Last month, Google announced that the current YouTube call-to-action overlay is going to be sunset by the end of January 2019. Instead of the overlays, YouTube advertisers will now have to use the new call-to-action extensions. Let’s take a look at how the new extensions look.
The extension will appear just under the video ad with a larger, more visible call-to-action button advertisers will now have to drive traffic to your website. Even after the user skips your video ad or watches the entire thing, the call-to-action extension will be visible on the YouTube video page.
Now you may be thinking, “I’ll just be able to easily replace the overlay with this new extension.”
Sorry. It’s not going to be that easy.
Let me go over a few things you need to know if you want to utilize the new call-to-action extension for your video campaigns in Google Ads.
You Must Have the Leads Campaign Goal Selected
Advertisers will not be able to add the new extension to current video campaigns unless you have the Leads campaign goal selected for your campaign. I found this out the hard way by trying to fill in the new extension information in AdWords Editor. All of my campaigns were rejected when trying to post the changes live because I didn’t have the proper campaign type to use the extension.
So make sure your campaigns have the Leads goal selected. In the link I shared at the very beginning of this post, Google mentions they will offer a different extension for other campaign types at some point. But we get no indication on what the extension will be or when it will come out. So at the time of this post, we’re stuck with the one goal type to use.
That’s Fine. We Can Probably Just Change the Campaign Goal in Our Settings
Hey, really good idea! But you’re wrong. Once you have selected your campaign goal for your video campaign in Google Ads, you can’t change it.
Don’t believe me? Here’s the exact quote from Google.
So now if I want to have the call-to-action extension on my video campaigns, and none of my current campaigns have the Leads goal selected, I’m going to have to create brand new campaigns. Thanks, Google!
Oh, I’m not done yet. It gets better (or worse?).
Since We’re Stuck with the Leads Goal Right Now, Our Bidding Options Are Limited
I recently wrote about all of the bidding options for each YouTube campaign goal. But for the sake of this post, I’m only going to talk about what options I have for campaigns using the Leads goal setting. You can see that if you want to set up a TrueView for Action campaign, the only bidding option advertisers can use is Target CPA.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of this either, but it is the only option we have to use this new extension for now. Again Google said they plan on releasing other extensions for the other video campaign goals. But if you don’t want to lose out on the traffic you’re driving from your video campaigns, you’re going to have to switch to a new campaign type until the other extensions are released.
February Is Coming Quick
The call-to-action overlays are going away this month. Start creating your new campaigns now to be ready for whenever Google removes the overlay feature.
If you really want to get a head start, the call-to-action extensions are live now. You can start testing out the new extension in your TrueView for Action campaigns whenever you want. Good luck!
Have you tested this feature? Let us know your results in the comments below!
