Guide
Video marketing
Video marketing refers to the use of video content to promote a brand, product, or service. Video assets can be used in marketing strategies across a variety of channels and formats to help reach and engage audiences.
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What is video marketing?
Video marketing describes the use of video content to promote or inform audiences about your brand and products. Brands can use video across a variety of digital channels and formats, including their own website, social media marketing, programmatic advertising, and more.
In this guide, we’ll help you understand the basics of video marketing and how it can benefit your brand. We’ll also introduce you to the Amazon Ads solutions that you can use to get started with your video marketing strategy.
Why is video marketing important?
The importance of video in marketing is widely acknowledged by marketers. Statista surveyed over 8,000 marketing leaders in June 2021 and found that pre-produced video was the leading digital consumer engagement tactic worldwide. Not only do 81% of respondents use pre-produced videos in their digital marketing, but another 13% said they are planning to use them. The next most-used tactic was livestream video, with 73% respondents currently using, and another 19% planning to do so.
One of the main reasons that video marketing is so important is that video is a popular medium among audiences. Two-thirds of consumers say they would rather watch a video to learn about a product or service than read about it. In the first half of 2021, video was the largest single source of Internet traffic worldwide—53.7%—with social a distant second at 12.7%. Marketers need to share their messages where and how consumers will see them.
Benefits of video marketing
1. Expand your potential audience
Video content can appear to consumers on any number of channels, whether they’re streaming movies, visiting a product page, or sharing social media posts—so you have potential viewers everywhere.
2. Capture viewers’ attention
Video content is a rich medium, offering motion, colors, music, and other sound, and can stand out against text and still images. Attracting attention can provide strategic benefits, such as helping customers discover your brand.
3. Create compelling content marketing
Video marketing doesn’t only mean ads—it can be a great way of offering valuable content that brings audiences in another way. BeaverCraft, a European manufacturer of wood-carving tools, discovered the power of content marketing when they offered content that taught viewers about wood carving, including educational YouTube videos. The educational content ended up driving more customer engagement and sales than the rest of their marketing channels, prompting them to create more—and ultimately increasing their sales. Creating video content that people want to see can- generate more organic traffic to your site and become a great tool in your SEO strategy.
4. Showcase your brand and products
Explainer videos can help you express your brand story and product benefits in ways that text and images alone may not. Creating videos that show your product in action can help shoppers see how they might use it. Video can also help you offer a behind-the-scenes look at your company to show instead of tell the story of what drives you as a brand.
Creating a video marketing campaign
The specifics of creating your video marketing campaign depend on the types of videos you make, and the marketing channels you use (see the final section for examples of video marketing and advertising solutions available from Amazon Ads). However, a few universal tips can help guide you as you develop your campaign strategy.
Know your goals
Before you dive into video production, think about the purpose of your video. Setting your campaign goals up front will help determine your video content—should it be promotional, educational, persuasive, exciting? Make sure you understand what your video needs to accomplish.
Define your audience and message
It is important to understand your audience in order to send the right message and achieve your desired campaign goals. Know what you want your video marketing campaign to say. Look to your audience—their interests, their needs—to guide how you say it. For example, to promote brand awareness, create eye-catching explainer videos that not only introduce your brand but make it memorable to viewers.
Use high-quality visuals and audio
Your video production doesn’t necessarily require a huge amount of resources. It’s more important that the quality of your video file is good, with clean, clear images and sound. Your viewers may be using devices as large as a TV or as small as a mobile phone, so make sure your visuals are easy to see.
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Make sound optional
Music and narration can make a video more compelling or effective, but don’t assume that your viewers will be listening. They could, for example, be on a mobile device in a public place and watching on mute. Use closed captions and easy-to-read on-screen text so viewers can follow along without sound.
Don’t overestimate viewers’ attention
You cannot control how long audiences view your video. Err on the side of being brief. The first few seconds of your video content should be attention-getting and contain the most important information.
Make sure viewers know what to do after they finish the video
A good video marketing campaign should provide viewers with a clear call to action, such as giving them a link to purchase a product or telling them where they can find additional relevant video content.
Video marketing statistics
Statista projects that the number of Internet users who watch streaming or downloaded video at least once per month will reach nearly 3.5 billion worldwide by 2023. Not only is the number of digital video viewers continuously increasing, but so is the amount of time spent watching videos. In the US, adults spent nearly 2.5 hours (149.04 minutes) with digital video content per day in 2021; this number is expected to grow to 162.52 minutes in 2023.
Advertising spend is rising alongside viewers and viewing time. In 2022, US advertisers will spend $24.35 billion on video in social media marketing (advertising that appears on social networks), up 20.1% year over year. US advertisers will also spend $62.96 billion on programmatic digital video this year, up from $52.17 billion in 2021.
Measuring video marketing campaigns
Video marketing performance can be measured in a few different ways, based on your campaign goals.
