How To Write A YouTube Ad Script That Converts with Patrick Kenney
In the podcast:
00:59 – Guest Introduction
06:06 – What Makes YouTube an Attractive Ad Platform
13:31 – What Businesses are Perfect to Advertise in YouTube
14:21 – Basics and Things to Note of YouTube Ads
16:44 – Components of an Ad – “Hook”
24:15 – Components of an Ad – Story
27:26 – Do You Need A Big Studio to Produce a Quality Ad?
31:14 – How To Incorporate Keywords in Your Scripts
37:15 – Tools to Help You With Reading and Remembering Lines
41:06 – Mobile vs Desktop YouTube
44:17 – Advice to Newcomers in YouTube Ads
49:44 – Learn More About Patrick Kenney
Guest Introduction
Ilana:
So welcome to today’s episode of Teach Traffic. Today I’m going to be talking with Patrick Kenney, all about how to write a YouTube script for your YouTube ads so that it converts. So welcome to today’s show. Patrick.
Patrick Kenney:
Thanks, you. Yes, I speak well for writing scripts. Thank you for the introduction. It’s been a long day here. It’s almost 7pm here, so forgive me for that.
Ilana:
No, thanks. I totally get it. It’s only 10 in the morning. For me, it feels like it’s been a long day already. So at least you have an excuse. So yeah, I thank you so much for staying into your day for longer than you probably want to at 7pm.
And coming to talk to me all about YouTube ads. We have got, we’re going to talk all about YouTube ads scripting. And because it’s so important, having been someone who’s done YouTube ads for quite a while now, before we kind of get stuck into a lot of the nitty-gritty about YouTube ad scripts and the components that make up a good ad.
I mean, I love people’s stories do you want to kind of tell us a really quick version, as to how you got with You are today and surely background and stuff.
Patrick Kenney:
Yeah, yeah. No, it’s I love to talk about myself. No, actually, I’m getting more comfortable telling the story because you know, people like, oh, wow, you came from that kind of background, you know, you and I have spoken offline where we have a similar background of, you know, my backgrounds computer science, so data kind of being the background. I worked for Xerox when it was ACS.
So ACS government systems here in the States, it was purchased by Xerox, I worked for them pretty much out of college and did the whole corporate engineering thing, building apps, all that kind of good stuff.
And, but, you know, kind of doing the corporate gig didn’t really love the gig, but I loved the projects that I got to work on. So diving into a lot of Oracle forums and a lot of net C sharp, that sort of thing, just kind of geeking out on that kind of data.
And I had an opportunity to leave corporate and work on a project, building a custom app, and kind of got The the entrepreneurial bug, if you will, or the bite to some people say, and you know, serendipitously that first project involved scraping Google AdWords, which is Google Ads now, but it was Google AdWords back in the day.
And that was kind of my first introduction to the Google platform. And it’s just all the data behind it and all the analytic stuff, all the stuff that we geek out on, really just kind of caught my eye.
And as I worked with freelance projects, and got referrals from one client to the other, and whatnot, I end up doing custom development for a number of years.
And I kind of got, it’s funny, I kind of got tired of dealing with clients who would spend all this money on a project, you know, they’ll spend 50 or 100 grand or more to have this application built, and then go, Oh, we need to go get some customers.
So that was like, Okay, well, Hey, thanks for that. So I started to I have always had a love of the psychology of like why people do what they do. And so I started to consume you know, Dan Kennedy and Claude Hopkins and you know, all the great copywriters just learning persuasion and his children is what is it pre presuasion, you know, the Think and Grow Rich all the stuff that motivates people to do what we do.
And I found I really enjoyed that. And so with my tech background, mixed with my, you know, my, my appetite for psychology and persuasion, it was a natural transition for me to start running these campaigns for people because I knew would convert, but I also knew and understood all the systems behind the scenes, I understood the data and the servers that were running the data points and all that stuff. So that’s a little bit of background of me and how I got to where I am.
And the rest, as they say is history.
Ilana:
Yeah, nice. sounds somewhat similar to my journey, actually, from a data background. To then, yes, suddenly, I’m a marketer writing ad copy, and, but yeah, there’s still it’s that wonderful marriage of the numbers with the psychology.
So I can appreciate your love Your love of both, because I definitely feel we share that we have that in common. And as you and I both know, this landscape is constantly changing, and I don’t know about you, but over the last, I guess some couple of years, I’ve seen a structural shift in where people are putting their advertising dollars.
And, you know, Facebook ads had such explosive growth and people were doing amazing things on there. But personally, what I’ve seen is a shift away from Facebook ads, back to the Google Google Ads platform, and specifically, YouTube, which is obviously what I’ve brought you on to talk to about today.
