Video content has become the best tool for engaging audiences and driving conversions. Even affiliates that have been used to run images and text ads for over a decade are slowly switching to video and seeing great results doing so.
The only problem with videos is that you need some skills and talent to develop a winning video formula that can potentially improve your campaigns. Testing out multiple things can take a lot of time, money, and effort to do, so finding winning ads to scale quickly is an important skill to have in today’s market.
However, in a sea of content, not all videos are created equal. To maximize your affiliate marketing efforts, it's crucial to identify, enhance, and scale up your winning video creatives. In this article, we'll delve into actionable strategies to help you do just that.
Today, we will try to help you find those winners and scale them ASAP!
Identifying Winners on TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube
Before you can use a winner, improve it, and scale it, you need to identify it first! Each social media platform has its unique characteristics and audience demographics. Here's how you can identify winning videos on TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube:
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TikTok
Even though it's the youngest of these platforms, TikTok is probably the platform that has changed the industry the most. With their popularization of short-form content, the internet seems to have gotten a lot faster and attention-grabbing than ever before.
If you are wondering why Meta introduced reels, YouTube shorts, and Twitter (X) video feeds, it's all because of TikTok and their winning formula of short videos that gain virality quickly.
On TikTok, winning videos often exhibit characteristics such as creativity, authenticity, and relatability. Pay attention to videos that garner high engagement rates, spark trends or challenges, and leverage TikTok's unique features, such as sound effects, filters, and duets.
TikTok’s ad manager allows you to compare statistics on all sorts of videos you are running. We recommend you check out your Click through rates (how many people watched through the entire video and clicked at the end), views in the first 3 and 5 seconds (to see how many people stayed engaged after the first few seconds), and your cost per acquisition (CPA)
Unlike some other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm is incredibly fast and you will quickly know if something is working or not. Use those winning ads you identified, duplicate them, add small changes like adding emojis, changing songs, adding filters, and see how the clicks start pouring in!
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Facebook
Facebook has a much more mature platform and audience, so not everything that works on TikTok will work there. While TikTok ads are usually less than 10 seconds in length, Facebook (Meta) ads can be longer, and depending on your audience, sometimes the longer vids can perform better!
Winning videos on Facebook tend to prioritize storytelling, emotional resonance, and shareability. Look for videos that generate a significant number of likes, comments, and shares, as well as those that resonate with Facebook's diverse user base.
Unlike TikTok, Meta is great at finding the right audience for your content once it identifies that a portion of its audience is responding well to it. So our usual advice is to launch a lot of angles and then let Facebook do the rest.
If you have winning TikTok ads, you can utilize them on Meta as well, just make sure to select placements like stories and reels and remove the rest. The audience for these should be similar to TT!
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YouTube
Google is one of the biggest players in the ad space, and there is a big reason why, YouTube!
YouTube's algorithm favors videos that drive watch time, engagement, and subscriber growth. Identify winning videos on YouTube by analyzing metrics such as view count, average watch time, likes, comments, and subscriber growth rate. Additionally, pay attention to videos that rank highly in search results and recommended content.
YouTube started experimenting with short-form videos as well recently, but it seems that short ads aren't hitting the mark quite as well as the platform hoped.
Once you identify a winner, with Google you will have some trouble capitalizing on it right away, as you need to create a lot of variations and target different audiences to get the right combination.
Understanding a Winning Video
Before diving into scaling strategies, it's essential to understand what makes a video successful in the realm of affiliate marketing. A winning video typically possesses several key attributes:
- Clear Value Proposition: Your video should communicate the value proposition of the product or service you're promoting. Whether it's solving a problem, fulfilling a need, or offering a unique benefit, the value proposition should be front and center.
When deciding on what your ad will be about, make sure to clearly define what you want the user to feel, how you will achieve that, and how you can use that feeling to make them convert.
- Compelling Storytelling: Humans are hardwired to respond to stories. Incorporating compelling storytelling into your video can captivate your audience's attention and forge a deeper connection with your brand.
It's important to note that on some platforms like TikTok, storytelling should be kept from the perspective of an average user. The higher the production quality, the less likely the ad will achieve success, so make it as genuine as you can, even if it shows you in a slightly negative context (for example, pointing out some of your flaws compared to competing products, but concluding that these flaws are minor enough to be disregarded on the whole)
- Engaging Visuals: Visuals play a crucial role in capturing and retaining viewers' attention. High-quality footage, appealing graphics, and seamless transitions can enhance the overall impact of your video.
This doesn't mean you have to record every video with cinema cameras. Some of the best visual ads are often recorded with an average phone at simple HD resolution, the real key to engaging visuals is adding details, stickers, emojis, text, and other things that set your video apart from others and make them interesting enough for people to watch till the end.
- Call to Action (CTA): Every successful video should include a clear and compelling call to action. Whether it's encouraging viewers to make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, or visit a website, the CTA guides the viewer toward the desired action.
CTAs can be simple graphics at the end, some random sentence in the video that entices users to convert, or a change in color, music, or style, that conveys that the user should take some sort of action.
Scaling Up Your Winning Video Campaigns
Scaling up successful video campaigns is the key to unlocking growth in your affiliate marketing efforts. Here are some strategies to scale up your winning videos effectively:
Expand Your Target Audience
Identify new audience segments or demographics that align with your product or service offering. By expanding your reach, you can expose your winning videos to a broader audience and drive more conversions.
This means you can move up the age range you target, include both genders, add more interests, and straight up give the camps more money to work with in general.
Establish Partnerships
Collaborate with other brands, influencers, or affiliates in your niche to cross-promote each other's video content. Strategic partnerships can help you tap into new audiences and leverage the credibility and reach of your partners.
Repurpose Content
Extend the lifespan of your winning videos by repurposing them into different formats or mediums. Convert long-form videos into shorter snippets, create blog posts or infographics based on video content, or repurpose video testimonials into ad campaigns.
Conclusion
Finding winning videos, improving them, and scaling up your video campaigns are essential to staying ahead of the curve and driving sustainable growth.
By understanding the key attributes of winning videos, leveraging data analytics to identify performance trends, enhancing videos for maximum impact, and scaling up strategically, you can reach new heights of success.
Remember, success doesn't happen overnight, but with creativity, and a bit of strategy, you can unlock the full potential of your video campaigns and achieve record numbers!
How do you identify your winning ads? What are some of the scaling methods you use? Share it with us in the comments below!