When it comes to any channel, segmentation is the key to understanding the differences in performance with regard to the peaks and valleys in trends.

As you'd expect from AdWords for Video, there are several ways in which data can be segmented to bring out the best in your campaign. If you don't have any data available from past campaigns, it'd be best to gather statistically significant data and then turn on the optimizations.

1. Segment Performance By Hour Of Day and/or Day Of Week

While it's currently not possible to create a pivot out of both these variables, the next best option is use them independently to find out patterns in viewership. When are users more likely to watch your content )(especially when it comes to pre-rolls via In-Stream Ads?

In my experience, both of these especially 'Hour Of Day' for shorter duration campaigns can help understand how your ad fits in between the busy lives of your audience. Is your ad viewed more during late evening / early morning hours (or not) when your audience is unwinding?

View Rates can be laid out by the hour (0 for midnight, 1 for 1:00 am...till 23, 11:00 pm - midnight) and be judged against the average view rates for the campaign. This would result in any of the three possible scenarios:

1. Hours during which View Rate = Average View Rate

2. Hours during which View Rate > Average View Rate

3. Hours during which View Rate < Average View Rate

As you can imagine, the third possible scenario will likely have higher CPVs and therein lies the opportunity to pause campaigns during low performing hours. This helps you improve your Avg. View Rate along with decreasing Avg. CPV (win-win!)

Note: In trying to show ads only during certain hours, care needs to be taken that the audience is not over-exposed to impressions. While this might not be an issue when targeting a wider demographic, capping impressions (on a per day/month basis) could helpful.

2. Making The Best Of Video Remarketing

While this is definitely a topic on its own, Remarketing in AdWords For Video is very interesting to me based on the options offered. 

The first thing to do is to come up with a list. This list can bucket users who have either visited your website (placing remarketing tags on your site), or visited your channel, seen an ad/vdieo, engaged with your channel etc. The full screenshot is below. The key idea is that remarketing cookies need to be placed on user devices to be tagged as individuals who have shown interest in your brand via various means. 

Once you know whom you want to remarket to, the list needs to be populated with users (minimum 100) for it to be used as a target. 

Think about the original ad for Mio Squirt ("Eye of the squirter") and how annotations were used to create back stories via separate videos. 

Remarketing the backstory to audiences who have viewed the main ad would most definitely result in our win-win (Higher View Rate / Lower CPV)!

Another example is how Crazy Egg realizes that I have visited their website in the past and shown some interest in tool. As a result, I have been targeted on YouTube (on a few occasions) to watch their pre-roll ad containing an introductory video to Crazy Egg and the product benefits explained. Suddenly, the content becomes much more relevant and makes me likely to pay attention to the video content. 

3. Segment Performance By Format and Network

Starting out your campaign, you might not have sufficient data on it but once it starts rolling in, it's a good time to checkup on Ad Formats + Network to see the difference.

Ad Formats can be In-Stream / In Display while Networks can include YouTube Videos, Search and GDN.

Using the screenshot option to breakdown performance metrics by these factors helps us understand our win-win targets. Is the View Rate much higher for In-Stream vs In Display (Note: In-Display counts a view after it has been clicked on while In-Stream counts it after 30 secs) or is there any significant difference in the CPVs?

How this helps is because Max CPV bids can be customized (increased / decreased) for the two formats based on information that we have now analyzed. Again, the two key variables that we are looking to improve are the View Rates and CPVs.

What are your ideas for optimizing AdWords For Video? Do let the readers know via comments.