• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, September 25, 2017

YouTube announced on Monday new ways to help marketers target ads, measure success and make hundreds or thousands of different creatives from one video source.

Expanding the use of its Custom Affinity Audiences, YouTube will allow marketers to reach consumers based on the searches they do or the places they visit and apps they like.

Since first testing the integration in January, brands find that what works for search advertising also works for video ad targeting, wrote Diya Jolly, director product management and monetization at YouTube, in a post.

The research suggests that campaigns using intent-based audiences on mobile have 20% higher ad recall and 50% higher brand awareness relative to campaigns that only use demographic audiences.

In one example, Google points to an outdoor outfitter that could use Custom Affinity Audiences to target people who have searched for skis, spent time at ski resorts, or have downloaded a ski resort’s trail guide app.

Jolly also explains how YouTube's new Director Mix software can create hundreds or thousands of different videos from one asset. Marketers provide the building blocks such as voiceovers, background and copy. Then Director Mix creates versions of the same creative for different audiences.

Campbell’s Soup used Director Mix to create videos with copy that ran on YouTube based on the content people were about to watch.

For instance, when clicking to watch clips from "Orange is the New Black," viewers will see a bumper that asks "does your cooking make prison food seem good? We've got a soup for that." From initial tests, Campbell’s earned a 55% lift in sales and a 24% lift in ad recall with this campaign.

YouTube also introduced Video Ad Sequencing, a new feature in AdWords Labs that allows marketers to string together the creatives for an ad campaign. For example, advertisers can show a 15-second skippable TrueView ad to build awareness, and continue with a longer spot such as a six-second bumper ad to further the story and drive the purchase.

Jolly explains how Ubisoft cut four sequential six-second bumper ads for its new "Assassin's Creed" game, each with a critical element of their longer trailer. The brand used Affinity Audiences and Video Ad Sequencing to serve the ads to core E3 audiences.

The campaign reached nearly 15 million unique viewers and resulted in a 25% lift in awareness, 224% lift in search for the keywords "Assassin’s Creed", and 375% lifts in search for the Assassin’s Creed trailer.