And, you know, big name marketers are really shifting their ad budgets towards the YouTube ad platform. So I want to kind of touch on, I guess, let’s talk about the basics and you know, Obviously, I know a lot of the basics, and I can kind of, obviously share my insights as well.
What Makes YouTube an Attractive Ad Platform
Ilana:
But why do you see this being shift towards YouTube now? And what do you think is so attractive to people on the YouTube platform in comparison to what they were doing on Facebook?
Patrick Kenney:
That’s a great question. And that’s what I’ve answered quite a few times in the past few months. And, and personally, I’m kind of happy to see that because I’ve never been a fan of Facebook, just the premise of it.
But I think that is, you know, removing my own view of Facebook from the from what’s going on analyzing it, just as you know, just being agnostic in the situation. It’s, you know, people don’t enjoy Facebook.
They just don’t like they’ll get the dopamine hit, but they’ll go there. And they’re the, you know, the fear of missing out and seeing people put on their best face and then there’s all the data stuff all the bad rap going with social media. That contributes to it.
Ilana:
Trolls…
Patrick Kenney:
Yeah, well, I was gonna say that You know, you put the words right in my mouth. It’s just the truth. No, no, it’s a sticking point like it first thing like Facebook comes up and you’re like, oh, the trolls. I think for business people, I think that’s the biggest thing when I talk to people who want to come in and do YouTube ads.
Well, if it’s working on Facebook as why you want to come away, they’re like, I don’t want to spend 12, 14, 16 hours a day or hire people full time, just to play whack a mole to get rid of these troll comments from people that have nothing better to do than just hate on my ads. Right?
Ilana:
And in these keyboard warriors areas, it was so tough behind a keyboard but I actually confronted them in person, you would never be as aggressive. Yeah, don’t get me started on the trolls.
Patrick Kenney:
Oh, it’s…So you know, again, so it’s, it’s, we’re both having a visceral response to it because you’ve advertised on Facebook.
I’ve advertised on Facebook. And I mean, I’m happy to say I, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna say I’ll never go back. But if I do, it will only be for remarketing. But even then there’s no promise that will ever go back to it.
But to, you know, answer the other part of that, why, why is YouTube such the best opportunity? It’s such a great opportunity. And the best opportunity, I think is because the platform is expanding, as you know, faster than we could advertise on it.
You know, you have this runway that is continuing to pave miles in front of you. Whereas I need to write this down as to who said it, but it was Facebook ads was compared to it’s like a Ferrari on a two-block road. You can get going really fast, really quick, but you ran at the road very quickly. Whereas with YouTube ads, if you do the work, it’s a little more complex, but if you actually do your homework and set things up properly, you’re there’s you’re never going to run on real estate virtually.
Ilana:
And that’s totally just uploading videos all the time. Right?
Patrick Kenney:
Yeah, the real estate is expanding faster than we could, you know, for what is it I think 500 plus hours of content every minute now.
Ilana:
That’s something insane…
Patrick Kenney:
That some ridiculous number. So you know, in context for anyone listening to this, it’s like, if you do targeting have certain placements of videos that are popular, and you look at the trends and you know, you’re never going to run out of content to pre-roll your ads on, you’re never like, you could just target Gary Vee and know he’s pumping out content.
When you’re always going to have new videos to put your ads in front of it’s, it’s a really unique opportunity right now for anybody that’s looking for another platform.
Ilana:
And I would add to that as well with when you touched on the fact that if you do your homework and you set it up, right, it can be amazing. And that’s what I personally love about it as well.
But there is a little bit of a hurdle. And that’s sort of a little bit of a moat around you as an advertiser. Because there is a little bit of that work involved before because that’s that’s going to eliminate I think 75% of the other advertisers that throw a bunch of spaghetti against the wall on Facebook
Patrick Kenney:
Oh, absolutely.
Ilana:
But you know, show ads to their existing customers, because they don’t know how to exclude audiences and all this kind of stuff, you know, make all these classic mistakes as such. You know, and because they get results, and therefore is somewhat protected, as you know, from an advertising…
Patrick Kenney:
Yeah and to add to that, that’s a great point. And it’s something I was talking with a client today about it, where I just, you know, we talked about this offline, it’s just like a wrestling with a client to follow the practices, but it where it’s do the work, do it properly.
Don’t just throw spaghetti at the wall. I mean, there is, that’s gonna be one of the things where people like, oh, I’ve got to put the work into YouTube.
