify Pages and Payability.
Brett Curry:
What's up, Social Media Marketing World? How has day one been? But just by a rowdy show of applause, has day one been awesome? Yes. Okay. Fantastic. Well, I'm super excited to be here. And I'm so glad, one, that you came to this session. And I love this topic, YouTube ads, because everywhere I go, and I've been speaking on YouTube ads since like 2016, which in internet years is like a couple of decades. And what's always been interesting to me is that audiences either are just getting started with YouTube ads, or they're not running YouTube ads at all, or it's not going as well as they had hoped.
Brett Curry:
So quick show of hands. How many of you are not currently running YouTube ads at all? Look around. That is most of the room. Things have not improved. I guess I've not been doing my job since 2016. I haven't inspired enough audiences. How many of you have dabbled in it, but it's not going as well as you had hoped? Few of you? And it's okay to brag, bragging is fine, anybody crushing it on YouTube right now? Yes. These are the people you may want to talk to. And I want to talk to you guys after this as well. So I want to make this very practical, very actionable, also fun. Hopefully this will be fun, engaging and high energy. I've got videos to show you. I've got examples. And hopefully this will be an enjoyable time.
Brett Curry:
So I've had the privilege of working with some really cool brands, Native Deodorant, we run all their Google and YouTube ads. I used to work with the founder, Moiz Ali. And now we work with P&G, and they're growing and going strong. And that's an awesome relationship. Anybody heard of Boom by Cindy Joseph and Ezra Firestone? Yeah. Shout out. So great brand. About a $50 million a year eCommerce brand. So we took them from zero on YouTube, to now YouTube is their number two acquisition source, right behind Facebook ads. Live Beard, I'll show you some examples there in a little bit, and a few other awesome brands. Got a great team as well. So we got a team of about 50. We're in the top 1% of Google agencies. And for agencies our size, we're one of the top spenders on YouTube ads. So I only say that because what I'm about to show you is all based on actual campaigns, actual tests. It's not theory. It's kind of proven in the trenches. And so I want to bring you some real value there.
Brett Curry:
Brian mentioned eight kids. I do have eight kids. I'm not Amish, but I do get asked that a lot, Amish Catholic, do I know how birth control works? And things like that. But this is my crew. So I have six daughters and two sons and a dog. And the dog is actually not that well behaved. The dog is very cute. His name's Rusty. He's a handful. In fact, on my way here, my wife and I were texting about how much do we need to spend to get this dog trained? But right there, Rusty looks like an angel. I mean, he looks like a perfect dog. He's not. My kids look like angels. They're not either, actually. I'm just kidding. They're fantastic. But people often ask, how do you keep up with the chaos that is digital marketing? How do you handle things always changing, and algorithm updates and tracking things changing? I'm like, "Dude, I have eight kids at home. And so, digital marketing is a calm place compared to home."
Brett Curry:
Do I have any Buccaneers fans in the audience? I'm actually disappointed that there are some hands up. No, it's totally okay. Root for your team. I'm a Chiefs fan. Go Patrick Mahomes. But we saw Tom Brady unretired recently. I did see a meme yesterday, it was great. It had a picture of Tom with his family and it said, "Tom realized that staying home with three small kids is harder than being chased by a 300 pound lineman." And I don't know, but it's probably true. So here we go.
Brett Curry:
Anyway, let's dive into YouTube. So as we look at, how do we scale? So how do we measure, how do we master, how do we scale with YouTube ads? It really comes down to three things, creative strategy, audience strategy, and campaign strategy. So we're going to spend most of the time on the creative piece because creative was what really matters most with YouTube. Talk a little bit about audience. And then on the campaign side, there's all kinds of ways we could go there, but mainly I want to talk measurement because it's really difficult to measure YouTube now. It's always been difficult, even pre iOS 14, it was difficult. It's even harder now. So we'll break down how you should measure it because you've got someone to report to, whether you're an agency and you're reporting to a client, whether you're a marketing manager, you're reporting to the higher ups or to the owners, you've got to show results. So I want to help you with that.
Brett Curry:
All of this is going to be fueled by data, backed by data. And so, that's really what matters. So right now we have to make sure we're running ads that connect, that engage with our audience, that makes our audience say, man, you get me. Like, you understand where I am. You're speaking directly to me with your ad. So it's got to connect and it's got to move them to take action. So, is someone inspired and motivated? And is there enough emotional charge to get them to actually take action? Because really, the days are gone. Actually, I'll talk about that in a second. But this is a stat directly from Google, and I believe this, where success on YouTube is probably 35% or less who you target and how you run your campaigns. All the nerdy behind the scenes stuff, which I really like, probably only about 35% of your success. The rest of it is what you say and how you say it. So the creative.
