After months of speculation and testing, Google have finally
made it official and recently announced the launch
of “Video
Units”.
This is a new video-based advertising format that
matches the breadth of consumable video content of YouTube with the
huge Google AdWords
advertising inventory.
Online publishers and independent
video producers can rejoice as they gain another method of
making money online, and it’s easy to use too.
The new Google Video Units are a new monetization option
immediately
available to AdSense publishers located in North America and with a web
site in English. The Video Units configuration and activation can be
accessed inside the AdSense Setup tab within your AdSense account.
As an online publisher you can customize
the look and feel of the “video units”
and select specific video content by letting Google match your page
content, by keywords and categories you can select or even by specific
YouTube authors.
The new “video units” ad player features
the ability for
the viewer to scroll and browse through several video clips as well as
to move through different ads just like Google allows you to do inside
your Gmail inbox.
The ads can be displayed both above and below the video and
their format includes both text as well as full graphic banners.
The Official Google Blog Announcement
“Nowadays, website publishers realize that
getting people to visit your website is only half of the equation.
Growing your audience is important, but keeping your audience engaged
and staying on your site longer is just as important, if not more so.
Video units enable AdSense publishers to display
videos
from several YouTube content partners. The video units are
ad-supported, and the ads are relevant to both the video and the site
content.AdSense publishers can now enhance their sites
with interesting
videos, YouTube content partners benefit from a new distribution
channel, advertisers have a new vehicle to distribute their messages to
their target audiences, and people can tune in to interesting videos on
sites they normally visit.“Source: Google
Official Blog
It must be indeed emphasized that
both AdSense
publishers and YouTube content partners will receive a share of the ad
revenue, so “video units” are a very interesting monetization
opportunity both for online web site publishers but also, if not more
for independent video producers.
Here all the details I have been able to uncover:
AdSense Video Units – What are They?
Google-YouTube “video units” are a
nothing else but a new great way to enrich your site with video content
that not only provides a more engaging and rewarding
experience to your readers but that also provides a new
monetization opportunity for any qualifying AdSense registered online
publisher.
”
AdSense isn’t just for ads
anymore; it’s also a place to get video content for your
site — and earn extra revenue at the same time.Simply embed a snippet of code and have relevant
YouTube partner content streamed to your site.You can choose categories of video to target to
your site,
select content from individual YouTube partners, or have video
automatically targeted to your site content.“
Google “video units”
provide you with quality video content,
that you can target, filter and focus on the topic and themes that are
of interest to your readers inside an easy-to-use embeddable,
customizable video player.
You, as “video units” publisher can choose the video content
you
want to publish in several different ways and impressions and revenue
statistics from your “video units” will be
displayed
separately from other statistics on your personal AdSense reports
page.
For video units, Google will specifically show clicks,
impressions,
clickthrough rate, eCPM, and earnings.
If you’re not already an AdSense publisher you can easily sign
up
now and start displaying video units on your pages in a matter of
minutes.
Unfortunately non-US publishers located outside
of the US
or having sites in languages other than English are at the moment
excluded from this new monetization opportunity, though this will be
made available to them at a later, yet unspecified time.
How Does It Work?
If you’re ready to get started now, sign in to your AdSense
account
and head for the AdSense Setup tab. Click the video units link and
you’ll be on your way to setting up your first video unit.
Here’s a quick video tutorial:
How Do I Get Started?
To place video units on your site,
here the specific steps you need to take.
1. Sign in to your AdSense
account.
2. Go to the AdSense Setup tab
and select the “video units” link.
3. Review and check off the
Terms and Conditions box.
4. Click the Visit AdSense “video
units” button that will take you to YouTube.
5. Link your AdSense account
with your preferred YouTube account.
6. Go back to the AdSense Setup
tab, select “video units” among the products and
click the Visit AdSense Video units button.
7. Select now the newly
displayed option to create
a new AdSense player. Give your player a name and description so that
you can come back and edit it in the future.
8. Pick a color theme. (You can
change the colors in the future within your account without needing to
update your code.)
9. Pick a layout. (Beware:
layouts can’t be
updated; if you will need to change a layout in the future, Google will
force you to create a new video unit from scratch).
10. Choose the type of video content
you want to
display: by content categories, by individual content providers, or by
automatically targeting your site content. The cool thing here is that
you can also provide keyword hints to assist automatic video content
targeting.
11. Click the Generate code button,
then copy and paste the code into into the HTML code of your site.
Done.
According to Google, once you publish your site to the web,
targeted videos should begin appearing right away.
Ad Types
Each video unit can display two types of ads:
a) Companion ads, which appear
in the player above the video content, and
b) Text overlay ads, which are
displayed in the bottom 20% of the video content display area as the
video is being played.
The ads displayed can be either contextually
targeted or site-targeted,
and may be paid on either a cost-per-click
or cost-per-thousand
impressions basis.
But what do “video units”
look like?
There are several different formats to choose from, but each
one
displays a video screen and player controls that your visitors can use
to navigate through the video.
Here’s an example:
Video Content Selection
For you, as an online publisher there are three different ways
to choose video content to use in “video units“:
a) Selecting individual content providers.
YouTube partners who have chosen to distribute their videos to
publisher websites along with targeted ads
b) Selecting content categories.
Topics and themes of video content you’d like to show on your site
c) Automatic targeting.
The video content you display will be automatically targeted to the
content of your site. You can assist the targeting by providing
relevant keywords.
Please note that presently, Google allows web publishers to
display
just one video unit per page and just as with other AdSense products,
you can block specific specific ads from appearing in your video units
by adding them to your Competitive Ad Filter list.
Monetization – How Does It Work?
When you place a video unit on your website, you’ll earn
revenue
from two types of ad formats: companion ads, which sit above your video
content within the player and can be either text or image-based, and
text overlay ads, which appear in the bottom 20% of the video content
area.
Ads on video units can be paid on either a cost-per-click or
cost-per-thousand impression basis.
Learn more
Meet the Google Video Units team
Originally written by Robin Good for Master New Media
and entitled “Video Advertising And Monetization: Google Launches AdSense-YouTube Video Units” on Oct 9 2007. Some Rights Reserved.