Well, that’s great, because most of the lazy marketers are going to, I’ve got to create a video and then I’ve got to put it on the channel. And then I’ve got to click extra buttons, you know, it weeds them out, where the people that are have the long term mindset where they’re going to actually invest in the platform, and know that it might take a little bit longer to get traction.
They’re going to set things up properly, and they’re going to be the ones that are just crushing it in a few weeks time.
Ilana:
That’s right, because I’m sure you know firsthand as well, that the YouTube ad platform once it’s humming along nicely, it’s incredibly stable, actually. And you don’t experience the fluctuations like you do with Facebook ads, where one day you’re absolutely killing it, you feel like you’re a hero.
And the next day, literally, the same ad completely takes for no apparent reason. And you just don’t get those wild swings in fluctuations. on YouTube, I find, especially with a certain type of targeting that you do, which we will talk about.
And I think that’s because I’m, I’m of the belief that not all clicks are actually created equal, you know, so, if I put myself in the mind of someone on Facebook, you know, they’re standing in the coffee line waiting for the barista to make their coffee and they’re passing the time as they’re scrolling through the newsfeed right.
On your ad, right. Yes, cool. It’s a cheap click, but then contrast that to somebody who’s actually researching something on YouTube, they’re actively kind of going through the motions of searching for a solution to something, personally is worth way more to me way, way more, you know, this is the person standing in the coffee line, you know?
Patrick Kenney:
Yeah, absolutely.
Ilana:
Who’s forgotten about what they’ve registered for? Never opens your email again, like it’s a much better, better customer or subscriber or whatever, you know?
Patrick Kenney:
Well, it’s the old interruption versus search intent. I mean, it’s you, you get someone like, Oh, yeah, then, you know, I joke that someone opting in for a Facebook ad.
It’s like, well, oh, they didn’t finish the thing. It’s like, well, the light probably turned green because here in the States, if you look around, everyone’s staring at their device at a stoplight and doing anything but paying attention to traffic.
So yeah, it’s you know, you talk to the entre, you talk to people all the time about this, were like, Oh, you know, the cost per click is this and I had this conversation.
All the times are great, but what is what is the actual value of the opt-in? What is the value of this type of customer? It’s many, many, many times more than Facebook.
And I have never I have not seen a case in any niche or industry that I’ve worked into where the value of a Google-based subscriber is not a multiple of a Facebook subscriber.
I’ve yet to see that.
What Businesses are Perfect to Advertise in YouTube
Ilana:
Yeah, I agree with you. Okay. So hopefully, we have excited our listeners the prospect of YouTube Ads.
And I would say also, it’s probably not every kind of business. So let’s maybe sort of touch on in your experience. What what are the perfect kinds of businesses to advertise on YouTube?
Patrick Kenney:
Info-marketers, people doing webinar registrations, coaches, consultants, you know, people who are not insensitive industries like medical, you know, we’re Google has certain policies where you can’t do certain remarketing based on restricted content.
Personally, I enjoy working with coaches and consultants so that they can, you know, turn things into an info product or get clients that way. I found that to be really good niche that I’m working in.
So copywriters, things like that service providers. Really great for YouTube.
Basics and Things to Note of YouTube Ads
Ilana:
Yeah, cool. Alrighty. So why don’t we get into the whole writing and the ad thing because I think that’s a big hurdle that people really struggle with.
And obviously, you being a copywriter, this is exactly your area of expertise. Do you want to kind of go into some of the basics that people need to be aware of when before they even hit the record button on there and what’s something you know, obviously, they got to prepare.
So what’s the first step for people who like Yep, I mean, that industry usually has going to work for me. What do I what’s the perfect ad?
Patrick Kenney:
I was thinking about this in how I was going back through, like how I go through this process with clients. And it starts with writing an actual sales letter before you record anything.
Because oftentimes I had a client go Okay, here’s the video and they’ll want me to do an ad for an hour and 40-minute infomercial.
Let’s get them interested and have micro-commitments for so I would say anyone starting out, you know, at least in my experience in you know, you can chime in and tell me what you think on this, but I have had success with doing micro commitment videos, which are sub-two minutes.
Okay, so there’s so I found that there’s something with seeing that one on an ad, so like a minute 59 to where they go, it’s kind of like $99 it’s not $100 it’s $99, right?
So it’s like when they see that 1:59 it’s like, oh, it’s only a minute ad I can see what they’re talking about. So if you get the hook, right, and you get their curiosity and they see Well, it’s less than two minutes, I can give two minutes kind of thing. T
hat’s kind of the mindset when you’re doing cold traffic on YouTube that I found works really, really well.
But before you even get to the point of doing the actual video itself, write out your message, you know, what is your hook? What is it? What is the transition? What is your actual offer? Why would you know? Would when you read this out loud to yourself? Would you be interested in learning more about that?