Brett Curry:
And is anybody else seeing that on Facebook too, where creative is not all that matters, but almost all that matters? That's what we're seeing on YouTube as well. So that's why I'm going to focus mostly on creative. And we audit hundreds of Google Ads and YouTube ad accounts every year. There was a time we would see ads and we would think, that's a pretty crappy ad. It's okay, but it's not great. But it was still working, to a certain degree, because the algorithm was filling in the gaps, and the algorithm was making it work. Those days are largely gone. Can you now get by with a meh creative and have it work? And we all know the answer is no. You've got to nail it. You got to nail the message and get the right audience.
Brett Curry:
So YouTube ads are different. How many of you guys here are Facebook first, like Facebook is your jam, Facebook is what you know? Awesome. Anybody here at TikTok? You're actually not in the TikTok session, which is going on right now. So I would explain why you're not in it. That makes sense. So YouTube is different than Facebook. Everything's different from TikTok, right? But YouTube is quite different from Facebook. It's got really a different structure, which I'm going to break down in a second. It is actually most like TV. In fact, we've had several bigger brands come to us that run short form infomercials, like two, three minute TV infomercials. Those, with a little tweaking, can actually work great on YouTube. So YouTube is a little more like TV than it is like Facebook ads. So just as a frame of reference.
Brett Curry:
But with this type of ad, we can't just grab attention, right? That's not enough. You do need to do that. We can't just grab attention. Really, the video has to do all the heavy lifting because, unlike Facebook where I know some of my Facebook friends, they're running 15 second, 20 second ads, but there's a block of copy above the video and you get the call to action button around it. And so, the videos there are mainly just to grab attention, the copy explains it and drives the click, right? That doesn't exist on YouTube, the video has to do all the work. And it's really a different pace.
Brett Curry:
And so, another analogy that I really like is movie trailers. Think about movie trailers. And I want you to kind of picture the typical story arc. So actually, I'll show two here. So on the left, this is the traditional story arc, where there's a lead in, there's a buildup. Maybe it's a quiet, suburban neighborhood and someone's out on their lawn and the birds are chirping. It's like a real slow buildup. And then there's a climax, something happens, product is revealed, problem is revealed, whatever. And then it tapers off and there's an offer. Okay. That's not usually how movie trailers work now. Usually, a movie trailer now starts with an explosion, James Bond's jumping out of a plane. He's ramping his motorcycle over the train tracks. He's rolling, he's shooting. And then it backs up and tells a little story. And then there's more explosions and action. And then there's more content. And then it hits you hard at the end. And you're like, whoa, I got to see that movie. I got to go see that movie on opening weekend.
Brett Curry:
Now, that's not the perfect analogy, because you don't need explosions and you don't need CGI, and you don't need James Bond. But you need to keep that pace in mind. Pace has got to be fast. You got to start strong and on a high note, and then keep it interesting as you go as well. And I'll give you examples here in just a minute. And you have to say enough, you have to say enough to get someone to click. And so, here's what we've found. Really, the sweet spot, if you're running YouTube ads, to get a conversion, how many of you guys have like a specific CPA goal or specific CAC goal that you're going after? You're not just going for awareness, you've got like a CPA goal? Okay. That's most of you.
Brett Curry:
So if you're trying to drive conversions, whether that's a sign up, whether that's a purchase. We're mostly e-com, so that's what we do. But what I'm going to show you apply whether you're lead gen or service based or whatever. But if you're trying to get an action, longer videos work. YouTube did just release that if your video's over three minutes, they're going to tax you for that, it's going to be a higher cost. We actually have not seen that play out. Boom, which I showed you earlier, they've got some four and five minute videos that are still working very well. But I think still, as a rule of thumb, minute and a half to three minutes. I've had some videos in the automotive space that are about 45 seconds that really do well. But where we've seen a taper off is like, if you go 30 seconds or less, your view rate will go up. Your conversion rate will go way down, almost every time. So this is kind of the sweet spot.
Brett Curry:
Awesome. What you say and how you say it is way more important than production value. So story is more important than production value. You don't have to spend a lot to get a YouTube ad that works. And compelling is more than impressive. So just to kind of hedge the example of a TV ad, because I know, as soon as I say TV ad, you think super bowl commercial or something like that, where it's really funny and engaging, but we don't know what the product is for. So your goal here is not to make someone say, "Oh man, that was a great ad." You want to make them say, "I got to have that product." Or, "I got to try that service." Or, "I got to have that free resource." Or, "I've got to take this step." So, impressed with the product or service, not so much with the ad itself.
