Month: December 2022

According to research from Wyzowl, 86% of marketers say video has helped them generate leads, and 81% say video has helped them increase sales. For B2B campaigns, videos illustrating how a product or service solves a company’s problems are the most likely to resonate with prospects. Like consumer-facing video campaigns, setting campaign goals and defining target audiences is foundational to successful B2B videos — but these efforts also require their own approach.

“B2B brands have been playing out of the B2C playbook for a long time, and now are really trying to break out of that,” said Max Berns, lead customer success manager at QuickFrame by MNTN. “Video is a really effective way to grab someone’s attention on a platform like LinkedIn. B2B brands are investing in video and seeing where these videos can work on different platforms.”

Laying the groundwork for effective B2B campaigns

While both B2B and B2C brands use video to grow brand awareness and trust, advertisers’ video tactics and formats are not necessarily interchangeable.

Defining the specific goals and KPIs for each video is critical for teams to determine which videos to create and how, while defining the target audience — for instance, decision-makers versus end users of a product or service — often informs the video narrative and distribution strategy.

According to Berns, B2B campaigns should prioritize education and discovery as prospects strive to learn more about an organization’s products or services. 

For instance, an upper-funnel brand awareness campaign might include video ads about a company’s history or testimonials from past clients. These videos may best be suited for a platform like LinkedIn to reach other professionals. In another example, it might be most effective to distribute informational videos or tutorials through emails to customers. 

Seasonality is also a key consideration in the B2B space.

“Recognizing when your customers are building their budgets is really important, whether that is in Q4 or Q1,” explained Berns. “You want to ramp up spending before budgets wrap for the following year, making sure that you’re getting as many eyeballs as possible on your product.”

Shaping video narratives for B2B audiences

Creative approaches to video campaigns differ based on several factors, including industry, audience and goals.

In some cases, B2B brands — particularly those that offer intangible services, tools or apps — use explainer videos to describe customer problems and highlight their solutions. With case study videos, B2B brands establish credibility through first-hand testimonials from clients that represent the target demographics well.

Depending on the part of the funnel the videos are intended for, the information presented can be broad or more granular. Further down the funnel, direct response videos produced for specific platforms include clear calls to action to drive leads or sales.

“Audiences, especially in the B2B space, are especially receptive to testimonials and direct response videos,” Berns said. “We’re more inclined to be engaged by a product when we see or hear someone who has had a positive experience with it.”

Culture videos showcase organizations from the inside out, depicting a company as accessible and trustworthy. These videos often focus on a brand’s people or core values and serve several purposes depending on the context.

“When you use a platform like LinkedIn effectively, you can target the brands and customers you’re trying to work with and still highlight tons of information around your company,” Berns explained. “You can have a video interview with a C-level executive, and that will help with building your brand and recruiting while still focusing on other KPIs in the same campaign.”

How brands are measuring success with video ads

To ensure the effectiveness of their video efforts, B2B marketers are routinely testing, measuring and analyzing campaign performances. Different types of campaigns across the funnel will have other KPIs and metrics.

Additionally, engagement metrics like video completion rates indicate when a team needs to update or refresh ad creative. Doing so ensures that audiences aren’t bored by repeatedly seeing the same ad. 

To save time and money, Berns recommends companies bundle several creative iterations in one shoot and incorporate creative refreshes in the post-production process. Using creator marketplaces and localized production solutions are other ways marketers can cut costs associated with video campaigns. 

By testing videos and evaluating ad metrics, marketers can draw insights — from what types of campaigns most resonate with audiences to seasonal trends with specific offerings or verticals.

“The more content that you’re putting out into the world, the more learnings and data that you’re getting back,” Berns said. “So the more that you’re testing and learning upfront, the better you’ll be able to optimize your campaigns in the future.”

Sponsored by: QuickFrame by MNTN

In this new Q&A, Dr. Jochen Schlosser, Chief Technology Officer at Adform, spoke with the Custom in-house agency at Digiday Media about how ad tech will respond to questions around privacy, identity, sustainability and transparency in 2023.

