3 Easy Optimizations to Maximize Your Digital Video Strategy

Video is among the most trusted tools the modern marketer can employ to draw in and engage with large audiences across digital platforms. As online audiences continue to experience innumerable brands vying for their limited attention spans on a daily basis, successful brands must be able to stand out with effective video ads that grab and hold their attention without turning potential customers away.

Understanding how to leverage video to move consumers through your brand’s buying cycle can be a game changer for your digital marketing efforts. Here are three things to consider to maximize your digital video performance.

Become Better Storytellers with Sequential Messaging

Branded videos create new opportunities to articulate your story. One short video can elicit a stronger emotional connection and create a more impactful impression than perhaps any other type of ad. This makes video the perfect vehicle for sequential messaging — a series of targeted ads designed to engage users who qualify themselves as interested parties. Sequential messaging can be used to build interest, reinforce a message, or create a unifying theme. 

Consumers who experience an initial viewing of your video before taking action to visit your website present a major opportunity for your brand. Something about your initial message piqued their interest but hasn’t won them over yet. Interested users can now be served a second message designed to form a deeper understanding of who you are as a business, provide additional reasons why your offering is unique, or put a new spin on the original video’s message.

By the third or fourth video in a sequence, you know enough about your consumer to launch effective retargeting through your other programmatic platforms, beyond video. Sequential messaging allows you to tell your brand story in full and quickly introduce new users to lower-funnel targeting techniques and quickly lead consumers to convert.

Know the Value of Your Retargeted Ads

Deciding which audiences most need to see your ads is important, but marketers also must be careful to avoid oversaturation. Users who see your ad just once are 5.7% more likely to make a purchase than those who never saw your ad to begin with, and seeing ads 2-5x drives the likelihood of a purchase up another 4.4%. However, serving ads to the same user 6-10x marks a -4.4% decrease in your chances of making a sale.

Ad frequency is entirely under your control, which makes this an easy way to optimize effectively. Aiming to serve ads 2-5x in a 28-day span will keep your brand top-of-mind for the majority of new users without the risk of extreme overreaching.

While we’re on the topic of serving multiple ads, it’s worth remembering not all retargeting efforts carry the same value. Retargeting is one of the best universal conversion-drivers, but these ads repeatedly served to the same individual suffer diminishing returns over time. The first retargeted ad served to a potential customer is always much more valuable than each progressive ad served thereafter. Since the value of your retargeting to an individual decreases over time, it follows that your bids should decrease accordingly.

Capping your ad frequency at the optimal amount and decreasing your max bids for each progressive ad a user is shown are easy methods to optimize ad spend across all channels.

Target Audiences with Precision

Marketers go through a lot of trouble to gather useful data from potential customers, so why not put more of it to use? Getting ultra-granular with your targeting can uncover significant insights into who your audience is, even on video platforms where conversion actions are not likely taking place. Using multiple layers of targeting options in different combinations allows you to present your brand to consumers with a variety of needs and tendencies, and exposes which of these audience segments are most valuable moving forward. These users can then be targeted across devices to drive action and ultimately, convert.

It can be tempting to launch every campaign intent on being seen by as many people as possible, but there is significant value in reaching exclusive audiences with precise targeting parameters. Granular targeting makes for a better user experience by targeting users with the most relevant ads to them, increases engagement rates, and ultimately improves trust in your brand and chances of making a sale.