Brett Curry:
Okay. Let's break down six must have elements of any YouTube ad, and then I'm going to show you some examples, and then we'll talk about measurement. So here we go. Number one, we like to call this the golden thread. So what is the golden thread behind your video? What's the one thing, if your audience could only remember and really grab ahold of one thing, what is that one thing? And then that one thing needs to be weaved throughout the video. So a couple of examples, Boom by Cindy Joseph, they sell cosmetics primarily to women over at the age of 50. Their one thing is they're pro-age cosmetics. So their messaging is not anti-age or look like you did when you were 20 or that type of thing. They're saying, "Hey, you are you beautiful where you are. You're at a more powerful stage you've ever been in your life. So embrace who you are now. Look your best, for sure." But some of their models, and you can see there that their hair is gray. They're not coloring it. And so, the whole message is around pro-age, not anti-age, but pro-age.
Brett Curry:
Another example, Grammarly, not a client, but I admire what they're doing. They're actually one of the top spenders on YouTube ads. So their one thing is, spelling and grammar errors will sabotage your success. Whether you're a student or a business owner or getting started in your career, if you send messages that have grammar and spelling errors, you're hosed. And so, we fix it as you go. That's the whole message behind Grammarly. That's their one thing. So have that one thing in mind, everything is built around that one thing.
Brett Curry:
But then you got to hook the audience. So the hook is super, super important. So we'll kind of break this down just a little bit. Anybody know what product this is for? Poo-Pourri. It's an old one. I haven't seen this ad in years and years, and you probably haven't either, but you still remember it. So this is the toilet spray to make things not so smelly. This can be a really gross ad. And it's borderline. This could be a gross topic, but they chose to open the ad with this British girl. She had a beautiful British accent. She's wearing a dress, and she's sitting on a public toilet. That's not what you expect from an ad. And then she even starts, and I don't want to gross anybody out, but she says, "You would not believe the mother load I just dropped." So it's like, are you kidding me? So this is like shock and awe and humor. But then it tells the story, it's beautiful, it's hilarious. It keeps you going. So you'll have like education, then humor, then education, then humor. And then you close. And you're like, I got to buy this. Even if I don't want it, I got to buy it at this point.
Brett Curry:
So this probably isn't the way you'll start your video, but it could be. You could go shock and awe. You could go humor, because that does work. Here's an interesting thing to keep in mind as you're creating your hook. You actually want to hook the right audience and repel the wrong audience. So this doesn't have to be mass appeal. Usually, it's not. Typically, I want to speak directly to a specific person. And I want the other people to actually skip my ad. And here's one of the reasons why, if someone skips, you actually don't pay for that. So those of you that have played around with this, you experienced that. It's called true view ads. So you only pay if someone engages by watching or by clicking through to your ad, clicking through to your lander.
Brett Curry:
So I'm okay repelling some people and getting them to move on. So you want just the right people to stay there. Because we've all had that experience, we're watching a YouTube video. We go to YouTube to learn or to watch a music video or something. And the ad pops up and you're like, "Curse you, YouTube. Curse you, advertiser." You got your finger over your track pad. You're ready to press it. But then maybe it hooks you, maybe you watch. Some of the videos we run have 30%, 40%, 50% view rates. So up to half the people don't skip. But they all want to. You know they want to, in the first five seconds, but then we get them to stick around. And so the hook is super important. Spend most of your time on the hook because that is what matters.
Brett Curry:
But here's some things you can do. So you may not want to do the shock and awe, humor thing. Maybe you want to lead with your biggest benefit. So this was an ad that we ran for like a bronzer type of product. And so, it opened with, do you want gorgeous, sexy legs in a matter of seconds? So it was like a real direct benefit. And then it talked about how the product worked, it's just a spray on thing. And then it talked about how it doesn't stain, and it's waterproof and all these things. But just led with the strongest benefit, made that super clear right out of the gate. Maybe you lead with the biggest problem that you help overcome.
Brett Curry:
So this is a quick shot of Flex Seal. Who here has seen the Flex Seal infomercials? The dude from New Jersey, and he's spraying everything with the black goo, the Flex Seal. So he says, "This repair will cost thousands of dollars, but you can spray it with the Flex Seal. So I encourage you to watch the video. It's actually really great. It's like a lesson in salesmanship. But he's starting with a problem. This is the problem we help you overcome. And then he shows how you do that.
Brett Curry:
Anybody have a percussive therapy device, like a theragun or something like that? Dude, they're miracle workers. Love them, absolutely love them. So we had a client. And what we found as we were talking to people, and I was a customer so I had some insight, was that people usually have two questions when they're looking at this. One, does it work? And two, do I need to pay 600 bucks? Because that's what some of the brands cost. So we created this video that opened just like this. It had like all the percussive therapy devices on a table and it said, "Hey, have you ever seen devices like this and wondered do they work? And if they work, do you really have to pay 600 bucks?" And then we went into, "No, you don't. And here's how ours works. And here's the price, and all that stuff." And so maybe you start with the biggest question that's in the mind of your prospect. That's a great hook. That's a great place to start your video.