How will the expected general economic downturn affect the sector? Is there an argument that ad tech will innovate out of the adversity?

Jochen Schlosser: With this economic crisis, we see budgets going down at the same time that inflation is rising. Advertisers are much more cost-conscious, and the focus is on ROI — tracking, measurement and actual proof of the impact of their investments. So the money that usually goes into innovation is less available now than in previous years. When economic forces shift back, we will see a massive push toward innovation again because the window for new identity solutions is getting shorter.

However, some companies, the highly profitable companies, have an opportunity to innovate and stay ahead of the curve right now with the aim to grow market share while others are slowing down.

How will sustainability affect innovation in ad tech? 

Jochen Schlosser: In advertising, sustainability has been sneaking into the governance discussion for a few years already. There are some vital questions that CMOs need to answer. How can I control where I spend my money? How can I ensure that it goes toward a publisher that is considered “good” in terms of transparency, ethics and sustainability?

More companies are looking into sustainability and want to choose a vendor with a record of trust with sustainability or even offering opportunities to optimize spend toward sustainable publishers. Are they using green energy? How do they source their partners? Carbon neutrality and ethical standards of companies are becoming business-critical for brands. 

Most ad tech companies that I speak with have sustainability policies in place already. As an industry, we connect billions of dollars of demand with trillions of opportunities to show ads on publisher properties. If either side starts to ask for more sustainable transactions, ad tech and programmatic is the way it happens. We will be innovating around products to trade using sustainability as a criterion, as advertisers will need simple solutions to activate and run sustainable ads.

Is the ‘death of the cookie’ still an issue, or are marketers finding alternative solutions?

Jochen Schlosser: Cookies will die — we know that for sure — but the timing is still a bit unclear. As long as people don’t have trust in this “end date,” it will continue to be the likely biggest annoyance in the industry. 

It still doesn’t feel like the cookie will be gone within 24 months for some large publishers and advertisers. So many companies are moving slowly, but innovative companies are moving ahead of the curve. They will be in the best position and are already seeing traction with first-party data, building deeper partnerships based on the security and quality of first-party identifiers. This will be a game changer in the industry.

However, many are still searching for their solution. But there will not be one global solution; it won’t be one solution that fits all needs across all markets. The answers the industry lands on will be regional — perhaps it’s going to be 10 identity solutions that need to be leveraged in parallel by the large DSPs, and that can help, especially the mid- to long-tail publishers, to still run programmatic ads. Yes, the right solutions are starting to emerge, but we don’t see a single solution that covers the globe or even an entire country. I am sure there will be different solutions in each market that will provide value similar to or even better than third-party cookies, with strength around audience control, governance and privacy. I’m very optimistic about the overall future here.

What developments will we see in measurement and attribution?

Jochen Schlosser: Cookie deprecation is connected to measurement and attribution concerning areas of uniqueness, which are especially important for brand advertising. If you don’t know your unique user base, you don’t know your reach in your target audience or your incremental reach from channel A to channel B. 

I think we’re in a good place with measurement and tracking in what I would call classic programmatic channels. We are in an exciting place when it comes to emerging channels like digital out-of-home and CTV. 

We have seen a lot of definitions with the emerging channels now and will see a lot of implementations around brand measurements and needed controls. Things like viewability, fraud prevention and tracking will be standardized quite quickly. Downstream, the focus for everyone is on the highest level of standardization, accreditation and reduction of discrepancies around these new channels.

So, all in all another busy year ahead?
Jochen Schlosser: Yes, but everyone has to take care of the (r)evolution themselves. For all advertisers, agencies and publishers out there: Stop, don’t wait for the trend that will solve your problems. We all work in different ways — every company, every team, every business idea and every business direction is somewhat different. For each of us, different things are important and different things have priority. Business success is always an interplay of the status quo, the macroeconomic environment in which the company operates, and where the company wants to go next year and beyond. The noise around trends often obfuscates what is truly important in the specific company context.

Sponsored by: Adform