And I think that’s a critical step for anyone that wants to create a video ad that will work is to do the homework of….Okay, what am I trying to get this person to believe? How can I hook them?
What’s a story that I can tell that would get them excited about the thing I want them to believe? And then transitioning into an invitation to click the ad and check out the thing I want them to check out.
Ilana:
Now, I think for most people listening to this, they’re not a copywriter, and they might struggle with coming up with a hook.
Do you have any tips around how you can really kind of always like separate yourself from your business? Because I find that’s what people really struggle with.
So in their business that they can’t really kind of take themselves out of their business to go, this would be enticing for my target customer. If you have any Yeah, I guess tips and how people can really perfect their hook.
Components of an Ad – “Hook”
Patrick Kenney:
Well, so we sell things on belief, okay, so like if we have our widget to sell, we so just taking the whole YouTube things out of it and looking at Okay, if I’m going to write a sales letter for someone, what is the one main thing that you want someone to believe with what you’re trying to put in front of them?
So you’re, you’re paying for the eyeballs to either read your message, listen to it, like this podcast, or watch a video ad. So what you know, oftentimes people will try to get people to believe, you know, three or four different things in a message and that’s where you’ll get this drop-off.
So if you have one thing where it’s, you know, if you’re this type of person, so here’s this is a five-second hook economy model going If you’re you know, let’s say if you’re an ideal customer so if you’re a, you know, a male, single male under 50, who would like to get married within the next two years without going on dating sites and crazy apps?
This will be the most important message you’ll see all day. Here’s why. Right? That would be Hope you’re speaking to the person about their desire and the pain they want to avoid to get the thing that they desire.
Ilana:
I’m a 20 year old female listening to this and I go, No, I’m not a you know, whatever age group male this does not apply to me. I will stop paying attention.
Patrick Kenney:
Correct. You have to be polarizing. Absolutely. And so the hook that headline will qualify. So in a video, the first five seconds needs to be the headline that you would see in a sales message.
You know how I really easy formula is how to yea without boo how to get the goods without the bad right. So if In the video ad, they would be, hey, if you’re this type of person, and hopefully your targeting is on point.
So it’s like, if you’re this type of person, then this is gonna be really good for you. This is why. So you’re kind of hooking them with that.
And because oftentimes people will talk about so we’ll talk about a dentist, for example, they’ll say, you know, $79 cleaning, come down and get your teeth cleaned.
Okay, well, a good barometer of if it’s a good offer, good thing you want them to believe, is would this person wake up in the middle of the night going, gee, if only someone would run an ad to me offering me a $79 cleaning, I know that I wouldn’t have any tooth pain.
Said no one ever. So you know, in video ads and sales letters and emails, this is anything it’s like when you’re, you’re coming up with the one belief to write about what is waking that person up at three o’clock in the morning. And how can you tie your offer to that belief that the habit that fear that they have, that’s a really good way to start your message, your calling them out because you know what their pain is.
Because when you’re talking to the person’s desires or fears, you can then use your service like you can have an offer and your service to transition the belief that your service is the only way that they can get the thing that they desire. And that’s a little deep.
Ilana:
Yeah, no sorry to interrupt you. I was just gonna say like, that’s a classic copywriting technique where you’re talking to people’s fears and what wakes them up at night and pains and frustrations versus their wants and their desires and goals.
Patrick Kenney:
100% and I’m sure you see this all the time, too. You can just go on YouTube and see the ads where you know, the first 20 seconds is like Liberty Mutual in the States does this they have like this.
They do have this setting and there’s bamboo and there’s the whistling and it’s like skip, and they wonder why that, you know, $2 million a month YouTube ad budget is not working for them.
They’re not speaking at all to the desires of the market. You know, that’s another example for insurance. I mean, have you been sold insurance before?
Ilana:
I mean, sure, because I made it. Not because I wanted it. (laughs)
Patrick Kenney:
The really good insurance agents, at least here in the states are the ones that tell the story.
So rather than, like, would you like to buy life insurance? It’s Let me tell you about a married couple, where the husband died unexpectedly. And his family was stuck.
Like they had, you know, they were scraping by she and the wife had to go get a full time job. And there was, you know, there was no safety net for this unplanned you know, death in the family.
Yeah, right. That story is what connects like so the one belief in that out of telling that type of story is I need life insurance. So for people to simplify this for anyone listening if you want to simplify it, the easiest copywriting technique is, you have one belief that you can tie your product as, you know, making that true, right?
So it’s like, Okay, if I believe this to be true, I’m going to get This name because I need it right. So the technique is what’s my hook? What’s my story? And then what’s my offer?