Brett Curry:
But you don't just want to have the one thing, and you don't just want to have a great hook. You also need to think about the supporting cast. What's going to help bring this to life? What's going to really push someone over the edge? Because we all have sales resistance. What's going to push us over the edge to say yes? So what are some other benefits that kind of compliment your one thing? Anybody recognize these sunglasses? Anybody know what that brand is? They need to run more YouTube ads. Got it. Okay. So these are some friends of mine, I helped them launch on YouTube. William Painter is the brand. So these are titanium sunglasses. So you can step on them, you can drop them, you can run over them with a car. Well, maybe you can't do that. I'm not sure. But you can do a lot of stuff to these and they don't break. So that's the real selling point. They look cool. They're indestructible.
Brett Curry:
But then they added this thing called the hook, and the hook is actually a bottle opener. So in the video, the spokesperson is popping open a bottle of beer and he is drinking and he is like, "Hey, you can also pop bottles and look like a model." And that's not the reason you buy it, but what happens if you're attempted to buy a $300 pair of sunglasses? You're like, "Well, I don't really need that. Who am I going to have to explain this to?" But if you're like, but I could show it off, or, it's practical. I can open bottles with this. So it's like a justification to say yes to this expensive pair of sunglasses. But there are other things you could do too that makes your product irresistible. What are those things? What is the supporting cast for your video?
Brett Curry:
Number four, objection busters. So this is where you're thinking about, what is the natural resistance that your prospects are feeling? What are the parts of your message that they're not readily accepting? And then, how do you overcome those objections? So people are saying, "Eh, I've seen this before. I've tried this type of product. I've done this before. I've been let down. It doesn't work." So people are naturally skeptical. And so, you can say things like, "Hey, you may be thinking this, but let me show you why that's not true."
Brett Curry:
So here's this buddy of mine, Peter, from Groove Rings, I'm actually wearing a Groove Ring right now, silicone wedding ring. They're awesome. Super comfortable. But they're made of silicone. And there's still a lot of people that have metal wedding bands. And so, they're afraid that these might break. So am I going to pay for this, then it's going to break? What's going to happen? So they have a 94 year warranty, which sounds cooler than lifetime. And basically, if you break it, you lose it, something happens, just ... out, we'll replace it. No questions asked. So that big objection standing in people's way, they overcome that in the video. So, what are the objections you have that people are thinking when they're watching your video? How do you overcome those?
Brett Curry:
All right. Next one. The proof. So this is good. I'm from Missouri, which is the show me state. Our state animal is the mule, which is really promising. So I guess we don't believe anything unless you show us. So you need to keep Missouri in mind when you're making these videos because people want proof. They want proof that what you're saying is true, and that it's actually going to work. And so this is where you're throwing credentials, throwing testimonials. Ideally, video testimonials. I like both, showing reviews, we do a lot of product stuff. I like showing reviews, like Native, one time it was 15,000 5 star reviews. Now it's like 100,000 or something. But, this many five star reviews. And then we show actual video testimonials. That's really, really powerful. Show credentials or reviews or other things as well can help.
Brett Curry:
Also, make sure you keep this fun. This is an area where we could start to get a little bit boring if we're not careful. So this should be fun. Anybody know what video this is? Purple Mattress. So shout out to the Harmon brothers, both this and Poo-pourri were made by the Harmon brothers. I know the guys there. They're great. Really, really talented. And so, they were showing how the Purple Mattress, it's such a supportive mattress. You put raw eggs on top of it, drop this 300 pound sheet of glass, and the mattress will support it and the eggs won't break. That's a really fun science experiment. Science can be boring, but this is fun and it's engaging and you want to watch it. So make the proof fun. This isn't a term paper. This isn't high school debate. Make it fun and engaging while you're giving your proof.
Brett Curry:
And then the sixth step is the offer. So we need some kind of offer to close out the video. Now, this could be something like a bundle or a discount. We do a lot in the supplement space and consumable space. And so, a lot of times what we're doing there is, "Hey, try our five best flavors. Try our five best fragrances free. All you pay is shipping and handling." We got upsells on the back end. And those convert really, really well. So you can do that. Or you could do like a bundled starter kit. We got some hair care products that do this $150 value starter kit, and get it for 50 bucks today type of thing.
Brett Curry:
But you don't have to do that. Boom by Cindy Joseph, they do almost no discounting ever. They do a Black Friday sale and that's basically it. So with Boom, we're laying out the benefit of the product, doing all the things we just talked about. And then we're saying, "Hey, click here for our five makeup tips for older women. See how you can really maximize your makeup over the age of 50. Click here and find that out." So it could be a learn more, see it in action, try it for yourself, that type of thing. But you need some kind of call to action, even if it's simple. Because if you leave out that call to action, people won't take action. People will just watch the next video, because that's why they were in YouTube in the first place. They didn't go to YouTube to watch your video. They went to watch a Justin Bieber video, which is why my kids go, which is really disappointing. Or they went to learn something, or whatever. So unless you tell them to click and to go do something, they won't. So you need to ask.