If you are focused on brand awareness, you might evaluate your campaign results through metrics that show how much your videos are seen, such as impressions, unique reach, video completion rate, and social shares. Or if your objective is consideration or conversion, you may be more interested in measuring click-through rate or how many video viewers go on to purchase your product.
For brands that sell on Amazon, branded searches and new-to-brand metrics can help you link your ad to shopper actions and show you the level of exposure your brand has received with shoppers who were not previously engaged with your brand.
Getting started with video marketing
If you’re interested in creating video marketing campaigns, Amazon Ads offers several different video solutions for you to choose from.
Streaming TV ads
Streaming TV ads, also called connected tv ads, are video ads that appear before, during, or after streaming or over-the-top (OTT) video content. They are also known as OTT advertising or AVOD (advertising video on demand).
Amazon’s Streaming TV ads appear alongside Amazon streaming video content like Amazon Freeve, Amazon Publisher Services broadcaster and network apps, live sports, Twitch, and the News app on Fire TV.
Sponsored Brands video
Sponsored Brands video is a self-service advertising solution that helps customers discover your products and brand as they shop on Amazon. You can use Sponsored Brands for short explainer videos that help shoppers learn more about your product, testimonials, how-to videos, and more.
Video on Amazon DSP
You can programmatically buy streaming TV ads and online video ads to reach audiences wherever they spend time using Amazon DSP.
Twitch ads
Twitch creators stream about all kinds of topics, from video games and music to cooking and sports, and top influencers can have followings in the millions. Brands can launch video campaigns through Twitch ads on the Twitch homepage, on discovery pages, and channel pages.
Amazon Live
Brands that are interested in livestream video can use Amazon Live to connect with audiences through interactive, shoppable livestreams. Brands can sponsor influencer livestreams that are produced by top influencers using the Amazon Live Creator app.
Sponsored Display on Fire TV
Also related to video marketing are Fire TV ads, which are display ads that promote apps, movies, and TV shows through Sponsored Display on Fire TV. While not video ads themselves, Fire TV ads are another option for marketers to reach the growing digital viewer audience.
Sponsored TV
Sponsored TV is a self-service advertising solution designed for brands of any size to reach and inspire audiences on the largest screen in the home. Pre-packaged with retail aware, interactive ad formats, Sponsored TV allows marketers to easily set up and manage their campaigns using the flexibility of Amazon Ads – that means no minimum spend, fees or upfront commitments.
Three video marketing examples
Case Study
Oomph! Sweets, keto-friendly sweet company wanted to increase their visibility and customer engagement, while building awareness around their products and brand. The brand turned to Amazon Ads to make their marketing goal come to life. In November 2023, the brand launched a Sponsored Brands video campaign to promote a new product: Indulgent Chews. They saw a 303% month-on-month increase in branded searches and are now preparing to launch new flavors due to the popularity. In January 2024, the brand ran a Sponsored TV campaign which received 1.1M impressions within a month and 96% new-to-brand customers when paired with Sponsored Brands.
Case Study
HP, a global tech company, is dedicated to innovation and reinventing the customer experience. For five years, HP has partnered with Amazon Ads to deliver the best digital experiences and enhance brand engagement for their customers. HP chose to invest in Sponsored Brands video to help increase brand visibility and awareness for desktop and mobile shopping keyword results on Amazon. The video campaign helped HP expand their reach and capture the attention of new and existing customers, and increase sales. Impressions grew 224% YoY, clicks increased 142% YoY, and for printers, purchase paths with Sponsored Brands video saw 954% higher purchase rate and 30% higher ROAS in 2023.
Case Study
Jocko Fuel, an energy-drink brand, were interested in expanding their upper-funnel audience and brand awareness. The team at Jocko Fuel wanted to reach a larger audience through video but didn’t have suitable video assets to run a Streaming TV campaign. To solve this problem, the brand leveraged Amazon Ads video incentive production to create and launch their first Streaming TV ad campaign to drive awareness for their Jocko Greens product. Jocko Fuel’s Streaming TV campaign led to non-attributed brand search volume that indexed 36% above the search volume 28 days prior to the campaign launch. With the implementation of a QR code, Jocko Fuel saw a 10% lift in ad-attributed detail page view rates.
Ready to get started with your video marketing strategy? Contact an Amazon Ads account executive to learn more about our video marketing solutions. No video? No problem! Whether you have existing assets or are starting from scratch, Amazon's video creative production and editing services can help you produce compliant and inspiring videos across all formats.
1 Wyzowl, The State of Video Marketing, 2021
2 Sandvine, Global Internet Phenomena Report, 2022
3 eMarketer, Time Spent with Digital Video, US, January 2022
4 eMarketer, US Social Video Advertising, January 2022
5 eMarketer, US Programmatic Video, January 2022