Set up a video campaign in Google Ads

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@james-hebdon


Business Benefits

Create effective video ads with the right bid strategy for your business goals.


Log into your Google Ads Account, click the + icon, select New Campaign, choose a goal type, and select Video as the campaign type.

Choose Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance to have full control over which subtypes are available to you. You can also choose to start with a specific goal, which will limit the available subtypes. Currently, video campaigns are only supported by the Sales, Leads, Website traffic, Product and brand consideration, and Brand awareness and reach goal types.

Choose your campaign subtype and click Continue.

Your campaign subtype determines which bid strategies are available to you and cannot be changed once your campaign is created nor can you change your choice of available bid strategies. Select Custom video campaign if you don’t have a defined objective, it has the most flexibility and variety for available ad formats, which makes it a good subtype to use as default.

Review the available bid strategies before selecting the subtype:

  • Custom video campaign allows for Max CPV and Target CPM bid strategies and skippable in-stream, video discovery, or bumper ads.
  • Non-skippable in-stream allows for Target CPM only.
  • Outstream allows for Viewable CPM only.
  • Drive conversions allows for Target CPA and Maximize conversions with responsive or skippable in-stream ads.
  • Ad Sequence allows for Max CPV and Target CPM and allows for a mix of non-responsive ad formats.
  • Shopping allows for Max CPV only and skippable in-stream ads.

Name your campaign and select a bid strategy.

If your preferred bid strategy isn’t available, go back and change the campaign subtype. Simply click on the pencil in the Type / Subtype section at the top of the screen and choose a new subtype.

If you’re just getting started with a Custom video campaign subtype, choose Maximum CPV. Your Maximum CPV is the most you’re willing to pay for someone to interact with your ad, or watch 30 seconds or the entire video, whichever comes first.

Set a budget based on the type of campaign and the duration you’ll be running it for.

  • For an evergreen campaign, choose a Daily budget, and select the amount you want to spend per day, like your monthly budget divided by 30.4.
  • For a limited run campaign, choose a Campaign total budget and enter the full campaign budget. Then enter your Start date and End date to define your campaign schedule.

If you’re using the Drive conversions subtype, Google recommends a daily budget of 15x your target CPA for Target CPA, and 10x your expected CPA for Max conversions.

Select the Networks you want your ads to appear on.

Your available options will be determined by your chosen campaign subtype. Keep YouTube videos selected for standard video campaigns.

If you don’t deselect Video partners on the Display Network, your video ads may run across the display network, even if you specifically curate video placement or channel targeting lists. If you’d like for your ads to run on the display network, leave this box ticked.

Set your Locations and Languages to your targeted location and the language that’s used in your video ads.

The default language setting is All languages. Changing your target language won’t keep your ads from serving against videos in other languages, but will specifically target people who speak the language you’ve chosen, rather than all languages.

Select any content types that you want to exclude based on your brand and targets, or skip to the next screen if you’ll be targeting specific YouTube channels or video placements.

Some brands only want to be associated with family-friendly content. Others may target a more mature audience.

Click the Additional settings dropdown to reveal optional campaign-level settings, including ad scheduling, device targeting, and frequency capping.

These settings can be changed at any time. The Conversions option allows you to choose which of your account’s conversion actions will be recorded as conversions in the Conversions column. This has extra weight if you’re using a bid strategy that optimizes for conversions.

If you’re running an Ad sequencing campaign, select your Sequence templates and add your videos to complete the setup.

Ad sequencing also requires that your YT channel be linked to your account before completing this step, something that isn’t required for other ad formats.

For all other video campaigns, to complete the creation of the campaign, click Skip ad group and ad creation (advanced) to complete the setup.

Create and target a video to add ad groups, targeting, and videos to your campaign. You can also choose to continue creating your ad group from the same screen by following the prompts. This allows you to add your video ads and set your targeting within each ad group you create.

Last edited by @hesh_fekry 2023-11-14T12:35:18Z