Brett Curry:
So those are the quick six musts of a YouTube video. Let's talk about what's working now, and let me give you some examples. I've kind of alluded to this, but this is a question we get asked all the time. Usually it's, one, how long is the YouTube video? How long should it be? And two, how much do I need to spend? So, do I need to start with a $20,000 production ad? And the answer is no. In fact, the answer is, you shouldn't. Don't start there, please. Because it probably won't work. Your first attempt is probably not going to work, even if you spend a lot of money on it. So typically, don't start here, start with something simple and then iterate, and then go big. So let me give you an example. Anybody heard of True Earth? Laundry detergent strips. Yeah. A couple of people. All right, awesome. So I'm going to play part of this ad, and then I'm going to show you what we did with this ad. So just listen in. I won't play the whole thing, because that'll be too long. But just take a listen here.
Speaker 2:
Stop. Before you buy more laundry detergent, say no to wasteful plastic laundry jugs. Why? In North America alone, over 700 million laundry jugs per year find their way into landfills. Yes. Laundry jugs may be recyclable, but only one in five actually get recycled as intended. It's time to meet the new zero waste laundry detergent upgrade. True Earth laundry strips are a revolution.
Brett Curry:
Boom. So that's good. So we started there. How much do you think that video cost to produce? That's too much. So the guess was 5,000. That's too high. 500. Yeah, I don't even know. So here's the true answer. The voiceover was the owner, my buddy, Ryan Mackenzie, shout out to Ryan, if you ever listen to this. He wrote the script. It's like clip art, or just stock photography. He just grabbed it, he put it together on his Mac. I think he used the microphone on his Mac. I don't think he had like a Yeti. I think it was just the microphone on his MacBook. And that was it.
Brett Curry:
That video has, last time I looked, and this has been months ago. So like 12 million paid views and very, very profitable. So this was driving conversions like crazy. Now, once that worked and once we knew kind of audience and things like that, a few of the hooks, then he went big. So this is a high production value video. I'm going to play the first part of it. Actually, I'll show you how you can get a link to this if you want to watch the full thing, but I'll play a little bit of it. So this was going big.
Speaker 3:
Things you should never mix with water, mascara, home electronics, sodium metal, witches.
Speaker 4:
I'm melting.
Speaker 3:
But do you know what really shouldn't have water added to it? Laundry detergent. Why? Laundry detergents like these contain up to 80% water, which is why they're so heavy. And this, this is how much waste the average family creates in a lifetime just from buying laundry detergent. Look at that. It's more plastic than an episode of Real Housewives. And while technically-
Brett Curry:
So there you go. So it's a pretty funny ad. It hooks you because it's like a pattern interrupt, where you're not expecting someone to be dowsed in water. You're not expecting the witch thing and all that. It pretty quickly ties it into laundry detergent right thereafter. So this is in the first year. Now they're maybe two and a half years into YouTube, something like that. But first year we spent about a million dollars on YouTube. A lot of that was with that first, cheesy video. And then we got these videos.
Brett Curry:
And I think these videos now, there's like a series of them with that lead character. They have over a hundred million views now across YouTube and Facebook. And so it worked really, really well. We had 25 million views that first year, which was awesome. We went from zero to 54,000 a month in ad spend in just three months. And I'll show you what that did in a minute. Now, they've got a CPA goal. CPA goal or CAC goal, customer acquisition cost, whichever acronym you prefer. And we were able to get really, really close to that. But I'm going to show you, in the measurement part in a minute, the full impact of YouTube in just a second. And now they're still hitting their CPA targets.
Brett Curry:
So here's where we're doing a lot, with a lot of clients. I'm going to show you a couple more examples. We like to have kind of a hero video. And you could execute on a hero video and not spend a ton. You wouldn't have to go full production, like what we just showed you. But hero plus lower production value. I'm going to show you a couple more examples here. Anybody here use Live Beard? I'm looking for beards in the crab. We got a couple. You got nice hair, actually, man. Do you use product on your beard? What do you use on your hair, actually? Just curious. Whatever? Okay, awesome.
Brett Curry:
There's this kid. My daughter's cheer. And the quarterback for our team, he's got great hair, man. It's like long and flowing. And so, one time I was like, "Hey, what do you put in your hair, Parker? And I really thought he would just say something like that. Like, oh, I don't know. Just whatever. He's like, "DevaCurl" Like DevaCurl? That's not what you want to admit so that all your football buddies know you use DevaCurl. Anyway. So, beard products, very popular now for those that have beards. This is a video they created. So this is one of the founders, Spencer. This video, I'm just going to play a minute or so of it.