Ilana:
Okay, so there’s three main components that you would cover within the one minute 59 second video, okay, as you and I both know if people the first five seconds and non-clickable, and we’re talking about the industry of ads, the videos that show before the video, you’re about to watch the first five seconds and non-clickable. And then between the five and the 32nd period, if they click, they click Skip as an advertising you don’t have to pay. So I’m sure you would agree with me.
That is the time period to pre-qualify people to say you’re interested in this hour. Importantly, if you’re not interested is to skip past. Obviously, you don’t have to pay that’s what you do as well.
Patrick Kenney:
It’s Yeah, it’s excellent Branding. So if you for people listening who have not explored YouTube ads, that’s essentially it’s not 100% free.
But that is the best, you know the opportunity for free branding you could get by putting your message inside of 29 seconds and then all the other cool things we can talk about later.
Because I don’t want to get into remarketing, we probably want to get remarketing. But, you know, getting that in under 29 seconds, there’s a lot you look at Super Bowl commercials here in the States. So like three and a half million dollars for 32nd commercial, they get a lot and you can do a lot in 30 seconds,
Ilana:
provided that video actually provide some level of branding in there because some people I’ve seen don’t even have any branding.
It’s just their face with no logo like nothing, you know, which is I think, missed opportunity as well. You know,
Patrick Kenney:
It is. You should do a checklist of all the… you probably do have a checklist I would imagine.
Ilana:
I’m currently working on it as we speak. You’ve been reading my mind? (laughs)
Patrick Kenney:
It’s needed. I need to do one as well. Yes. Like, no. Okay, you need to do this because I just it’s repetition every time. Like, what do you think about this video? Okay, you’re missing the logo. Your lighting is bad. You need to do this. It’s like oh, okay, so yeah, I’m just gonna send clients a checklist.
Components of an Ad – Story
Ilana:
Yeah, exactly. Okay, so back to the components of the ad, we got the hook. And then you got the story. What kind of story?
Do you have any sort of, I guess, tips on? I mean, I think it’s best explained, we explore this with an example. Okay. So you said you work with coaches and consultants say you’re a coach that helps people I don’t know get good results with LinkedIn for an IT for example.
What is the kind of video ad that you would write so you’d write a hook about, hey, you interested in you know, getting good results with LinkedIn? I’m probably butchering this, but and then a story about how that particular person’s help someone get results with LinkedIn and then a call to action. Is that kind of how you’d approach it.
Patrick Kenney:
Yeah, I think A really simple framework that your listeners can write down. It’s this is you can easily do this inside of two minutes where the the hook and the Curiosity are easily performed within the first 30 seconds. It’s called the poser method, P.O.S.E.R.
So it stands for Promise, Obstacle, Solution, Example and then Reach, which reaches just with the results, you want the call to action, the thing you want them to do.
So it would go something like this, it would go like, you know, you, you could do the hook on the front end and go like…
Hey, it’s Patrick Kenney. If you’re an info marketer who would like to scale sales fast, this would be the most important message you’ll see all day. See, the challenge that we have as marketers is that if you’re running the Facebook ads platform, you never know what your leads are going to look like from one day to the next, let alone your lead costs.
Now the solution to this is to explore the YouTube ads platform which is a much more mature platform, because it’s been around longer, and Google has invested 10 times the budget of Facebook to make sure the stability of their platform is ensure.
To give you an example, I had a client who transition from Facebook ads over to YouTube ads, he was getting a $19 cost per lead on the front end.
And with the exact same offer landing pages with a tweak on his YouTube video ad, we brought him down to less than $3 for a higher quality lead. So if you’re struggling to get results with Facebook ads, I invite you to check out YouTube ads you can go here
Ilana:
Nice. So poser is that the Promise, Obstacle, Solution, Example and Reach?
Patrick Kenney:
Yes the call to action. Might be easier to say a result that you want you want from them, which in this case would be the click.
Ilana:
Yep, yeah, definitely made a call to action. I’m a big fan actually of kind of what Tom Breeze does, of putting a countdown timer at the end.
To give people a chance to click. I really liked that I’ve implemented in my ads and split tested and it’s definitely worked better. I don’t know if that’s what you do.
Patrick Kenney:
I haven’t tested it. That’s a great idea.
Ilana:
Yeah, you should. So just even just a countdown from five you don’t have to count down from 10.
And just gives people a chance to kind of go, yep, you don’t want this and it’s like, you know, yeah, definitely check that out.
It’s cool. got that from Tom.
Patrick Kenney:
That’s a great idea. Thanks for that.
