The Fundamental Strategies for Video Ads on LinkedIn: A Guide to High-Performing Creative Contents A Note from the Researcher: Why I spent 10 months of my life watching video ads .......................................................3 The Time is Now: Why B2B marketers should focus on video ...........................................................................4 Enter the funnel: Video strategies and metrics for every objective .................................................................6 Behind the Camera: Creative techniques to take your video to the next level ................................................. 15 Balancing information and entertainment ......................................................... 15 Breaking the sound barrier ...................................................................................... 16 Tight budgets? No problem ...................................................................................... 17 The Sequel: Building on video best practice ..............................................................................................18 2 The Fundamental Strategies for Video Ads on LinkedIn A Note from the Researcher: Why I spent 10 months of my life watching video ads While my colleagues left the office for team how different types of video drive different results based around clear objectives and actual drinks in the pub in 2019, I sat alone in our at different points in the funnel. performance – not on gut feel, subjective London office so I could watch ads instead. judgments and received wisdom. I had conversations with marketers, agencies, At home, I ignored my partner’s suggestions to analysts like Forrester Research and industry Online video is an inherently creative format, binge Netflix on weekends and I watched ads organisations like IAB UK. The more of these but creativity is always most effective when it’s instead. conversations I had, the clearer it became that informed by an understanding of how a format this type of data-backed analysis is very much really works. This type of insight helps digital I spent 10 months of my life analysing the needed right now. marketers generate high-value ideas, give top and bottom performing content from clearer direction to production teams and get Online video advertising has been available for the video content that we need to drive results. over a decade, and yet many B2B marketers, 38,000 in particular, are still suspicious of it – and I That’s why I spent all those months creating started to understand why. Most of the published a practical guide to what high-quality video video ads best practices for online video just don’t hold content actually looks like for different objectives that ran on LinkedIn – true for B2B. They also hold less and less true and different stages of the funnel. It’s changed and watching over 250 of those that for consumer brands the more involved a how I look at online video. I hope you find it as performed best on View Through rate (VTR), purchase is and the further down the funnel they practical and inspiring as I did. Engagement Rate, Video Completion Rate, move. Being repeatedly told to keep your video and Click Through Rate (CTR). length under six seconds doesn’t help a brand This is an ongoing discussion and we’d selling cloud data storage or freight shipping love to hear your thoughts. Join in at I categorised the types of content that featured and management services. And it doesn’t help #LinkedInVideoAds. in these videos, the creative techniques that when you’ve got an engaged potential buyer interested in more detail. they used, the formats they chose and what Jennifer Bunting happened in each of them, frame-by-frame. Head of Product Marketing for EMEA & Then, when I was done, I spent months If we’re to make full use of online video’s LATAM, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions mapping the patterns that emerged: potential, then we need a discussion that’s 3 The Fundamental Strategies for Video Ads on LinkedIn Chapter 1 Video Ads in the The time is now: The evidence is clear LinkedIn feed earn Why B2B that online video should 30% marketers should be part of the B2B more comments per impression than non-video ads focus on video marketing mix – at every stage of the funnel. 77% of marketers agree that B2B marketing deals in complex products and video drives higher 1 purchase cycles, with lead volumes According to the Aberdeen Group, marketers that use video 6.8 grow revenue stakeholders 49% faster than those that don’t now involved in the average purchase. 1 2 4 The Fundamental Strategies Stats from The B2B Video Report - UK & Ireland Edition (2018) | Stat from Hidden Stakeholders That Influence the C-Suite,Raconteur, 2018 for Video Ads on LinkedIn The time is now: Why B2B marketers should focus on video This gives video content a more complex and wide-ranging role. It can establish an emotional connection, driving brand awareness and salience. For B2B marketers, this However, it can also inform audiences and communicate detail in a compelling way. It’s no surprise therefore, that LinkedIn research shows represents both an opportunity B2B marketers leveraging a very broad range of video content types: and a challenge. What kinds of video ads B2B brands are creating2: The opportunity is that B2B influencers and decision-makers Product Videos 49% at all levels expect to engage with video and access a range of information through it. The challenge is standing out and grabbing How-to Videos 41% attention in an increasingly competitive environment. No matter what your objective, video content stands the best chance of success Explainer Videos 39% if it can intrigue and entertain as well as inform. Consumer Videos 37% “Audiences get bored. We have to push to keep Live Streams 31% things fresh, ensuring a focus on human stories, Webinars 29% and varying our production techniques — everything from how we frame the shots to the use The audiences these marketers are targeting are consuming more online of animation and more.” video than ever. Findings from to the IAB UK and PwC, show video is the only advertising channel that increased ad spend in the first half of Natnalin Thananan 2020, growing at 5.7% year-on-year. According to MarketScale, more Social Media & Content Marketing Senior Manager video content is uploaded online in 30 days than all three major U.S. TV at B2B creative agency Gyro networks have created in the past 30 years. 2 5 The Fundamental Strategies Stats from The B2B Video Report - UK & Ireland Edition (2018) for Video Ads on LinkedIn Chapter 2 Enter the Funnel: We often hear marketers asking the question, “what does good video look like?” but this is a question with no single answer. Video strategies The characteristics of good video depend on your objective. Videos that excel at reach and awareness and metrics for often have different subjects, styles and runtimes to those that excel at driving engagement and action. every objective The real questions are: 1 What does “good” video look like if I want to drive awareness and have better reach? Upper Funnel What does “good” video look like if I want to nurture 2 audience mid-funnel and increase engagement? Mid-Funnel 3 What does “good” video look like Lower if I want to drive clicks? Funnel In our research, we deliberately avoided using a These are the KPIs that you’ll be using to single metric to judge video effectiveness because demonstrate the effectiveness of video content effectiveness means different things at different and show that it’s on course to deliver Return on points in the buyer’s journey. Instead, we analysed Investment (ROI). It therefore makes sense to the most successful videos in terms of the metrics optimise around them from the start. that matter at each stage of the funnel. 6 The Fundamental Strategies for Video Ads on LinkedIn Enter the Funnel: Video strategies and metrics for every objective Matching metrics to objectives: Upper Funnel Mid-Funnel Lower Funnel What about Video Completion Rate? For driving reach and For nurturing audiences For driving conversions at awareness in the upper and driving consideration the bottom of the funnel, we Video Completion Rate is a funnel, we focused on View mid-funnel, we focused on focused on Click Through valuable metric for putting the Through Rate (VTR), which Engagement Rate, which is Rate (CTR), which captures performance of your video in captures the percentage of the percentage of videos that the porption of videos that context. It demonstrates that your videos that played for at least were reacted to, commented garnered a converting action content is relevant and provides the first two seconds on a on, and shared. that was specified in the great insight for retargeting your device. accompanying copy. When most engaged audiences. However, This captures a wide range of it comes to measurement, as a KPI it can be misleading. This isn’t the same as Video actions that have one thing in it’s important to put CTR Completion Rate (VCR), common: they demonstrate in context. Not all clicks Our data shows that a large which tells you the percentage that your audience is paying are equally valuable and percentage of viewers will engage watching through to the end. close attention and finds it’s important to track what with videos and click through However, it’s a more relevant the content interesting actions they ultimately lead to. on calls to action before they’ve KPI for brand campaigns and relevant enough to do finished watching them in full. seeking to build wider something about it. However, conversions don’t Equally, your audience doesn’t awareness and recognition, happen without people taking need to watch the whole message which don’t necessarily need a conscious, onward action to remember the brand that people to engage with detail. – and therefore, clicks are an delivered it. A video can do its job important KPI for the bottom long before the end credits.