Spencer:
I'm beard man. And I'm here to show you how to become the bearded beast you were born to be. I'm not talking about some barbaric caveman from the past. And I'm sure as hell not talking about some selfie snapping soy boy. I'm talking about the kind of man who stands up for what's right, holds the door for strangers and always gets the girl. Are you plagued by patches or slow growth, tired of the homeless comments or being told to shave, or maybe you wish your beard looked better.
Brett Curry:
That guy used to work for me, actually.
Spencer:
Well, my friend-
Brett Curry:
So anyway, that's a good example. So it just kind of shows. And then actually, they wrote the script, they got a local production company to do it. So they paid some money for it, but it was not crazy. It was not that expensive. So it was more about pacing. And I think it was all guys that worked for them or did work for them, or one of the guys actually used to work for us. And so, it was pretty easy to execute. But then they also, that video is doing great. It's doing really, really well. But this video, to some audiences, is doing better. So check out this video, just the first few seconds.
Speaker 6:
Without products. With products.
Speaker 7:
Before products. After products.
Speaker 8:
My beard without products. My beard with products.
Speaker 9:
Without products. With products.
Speaker 10:
Without products. With product.
Speaker 8:
If you're considering trying the beard.
Brett Curry:
So you kind of get an idea. So super easy to produce, right? Before, after. With product, without product. And then there's another one that's kind of like it here that I'm not going to play. But that combo, and we test both of those to cold audiences, to warm audiences, to remarketing, and they both work. So having that combination of slightly higher production value with something lower production value can work really, really well. Feels authentic. So this is Native. I'm going to play the first few seconds of this ad as well. This is stop motion. We've actually created some really high end stuff for Native too. And so have a few other agencies. But we still run this ad. It's like three or four years old. So I'll play the first few seconds.
Speaker 11:
Let's talk about your pits. Most antiperspirants have ingredients you can't even pronounce, but it's hard to find a natural deodorant that works. Hello B.O, let's talk about Native. Native is an aluminum free deodorant that gets the job done.
Brett Curry:
So you kind of get the idea, right? It's stop motion. It hits on some of the high points. Natural deodorant, does it even work? And some of the ingredients you can't pronounce. And so Native, it's aluminum free, and it works. And so, really simple ad. And it just crushes. And it's been working, like I said, for several years, which is pretty remarkable.
Brett Curry:
So let's talk about measurement, because this is the part we get hung up on. This is the part that's hard to unpack. It was hard pre iOS 14. It's really hard now. So let's talk about how we do this. So what do we do in a post iOS 14 world, other than cry and lament and curse Tim Cook. What else can we do? Well, we're going to look at a few things. One, we're looking at brand lift. We're going to look at brand lift. I'm going to talk about that in a second. We're going to understand that there's a lag. It's very rare that you see a TV commercial for a new car and then go do a test drive that day, and purchase it that day. It doesn't happen. Usually with YouTube, someone's going to see the ad multiple times, got to think about it, got to click around, got to check things out before they buy. So there's lag. And you got to think about lifetime value as well.
Brett Curry:
Also, how many of you guys measure MER? Is MER a word you use, and is that something you measure for your group? Yeah, so a couple. So basically, all that means it's media efficiency ratio. And what that means is total money in, so total sales, and total money out for ads. So think like return on ad spend, but total. So these are all my sales for a given day, and this is my total ad spend across YouTube, Facebook, Google Ads, TikTok, everything. So that's your MER. So you want to optimize for this, because those numbers don't lie. You know what you spent in media, you know what sales are coming in. We got to get to the campaign level and stuff too. But this is like our true north to make sure we're not screwing something up. If the MER is way out of whack, then something's off.
Brett Curry:
Okay. Right now I recommend you consider a third party attribution tool. These are a few that I recommend. These are kind of more enterprise level. But a few of them are still fairly affordable. These work great for eCommerce. If you're not eCommerce, and I think things like Wicked Reports or Hyros, some of those are okay too. I really like Northbeam. So I get nothing for plugging them. I just really like their tool. Basically it works on a first party pixel. So they put a first party pixel on your site. So it's your data, never expires, never goes away. You have it forever. They connect that then to all the ad platforms and to your backend system, whether that's Shopify, BigCommerce, whatever. So they're able to get a really true picture of what's happening.
Brett Curry:
There's also a free tool you can use, Enhanced Conversions. Anybody here using Enhanced Conversions with Google Ads? Almost none of you. Okay, this is free. You should do this. So reach out to your agency, reach out to a Google rep, if you have one. Basically same concept here, where Google will give you a first party pixel, so that it's now your data. Then it will be hashed and sent back to Google. So basically, just to skip the nerdiness, it just allows Google to see more conversions. So once this is implemented, you'll see a lift of 7% to 25% increase in conversions. Not that more conversions are happening. It's just that you're able to see the conversions that already were happening, because of the iOS 14 issues, primarily.