Do You Need A Big Studio to Produce a Quality Ad?
Ilana:
No worries. Alrighty, so I’m sure people who are listening to this are thinking, oh my god, okay, I’m inspired.
But do I need to hire a production company to create such an amazing ad? I don’t know the answer to this, but I’m interested in your thoughts about the quality of the video.
Patrick Kenney:
Well, I can tell you that my best converting ads for my own stuff is from my iPhone 11 versus the studio stuff that I’ve tested.
So No, you don’t. You don’t need a studio.
You probably have One in your pocket. In my opinion, I believe I’ve seen the ones that I’ve compared some production versus just the regular grassroots like looking at your iPhone.
And 99 out of 100 times the grassroots ones with your iPhone convert better and at least in my experience.
Ilana:
That’s what I find as well. It’s funny, like, I’ve got one ad, which I, you know, I mean, I look at it, and I still cringe. It’s like, it’s terrible. But yeah, right. Yeah.
And I’ve created other ones since and no matter. I still can’t beat it. I still can’t beat that first one that I think is terrible. But, you know, the data speaks for itself. You know, like, I introduced endless new split tests.
Patrick Kenney:
Come on, beat it, please. Let me take it down! (laughs)
Ilana:
Take it down! It’s like it’s embarrassing. I’m like, on my balcony. It’s like really sunny. I’m squinting. Like, it’s just it’s shocking, but it just works. I mean, No one’s more shocked than me. You know?
Patrick Kenney:
Well, it’s it’s real. It’s real life I, you know, in studying, you know, objections people have the buying and doing surveys and things like that the stuff that’s really produced, you know, like you’re sitting in front of a desk with a nice suit on and things like that.
Yeah, you’ll get results. I’m not for anyone that really wants to do that. Yeah, it can work. But again, you’re, you know, you’re validating what I see as well as that, you know, if you just take your camera out and get over the fear of being on camera, because we all hate how we look on camera.
I, it took me a while did you okay, I’m going to mess up. I mean, just even out of the gate in this podcast, you know, we’re gonna mix words we’re gonna, you know, this is real life, as long as you can provide value, nobody’s gonna care.
They’re gonna look at it and go, Wow, that’s a real person. Like, and they’re just here to help me like it’s, it’s, it adds a level of authenticity is at least that’s my experience.
Ilana:
Totally. And I think if you if funny because I’ve thought about Because if you asked me before I was running traffic there, I would have thought no production will win, you know, but then I thought about offers I think we’ll think about all the vloggers, you know, and the success with the vloggers like that.
People used to that on the platform of being more native and being less polished. So that’s Yeah, I guess people even whether they’re watching an ad or video that they want to watch, it’s all really you know, in their backyard in their living room kind of videos. It’s perfectly acceptable there.
Patrick Kenney:
Unless it’s here in my garage with your Ferrari like a certain marketer that everyone loves to hate on. (laughs)
Ilana:
Oh my god, don’t get me started. (laughs)
Patrick Kenney:
But even still even love him or hate in Tai Lpez did that is just a grassroots video. It did better than anything else he’s set up and you love him or hate him. T
hat just proves that even the big guys like Frank Kern is another example. He’ll tell you the ones where he’s like in the pool or his kids are running around behind him.
Those are the ones that always convert The best.
Ilana:
That’s right, that’s very relatable as you know, it’s it is they don’t feel like they’re on this pedestal and they’re so polished and there, it’s unexpected. It’s inaccessible, you know?
Patrick Kenney:
Yeah, I agree.
How To Incorporate Keywords in Your Scripts
Ilana:
Alrighty. So let’s get back to this scripting point of view, and how it…I guess married to the targeting, personally, for me and my clients, I’ve had the best success with keyword targeting on YouTube.
So someone who’s actively going to YouTube for search for information on whatever topic. And I think it’s worth mentioning how you would incorporate a script to match that possible keyword intent.
Patrick Kenney:
Yeah, so I have, I have this…I mean, early on, it was called the 5.1 method because you know, you have to put names for everything but the things that catchier name I have Now is triangulation it’s basically just so people can kind of visualize the triangle of medium where it’s you have the topics that are being searched on the person as they are consistently that’s in the YouTube Google Ads world that’s affinity, as you know, and then the events that are happening in their lives.
And it took me a bit to condense this down because there’s so many things with like custom affinity, custom intent, all these other things, you could kind of just yeah, you could do all these different things and kind of just you know, waste a lot of money or go crazy in, in exploring all the options, but it came down I created one sentence and that is, what is your who, doing and why.
