A Look At Sequential Video Advertising

In the world of advertising, video content and sequential messaging are the king and queen—but you’re probably more familiar with one than the other.  

Sequential marketing involves showing a series of ads to audiences that all connect to tell a cohesive message or story. Sequential ads are therefore purposefully meant to appeal to the various stages in the customer journey. 

So how do advertisers leverage sequential marketing and the power of video to create a knock-out campaign? Why is it such an impactful way to tell your brand’s story and attract potential customers at the same time? Keep reading to find out!

What Is Sequential Video Advertising?

We’ve seen no shortage of memorable video ads over the years, from Nike’s You Can’t Stop Us Campaign to Budweiser’s ‘Wassup’ commercial. Brands know how hard it is to win over customers, and their content reflects that.

Sequential advertising (a.k.a sequential messaging) empowers brands to tell a story by showing people a series of videos in a specific order to build interest, reinforce a message, push a customer further down a sales funnel, or create a unifying theme.

Most brands running video advertisements are using a single piece of video creative. However, having multiple videos or vignettes designed for a sequential advertising campaign means having more tools in your arsenal—a good idea given how sequential marketing has been shown to increase click-through rates by 87 Percent!

The Importance of Video in Marketing

On average, Canadians spend 11 hours a week streaming video content. That’s a jaw-dropping number of people per month consuming content digitally, presenting an incredibly wide audience of attentive watchers for brands to market to. 

If you as a brand can get their attention, you could win them as a customer, and in some cases, you might only get one shot. So how do you make it count? By engaging their curiosity during the milliseconds you have their attention to elicit an irresistible urge to engage with your innovative campaign. 

Since the introduction of online video, this type of content has taken the world by storm— 66% of people prefer watching a video over reading about a product. Why? Well, the reality is that videos can tell a story better than a photo ever could. It’s why platforms like YouTube have become so popular with the modern consumer and the same reason why Amazon created Prime Video to become a player in this ever-growing video space. 

Now that we understand the importance and dominance of video as a content type, it’s easy to see why it’s a perfect match for sequential marketing. What better way to present a messaging sequence and tell a story than through stunning visuals? 

Have You Seen These Ads Before? Probably 

If you’ve ever watched YouTube videos and have been served an ad before, midway, or after your video finishes, you’ve witnessed the effects of video advertising. 

Groundbreaking—except not really. Video advertising dates back to 2009 when YouTube began allowing brands to advertise on the platform in several different formats. 

Let’s look at this occurrence but with a slight modification. Have you ever been watching YouTube and have been served a video ad during your video, then as you continue down the YouTube rabbit hole you are then served with a different video ad from the same company, brand, or product, that comes off as a continuation of the first video?

Why does this happen? Is it a coincidence? Welcome to the world of sequential video advertising. Keep reading to learn how to leverage this strategy for your brand and connect with your target audience. 

How to Leverage A Sequential Ad Campaign 

By leveraging sequential marketing and multiple pieces of creative content, brands can serve videos contingent on how the user interacts with each video in the sequence. If you skipped one of the ads, a different one would later appear with a different message to build a story too compelling to resist—that’s sequential retargeting in action.

For example, Global Goals put forth a sequential video ad campaign that put the spotlight on poverty and cleverly danced around the five-second “Skip Ad” feature to retain viewers quickly at the onset.

In the graphic above, we can see how video ad sequencing looks on the back end. If a user clicks “Skip Ad”on the first video (Video sequence step 1), they’ll be served a different ad (Skipped Sequence 1) with the next message that acts as an evolution of the first. 

Now in some cases, using sequential advertising can help push a prospective customer further and further down the sales funnel with each video.

Let’s say your company is a smart device installation service that offers a mountain of different “smart” devices to enhance the technology in one’s home. You produce an incredible 60-second video that showcases the best products and major benefits of employing your service. When you launch your video advertising campaign, you notice a significant drop off after the five-second mark when YouTube allows users to “Skip Ad”. Basically, not enough users are clicking through to your full video! After high production costs and ad spend, you are stuck with a video that isn’t generating clicks and, in turn, no new traffic to your website.

By leveraging a sequential marketing campaign, you can split the 60-second video into more digestible short ones and rejig the ad creative so the first five seconds of each vignette are more powerful. This could result in users eventually watching the full video (just in pieces), understanding the company’s entire service offering, and clicking through to the full video and website when they are ready. 

A new strategy. The same content. A few additional hours of creative revisions. And voilá—sequential marketing helps you engage users like never before. 

The Connection Between Sequential Marketing and the Customer Life Cycle

Sequential marketing synergizes with the customer life cycle, which refers to how customers engage with your marketing efforts across three stages: 

• New: reaching new customers by raising brand awareness 
• Convert: nurturing audiences to complete a purchase or an action
• Grow: strengthening ties through repeat purchases, cross-sells, or up-sells

With sequential marketing being more of a tailored experience, you increase your chances of audiences seeing a particular advertisement that’s relevant to where they currently stand in the customer life cycle. Successful marketers inspire them to move to the next stage. 

For example, a technology company might reach new customers by raising awareness of how its latest laptop model has the most advanced features on the market. Next, they could inspire conversions by offering audiences fantastic discount deals on their first purchase. Finally, the company can strengthen ties with existing customers by advertising useful accessories to elevate the consumer experience with the purchased product.

3 Reasons To Use Sequential Video Advertising

1. A Primed User Is a Powerful Viewer

Video sequencing helps unlock the ability to prepare a user for a grand reveal when they’re most likely to convert. With the use of multiple assets, you can paint a clear picture and build a case for the user to engage. Naturally, with one asset, a user is 27.4 times more likely to click through online video ads, now imagine what that campaign performance figure could look like after they’ve been exposed to a teaser multiple times.

2. Building a Strong Connection Is Key

Connecting with audiences on a deeper level is key to attaining brand loyalty—and more often than not, powerful storytelling gets the job done.

However, establishing a connection between the stories in a sequence is important in building a relationship with the user. Things like maintaining a similar cast, same narrator, or overall theme to the video can prove to be essential in building familiarity with audiences so they become more and more comfortable with each video watched.

3. Numbers Don’t Lie

Google has reported that sequential video ads have increased ad recall by 118% and purchase intent by 40%. So, if ten people became interested in a product from seeing it in a traditional ad, this means that 40 people would become interested in that same product after a sequential video advertisement—that’s a game-changing jump!

Reach Your Target Audience Through Sequential Video Advertising 

The message is clear: sequential messaging works. 

However, it’s important to review the assets you have at your disposal before deciding how to best use them in advertisements. The Influence Agency provides professional consulting and digital marketing services that could help separate your brand from the rest.

If you’re looking for a team that can take your online presence to a new level in a meaningful way, contact us today to get started on top-notch sequential marketing campaigns!