Brett Curry:
And then if you have a tool kind of like Northbeam, and I'll just show this one slide and then we'll kind of move on. What it will do is it'll break down a given day and say, hey, the return on ad spend or the media efficiency ratio for today, X percent of that was based on one day activities, so today's activities. A certain other percentage was based on things that happened three days ago. And then some of it was based on LTV, stuff that happened three or four or five months ago. And so these are really helpful numbers to know. And you really can't get that without some kind of a tool at this point.
Brett Curry:
So I talked to you about overall brand lift. Let's talk about True Earth brand lift real quick. Once we got to 50,000 in monthly spend, we saw direct conversions. We saw people did click from YouTube, and they did buy right away. But that was only part of the story. The bigger impact was here, their branded campaigns. So branded search campaigns went up 60%. Their search and shopping went up 366%. Their overall Google Ads account, excluding YouTube, went up 80%. So you have all these people that saw a YouTube ad and converted then elsewhere, through branded search or through a shopping ad or something like that, that YouTube didn't get credit for, but that YouTube helped drive.
Brett Curry:
So this is what we need to look at, too. It's overall growth. Because we found a lot, once people shut off YouTube, things really slowed down. We even seen this, we have a big hair care brand that sells on Amazon too. And we had to shut off YouTube for a couple months around iOS 14. And Amazon sales really dropped. We weren't even sending traffic to Amazon, we were sending traffic to their store. But when YouTube was shut off, Amazon went down big time. This is kind of the averages. You could always expect about a 30% lift once you start getting to a meaningful spend on YouTube.
Brett Curry:
So let's talk about this really quickly. We'll kind of wrap up here. We got about 10 minutes, a little bit less. I'll be available for questions too, after this. We may not get to Q&A here, but I'll hang out, I got time, to answer any questions. So let's think about what levers can we pull to create greater growth? So this is the real part of campaign optimization that matters. So based on the data we're seeing, what can I do next? So let's talk about a few things. Let's talk about conversion rate first. So what if, for every hundred people that click, oftentimes you only get like one of those people to convert. That's typical e-commerce. One out of a hundred clicks and they buy something. If you're doing opt-ins or whatever, usually that percentage is higher. But what if we could take that to two or three people instead of one? That can completely change a campaign, allow you to spend more, allow you to be more aggressive, things like that.
Brett Curry:
And so, what does it take then to get better conversion rates? Well, it's really these three things, landers, offers or better quality traffic. But typically, it's the first two. So often, if you're not getting a high enough conversion rate, you need to tweak the landing page, you need to tweak your offer. And so, if YouTube's not working, maybe you shouldn't scrap YouTube. Maybe you need to look at the lander and look at the offer. And then if those are great, then it's probably the quality of the traffic. You need to switch up your audiences or something like that.
Brett Curry:
Next. Click through rate. Now this is an interesting one. So click through rate really just means the percentage of people that see the ad that click the ad. You're not actually paying for clicks, but we see this kind of thing all the time. So it's not uncommon to have a YouTube ad where, for every thousand people that see it, only 15 click. That's not very good, but that may be what's happening with your video. So for every thousand people that see it, only 15% click. This really isn't impacting your cost, you're paying about the same amount for 15 people to click or for 50 or 100, because you're paying for views with YouTube.
Brett Curry:
But what if you could increase that from 15 to 50 or 100? So now you're going from a 0.15 click through rate to a 1, and that's where we see a lot. And so you can do that. So then you have to ask, well, what keeps someone from clicking? If they see the ad, if they watch the ad and they don't click, what's keeping them from clicking? And usually, it's a few things. So yeah, what we're trying to do here is just more selling opportunities for the same cost. So what keeps people from clicking on an ad? Usually it's the call to action. Sometimes it's the product demo. Maybe you did enough to hook them, but not enough to overcome their objections or to really see the product working or the service working, or to see themselves benefiting from what you're offering. Or maybe there's not enough emotion. You should create an emotional reaction in your audience when they see your ad. If you're not, then they're likely not going to click.
Brett Curry:
Then there's also view through rates. So view through rate is the percentage of people that are served the ad that actually watch the ad. And this is not a given, we got the skip ad button. And so what we're looking at here, and if your view rate's really low, then what do you need to change? Usually it's the hook. You want to increase the hook. And here's what's cool, if you have more people watching your ad, so a lower skip rate, basically, YouTube loves that. And they actually are like, people love this ad. I'm going to keep showing this ad. You'll pay a lower cost for that ad because Google makes more money when people watch it, and it'll show more. So thinking about how to make the hook better actually drives your costs down over time. So it's really a powerful benefit of getting a good hook. So better hooks, more relevance to your audience. That's kind of how you solve that.