Whereas your Who is your target customer, your ideal customer, so that would be the affinity. So what is your who doing so they’re searching for how to get clients or how to get sales or how to get relieved of back pain, how to lose weight. Whatever, and why, and the why would be the event based stuff, which is the in-market. So if someone is, you know, looking to lose weight, well, maybe they’re getting married, maybe they went to the doctor and got some bad news, any number of things.
So I think for anyone listening, it’s I’ve had clients go through this exercise. And it’s like, you can kind of see the light bulb go on, because then when they answer that, I’ll circle the three different points and I’ll tie it Okay, this is in-market, this is keyword, this is affinity, and they go, Okay, that makes sense.
So then when I tie that to the copy specific stuff, I really have, you know, I have six elements, you know, one of them being kind of the meat content, but you have five different intros, you know, channel specific. So you’re talking about keywords, I’ll tell you what, what I’ve experimented with and had great success with obviously, the keyword is the best because if someone’s searching for how to get clients and your video that shows them how to Client goes, Hey, are you a business owner looking to get clients, this is going to be a really helpful thing for you to see they’re going to go, okay, and they’ll continue to watch.
Another thing is if someone is watching Gary Vee videos if you just make a subtle change to like, hey, it’s Patrick Kenney. And before you watch another Gary Vee video, I have something really cool to show you. And you’re, you’re tying that to channel specific. Now the keyword, you’re obviously going to get more volume. But if you actually go granular to channel-specific, then you could get some really high quality people who already bought in, you tend to get the association by osmosis.
It’s I forget the trigger. It’s called in psychology, but it’s like you’re automatically inheriting their credibility. Or it’s like, oh, well, he he knows to put my his ad on my Gary Gary Vee video. He must be like Gary Vee, I’m going to go or whatever. It’s like, Oh, he’s got his videos in front of Brendan Bouchard.
That’s pretty cool. Let me check this out. Yeah, so just a subtle tweak of Knowing your targeting and having different intros, you know, the meat of the content will be the same. So you would say the same thing in all those videos after the hook.
But I found great success in channel-specific intros and also in situations specific intros, where if somebody in the market for a good one is SEO and SEM services, so if you sell any kind of b2b for like advertising or what we do, having something where it’s like, Hey, if you’re struggling to maintain a healthy return on your ad spend, this is something cool you might want to check out.
I’ve had good success with that as well. Yeah, but I agree keyword is the absolute bet that’s the juggernaut.
Ilana:
I’m amazed with it actually had how, how good it is. And for certain types of businesses where there obviously is active intent on YouTube for that kind of stuff.
I find them as I said earlier on in our episode, there are much better subscriber there. engaged in the emails that we send afterwards, etc. but I personally never tested different intros based on the different level of either on the channel or intense.
So I definitely might incorporate that into the mix. If I can find a way to beat my terrible video that’s currently performing really well.
Patrick Kenney:
Well, I can give you a content creation quick little hack, if you want to call it a hack, but a little thing you can do.
So if you write out your sales letter, so wear the same outfit, and then record the intros with a little like put a break in between and what I’ve done for clients is I’ll do like a logo transition in the middle where they’ll be like, hey, this will be the most important message you see all day.
Here’s why. And then it’ll transition through like their logo just like a half second transition. And then it goes into the meat content, which is the actual the rest of that like that P.O.S.E.R method. So only the intros are changed out.
So if you were chord five intros, you just do those in one shot. And then you do your best to take on the rest of the content.
And then you’ve got, you know, five or six different videos from one kind of main offer, with different hooks in front of it.
Tools to Help You With Reading and Remembering Lines
Ilana:
Nice. That is awesome. I reckon I’m gonna do that. Thank you. And actually, one thing that I use, I don’t know, if you use is, you know, you can imagine you write these scripts, and suddenly you’re like, Oh my god, how am I gonna remember this?
So actually, this is an app that I use. It’s a paid app called teleprompter, and if you’ve ever used it on my iPhone, and you can, what’s cool about it, is that you can obviously load in your script and it will scroll through like a teleprompter, but you can skew it all the way.
So it’s right next to the camera, and it does not look at all like you’re reading. It saved me so many times. Believe it or not, I used to memorize the script and So hence 50 different takes because I’ve completely butchered that I’ve forgotten something.
So this way, you can really pump out lots of videos really easily. Do you use something?
Patrick Kenney:
I don’t, I’ve used it before, but I tend to I found for me, I tend to be… (Patrick demonstrating reading a script in monotone) Hi… If you would like to make the money, then I tend to get a little. (laughs).
