News and Tips for Higher Ed Pros

I’m currently working on a Google Ad campaign for my institution. The last Google ad campaign for the college’s adult education programs was run in 2005. It was really successful for some programs (accelerated certification for teachers), less for others.

As a result, it has been a while since I spend some quality time in the Google AdWords interface and… it shows as I didn’t know Google was offering many more options than the regular text pay-per-click and image banner ads they did in 2005.

Among the new formats you can use for your ads on Google or its network, the pay-per-play video ad caught my eyes right away — given the interest around online videos these days you can understand why. This option seems a natural move since Google’s acquisition of YouTube and the recent announcement the company has started to run ads on popular YouTube channels while sharing revenues with their authors.

Here is how Google defines this new option:

Video ads are a new ad format that will appear on the Google content network. Your video ad will appear as a static image until a user clicks on it and your video is played.

[...]

The video portion of your video ad will be played when a user interacts with the video. The video will not automatically replay; the user must click the play button to initiate a replay. Since videos are user-initiated, there are no frequency caps.

So, what are the requirements to use this new format?

You need a static capture of your video or a photo and a video following the following specifications:

Video ads must have a maximum duration of 2 minutes.

The format of your video must be:
AVI, ASF, Quicktime, Windows Media, or MPEG
Minimum 14 frames-per-second (prefer 30 fps)
4:3 aspect ratio (recommended; other aspects will be accepted but letterboxed)

Your video ads will run on the Google network composed of third-party websites displaying keyword-based Google ads.

Google video ads can be charged following the familar pay-per-click model (however if a user plays your ad many times in a row, you will be billed for every instance) or a more traditional web ad model, CPM, cost per thousand impressions.

I don’t plan to use this ad format for my small campaign, but this is probably an option you should keep in mind to present when it’s time to discuss web marketing options at your institution.

If any of you already use this video ad format, please let us know by posting a comment below or send me a note at karine@collegewebeditor.com

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