The highest ever YouTube click-through rate

Challenge 

The campaign objective for reed.co.uk was to raise awareness of the brand and to drive traffic to the job site.

Strategy 

reed.co.uk had previously used TV as their main go-to for mass awareness campaigns. They had then repurposed this content for online by shortening it into 30 second adverts for YouTube. When reed.co.uk started filming their latest TV ad, the iCrossing team saw a perfect opportunity to help support the brand awareness by doing things a little bit differently – creating bespoke online content and using a brand new tactic – YouTube TrueView.

YouTube’s impressive viewer figures made it an obvious choice for brand awareness campaigns. Making the most of Google's unique, skippable TrueView ad format we were able to extend the value of video and, most importantly, only continue to target audiences that have indicated some engagement with the ad placement. We built remarketing lists so that users who had actually been exposed to, and engaged with, our pre-roll ads were prioritised as they were more likely to engage.

The messaging focused around online user's common habits of 'wasting time' or ‘procrastinating on the interweb’. "Stop watching cats and find a new job” was a web only piece of content, in line with the brand’s TV campaign. Within the humorous ads, we incorporated clickable zones containing calls to action to keep the user engaged. Each time the remarketing lists were further added to and the brand awareness of the recruiter was increased.

Finally, we launched promoted tweets, timed to coincide with TV ad spots, referencing the shows the ads were aired against and referencing further procrastinating at work focused messaging,  which achieved +30k Facebook likes, +30k twitter followers and + 7,500 social media mentions relating to reed.co.uk and #lovemondays.

Results 

• The campaign achieved a 3.6% Click-through rate (CTR) - the highest ever YouTube click through rate in the UK and more than 3 times the format’s average CTR of 1%
• It also achieved 297,000 website clicks and 1.5M video views
• Site traffic went up by 13.25% during the course of the campaign

“Since running the ads built specifically for YouTube, we’ve managed to essentially triple the click-through rate. We viewed it as a branding campaign to start off, but one of the biggest surprises was that the performance was pretty much in line which what we get from Google AdWords which has been staggering. The campaign has fundamentally changed the ways that reed.co.uk views brand advertising in general, and that primarily has to do with the fact that the results from this have been way over and above our expectations.’

Jamie Bodkin, Head of Digital Marketing, reed.co.uk