A seach for car in YouTube shows the newly launched Promoted Videos.YouTube is allowing advertisers to buy search keywords for their videos for the first time in Australia.Mitsubishi and Holden are the first major local advertisers to use the service, which has been running for a year in the US and replicates parent company Googles AdWords program.Advertisers can buy popular search keywords and have their ads served up any time a user enters them into YouTube. Advertisers then pay per click for the number of times their video is viewed.Promoted Videos – which was launched yesterday – will be clearly demarcated from organic search terms and sit at the top of the page or on the right hand side. Viewers can then click through to the company website or the advertisers home page on YouTube, which is visited by 6 million Australians a month.YouTube was unwilling to comment on the initiatives success in the US or how many advertisers were taking up the service there, other than to say a number of automotive, entertainment and packaged goods companies were participating.But Matthew Liu, a product manager at YouTube, said that in many but not all instances advertisers experienced a higher click-through rate with videos than text. Because theres video involved the ads can be more effective, he said.He also said he hoped that advertisers would use the service to blur the lines between advertising and entertainment.The service is a leap beyond the normal text ads found on YouTube and a sign that Google is being more aggressive in tapping potential revenue streams and help advertisers get their message through the morass of video content.Simon Dunwoody, search director at Mitsubishis media agency MediaedgeCIA, said: We have been noticing over the past couple of years that when people are looking at buying a car they are searching in YouTube for reviews. We wanted Mitsubishi to have that presence and visibility across the whole of search.Both YouTube and Mr Dunwoody admitted that there was little they could do to prevent a negative video from appearing at the top of the organic search results next to the one the advertising spot. A YouTube spokeswoman said advertisers can add negative keywords to their campaign to keep their ad from showing up next to certain results. ‘‘If I’m a retailer and I know there’s a video about me that I don’t like that comes up when I search on YouTube for ‘socks’, I could put the term on my negative keyword list so that I never appear on search pages for that term.’

Companies and individuals who have posted videos to YouTube can now take advantage of a new Google service in an effort to get more traffic for a posted video. bHowever you will be charged for it.Like Google AdWords, the new service called Promoted Video campaigns are targeted by keyword and priced on a cost-per-click basis. This allows advertisers to buy Promoted Videos directly in AdWords said Google.You can place bids, select where you’d like your videos to appear on relevant YouTube search results pages, video watch pages, and Google’s publisher network, and set daily spending budgets all within the AdWords interface claims the Company.”Our aim is to provide a single destination for an overall Google ad buy, as well as give YouTube advertisers new to AdWords access to additional campaign tools” a Google spokesperson said.”Currently there are 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, Promoted Videos, is a way to place a video on related pages on YouTube and across the web. It’s an advertising program that anyone – from an everyday user to a major brand advertiser – can use to help people discover their video. Promoted Videos will help you find a relevant audience wherever they are on the web, whether it’s searching or watching videos on YouTube or browsing across Google’s network of publisher sites Google said in a press statement.

-Ryan Walker

Gazelle Interactive

www.gazelleinteractive.com