Brett Curry:
So what are some things you should test? Well, I like to launch with two to three different hooks. So let's say you've got the same video, but I'd want to test two or three hooks in the very beginning. I'd want to test a couple of different product demonstrations, and then test a couple of offers as well. And then you're looking for the right combo, right combo of hook, offer, demo. That's what you're really looking for. And demo could be just like the education on your product as well. So you're looking for the right combo there.
Brett Curry:
And then, as we're going through this then, I'll talk about audiences really quickly. And then what do we have? We have five minutes left on time. Okay. So maybe we'll sneak in a couple questions because this takes like 30 seconds. So two audiences I recommend for YouTube, these are kind of unique to YouTube and the way YouTube functions. One is called custom intent, the other is called a keyword campaign. So custom intent, this is where you can build an audience based on what people are searching for on Google and on YouTube. So Google has amazing search data. It's also first party data, so they can use it however they want. So you can build an audience of people based on what they're searching for on Google or on YouTube, or you can target people based on what they're watching.
Brett Curry:
And so, a keyword campaign is actually contextual. So it puts your ad next to content related to whatever keyword you give it. So we have clients that sell supplements, or the beard company, we'll use keywords like beard routine, beard maintenance, beard care. How do I grow a beard? Things like that. And so those are people watching videos about that topic. Now we can run our ad right there. Okay. So getting the audience right is important, but nailing the creative, that's really what matters. So a quick free resource. I put together this guide that's like top YouTube ad examples. So this is free. This has links to a lot of the videos that I just showed you. And there's actually a QR code. If you hit that, then you can go to the page to download that. So that's an awesome guide. I highly, highly recommend it.
Brett Curry:
Should we attempt questions, Brian? It's up to you. Let's do it. So go to one of the microphones. We got time for maybe two. And if I don't get to you all, I'll hang out afterwards as well. So go ahead. Yeah. Oh, there's actually not a microphone in that aisle. Oh, denied. Okay. Get there. You got time. You got time, I'll wait for you. Yes, sir.
Speaker 12:
Hi, Brett. Thanks very much. Have you seen performance max campaigns?
Brett Curry:
Mm. Yeah. Great question. So performance max, who here has heard of performance max? Okay. Little known fact, performance max is actually going to replace smart shopping sometime this year, probably in the summer. So if you're running smart shopping, that's only e-commerce. But if you're running smart shopping, performance max will replace that, which is interesting. Basically, Google's goal is for you just to give them ads. So like, here's our images, here's our videos, here's our website. And Google, you do the rest. Like, here's our return, you just do the rest. We've tested performance max now with several clients. It's been mainly hit or miss. We have one client that's killing it with performance max. The rest are like, eh. I'm not really ready to press the gas on them at all. I would consider testing it, especially if you're running smart shopping, you got to start testing performance max now, because that's where your campaigns will become soon.
Speaker 12:
But are you using video ads in the ...?
Brett Curry:
Yes.
Speaker 12:
As well. So is it affecting your video campaigns?
Brett Curry:
Performance max?
Speaker 12:
Yeah.
Brett Curry:
Is performance max affecting video campaigns?
Speaker 12:
Yeah.
Brett Curry:
So far it has not been pulling away any volume from video campaigns.
Speaker 12:
Okay. Thank you.
Brett Curry:
And a little secret too, sometimes we like to launch performance max in a separate account. You can do that. You can have multiple Google Ads accounts. It's okay, Google doesn't mind. That often works better. So then, get performance max and something separate, sometimes can work. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 13:
Hi.
Brett Curry:
Hello.
Speaker 13:
Do you have any experience with very low budgets or very small companies? And do YouTube ads work?
Brett Curry:
Yeah. So most of my experience has been when we got a little budget behind it, we can kind of push the spend. So we're maybe spending 10,000 to 30,000 a month. That's where you can see results quickly. But you don't have to do that. We do have one, I showed a landing page a minute ago. One of my clients is actually a friend too. They sell like a derma roller. And they're like, hey, we want to spend like a hundred bucks a day. That's it. And so, it actually worked. We got it dialed in on the ad front, and then also on the landing page.
Brett Curry:
If you go low budget and you're still trying to get conversions, I recommend you go with what's called maximize conversions, that's the bid strategy. Because if you go target CPA, and I apologize for this getting a little nerdy. But if you go target CPA, you have to have a bid to budget ratio of like 10X. So if you're trying to get like a $50 conversion, then Google wants 500 bucks a day for that campaign. If you go max conversions, you can fudge that. You can just say, I'll spend 50 bucks on this today. And so, really the testing window may just become longer if you spend less, but you can still start with a lower budget. Yeah.
Speaker 13:
Thank you.
Brett Curry:
Awesome.
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