Google AdWords for video rolls out of beta and is now available for every business

Two weeks after YouTube opened its partner program to everyone to let people monetize their uploads, the Google-owned video platform has now announced that Google AdWords for video is now leaving beta, having launched initially last September.

For the uninitiated, AdWords for video follows the same model as its Google Search counterpart, in that you only pay when someone clicks to view your video, and when they watch the entire ad. So, for example, if they click ‘skip’ in the first thirty seconds, you don’t pay a bean. You can create and manage video campaigns from the very same platform as your search and display ads.

AdWords for video also provides options to help businesses target the right audience demographic, for example they can promote their video by specific keywords so that they appear in YouTube search results. They can also choose to show their ad against content their customers are most interested in – so if you are selling sporting equipment, it might make sense to have the ad appear in sport-themed videos.

As with Search, YouTube’s AdWords lets users measure the efficacy of their spend. “On average, we’ve found that YouTube video ads drive a 20 percent increase in traffic to your website and a 5 percent increase in searches for your business,” says Baljeet Singh, YouTube group product manager. “With AdWords for video you can find out how viewers are engaging with your brand during and after they watch your ad. You can see how many viewers watched your entire video, visited your website, stayed on your channel to watch another video, or subscribed to your channel, after viewing your ad.”

There’s also now a YouTube Advertiser Playbook, which covers everything from how to create interesting content to promoting the video with ads.

What does all this mean for businesses? Well, it will be of the most appeal to small and medium-sized companies, perhaps ones that are already running ads through Search, and this will serve to make the transition into video a lot more appealing for firms, given they can manage everything together from within a single dashboard.