For the last couple of years, running video ads has been proven to be the best way to drive traffic from social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, or Tiktok. When you get them right, they do convert very well but when you get them wrong, everything turns to the downside.
In this article, we are sharing insights from Cody Iverson, the CEO & Co-founder of Viscap Media, a video content marketing agency that is based in the US. Cody explains everything there's to know about how to create highly converting creative videos that work for him and his clients.
According to Cody, there are 4 main areas to consider while creating video ads:
- Pre-production
- Production
- Post-production
- Testing & Optimization
Pre-production refers to all the steps you take before creating the actual videos. It involves the planning for the implementation of the other 3 areas. The entire process involves 6 main steps which are frameworks, elements, modular, segments & structure, and auditing.
Let’s dive deeper into this subject and talk about each part of the theory.
Frameworks
Frameworks are tested video advertising styles that have been proven to convert successfully. An ideal framework is one that has produced 6-7 figures winning results many times and in different industries. Using already proven frameworks can give you your best chances of success.
All you have to do is to plug and play with these frameworks. They’re repeatable but you have to fill them with modular elements.
When time gets unpredictable you want to rely on your framework. You can be assured and know that you can take your elements, plug them in there, and expand.
Here is an example of a proven framework used by ViscapMedia.
Elements
Elements are the components that make up your ad. Elements can include hooks, headlines, problems that the product solves, product demo, offers, CTAs, etc. Every winning video ad has a set of elements that made it a success. It’s up to the advertiser to notice the winning elements and repeat them over and over in other ads.
“Our team figured this out and made each element, 4 seconds long, because that’s the amount of time somebody will need to read the copy and take in the visual. We always aim for 4 seconds & hardly ever go over. This is all you will need is to identify what pieces you have been using for your success.”, Cody says.
Here are the elements that make up an ad, but not all of them must be part of one ad!
Modular Videos
Your videos’ elements must be modular if you want repeatable success for your creatives. To recreate your success, you need to be able to break it down and know what your ingredient list is.
You can then take a successful element from one ad, plug it into other ads. Being modular extends the life of your content & lowers your cost per content.
Segments & Structure
Segments are the options available to choose from for each modular element. You need to know to the deepest level of what it’s going to be categorized so you can use it over and over again. Segments may include research, authority, brand, social proof, reviews, PR, product, etc.
Structure refers to matching the correct segment for each element to fit the framework correctly. The structure of these elements is very important because they determine what framework you’ll be using. Having a bad structure of events and segments will set off the tone, perspective, and the viewers. Without structures, you are not able to reuse the element easily, and not going to have much life out of them. It won’t let you roll over the success you have.
Auditing
With auditing, you want to look for your winners and losers. You have to find which element worked and which one didn’t work. You can therefore segregate the ones that haven’t worked and cross-reference the ones that have worked. While cross-referencing, you should look for the common elements in the winning ads. Then make a new video with those common elements while shuffling the other elements until you find a winning combination.
How to Test Your Modular Video Ads
Testing is the best way to find the best combination of elements that will make up a successful video ad. Cody says that it’s always important to test ads with the Path of Least Resistance Test. If you’re testing creatives, that means you should only be testing creatives and not switching around the copy and thumbnails. This means that proven copy and proven thumbnails should be used to prevent these variables from affecting your results.
From there, you’re gonna start gold mining. Red, yellow, and green are used to sort the different variations to see which video ads performed the best. Red is going to be at the bottom of the barrel, below metrics, and needs to be cut. Yellow is in the middle and can go either way. To figure out what to do with yellow video ads, use a correlation decision-making tree. Your winning video ads need to be promoted and scaled fast.
Metrics for Measuring Video Ad Performance
According to Cody, there are 4 main areas that you can track in order to measure the performance of your video ad:
- Average video watch time
- Playthrough percentage
- Cost per click
- Click-through rate
Cody says that to test your video ads, you need to apply the 80/20 rule whereby 80% of the video ads are made using proven frameworks, and the other 20% is used for testing. You can also go 70/30 or 60/40 depending on how many new video ads you would like to test.
In a sticky situation, you can still fall back on your proven framework ads that are guaranteed to provide results. These are the workhorses that will keep you moving, but you GOTTA be consistently testing new video ads.
The more you can test, the more likely you’ll strike a goldmine video ad that will be an absolute winner.
The Power of UGC
User-Generated Content, or UGC, is a really useful framework that can be repurposed to create many more video ads than before.
There are more than two ways to use UGC content, but we’ll go over two in this article as an example. The two ways we’ll be talking about using UGC content are in:
- Direct Response (DR) script-driven videos
- Element morphing pieces of video ads.
Any winning videos can be turned into UGC content through UGC morphing. Morphing refers to basically turning all text-driven elements that were in the video ad and automatically bringing them to UGC-style content. Turning the video ad into something very similar to "As Seen On TV" ads.
In past frameworks, after the solution has been introduced inside of the video ad, the UGC content is used to provide social proof and reinforce the product as a believable solution to the target audience.
Summary
Cody’s insights for creating highly converting video ads can be summarized in the following steps:
- Start with a pre-production road-mapping which involves setting your frameworks, elements, modular, segments & structure, auditing.
- Always use the 80/20 rule when launching and testing video ads.
- Use the Path of Least Resistance Test to test ads and keep constant variables.
- Any winning video can be repurposed into a UGC video ad through morphing.