That’s why I like the P.O.S.E.R methods so much because if I remember five main points, I tend to just out of practice transition effectively through those where it’s like okay, so the promises I’m going to show you how to get all the clients and customers you could ever want using you to that’s seen the challenge we have is so when I get in the habit of just kind of memorizing that template, then it’s like when I ripped on that earlier, I wasn’t reading from a script that was just off the top of my head because I record that so often.
And I also kind of like train cuz I train clients are like, no, why don’t you do this for And I’ll sometimes I’ll dub over but that’s a great idea to do the teleprompter.
I’ll probably have to give that another visit because as I get into some of these longer videos I can’t just wing it like the two-minute videos so I’m gonna have to have to give that one another go.
Ilana:
Yeah well, cuz I’m the only reason really what pushed me over the line with getting it was that I sought the help of someone to write a script and it was actually quite a long script it was ended up being seven minutes long.
So really long because I wanted to split test you know, short video versus a long video right and actually take something in the video ad itself and therefore I really needed a script so that but then now I use the Tilly prompt up for the short scripts as well.
Patrick Kenney:
Yeah, a friend of mine recommended that so I’m actually I believe I have it on my phone or somewhere. I’ve just been milking the P.O.S.E.R formula as much as I can.
But I’ll definitely give that one another look. You know, another thing from People this may be just think of something for people who are averse to getting on camera just like I want to do it you know just not going to be on camera using something like easy VSL works works really.
Well you know having an animated like the text being like reading the text as it’s prompted and transitioned over screen for someone who’s listening that says yeah, I’m just not gonna do camera to talk over slides. It’s it works well.
Ilana:
So I haven’t even heard of easy VSL. So what’s that?
Patrick Kenney:
Easy VSL I’m not an affiliate or anything like that. I’ve just used it before it’s good for you can take your script that you’re going to read that you can put it in the software and compile it and it will take your you can read over the script, it will sync up your voice with the slides and put nice little transitions and makes a really professional elegant, like slideshow where it shows like certain bolded words and like for the kinesthetic viewer, they can read the text and listen to your voice reading over it and when you’re actually making the video you just record yourself reading the script and you’re not worried about your face on camera like you’re looking at a teleprompter.
Mobile vs Desktop YouTube
Ilana:
Nice. Oh, definitely have to check that out. What are your thoughts on the whole mobile versus desktop for YouTube?
I mean, you have the frame of mind of do you create a mobile specific ad and a different one for desktop?
Do you go down to that granular level? We have what are your thoughts on that?
Patrick Kenney:
I’ve had great success with just targeting mobile for the bumper ads. So like the six-second videos, you know, getting some like hey, you know, check out my page did download it, click here to go download the free book, right?
So doing that mobile-only, you know, up and down like the four by four. I’ve had great results with that. I don’t get to. I don’t get too specific on the cold audience stuff other than just doing bit adjustments, where I mean I think it’s like 70% of the traffic is mobile.
I’m getting more split testing just versions, like I’ll take something that I shot in landscape, and I’ll just cut it four by four just to cut the sides off of it without shooting at specific and all right just to make it or is what it was a four by three, I forget the exact dimensions, but, you know, we are whatever the so when I make it mobile, you know, and I and I see a difference.
And you know, most of the stuff comes from mobile anyway, so, but I’m seeing some interesting data on purchase, like closing the window of purchase on desktop, so I tend to bid that up a bit more.
Ilana:
What I’m finding interesting is, I also do bid adjustments for device. So for listeners who don’t know what we’re talking about, it’s adjusting the bids based on a device.
Typically, mobile gets more traffic, but some people argue it’s have a lower quality because it maybe they’re more browsing or less likely to convert.
So people will generally bid more for a desktop because that person is more likely to do what you want them to do. They’re in the frame of mind. So that’s what it’s about.
Talking about bid adjustments as I find there’s a big difference in obviously impressions and clicks from both devices. But yet I get this the cost per lead is the same for both.
Patrick Kenney:
Yeah, I mean, it’s negligible.
I mean, I definitely see a bump doing the bumper ads. I don’t know if you’ve done much with those. But the six-second ads are just to keep to close down the buying cycle, you know, knocking off, you know, say example, you have a 14 day buying cycle where, and for those listening, but what I mean is, if it takes from the first time they see an ad to actually buying your stuff is 14 days.
I’ve found the bumper ads can knock several days off that buying cycle. So they’re definitely worth looking into. And, you know, it’s interesting to look at and you know, and the numbers on these are negligible.
It’s just like, I’m a data nerd. So I get in going, Oh, can I show you you know, 6% off of this? Yeah, it’s, it’s the whole thing of like small hinges, swing big doors.
But looking at the buying cycle for desktop versus mobile, you know, and how can I see a correlation through that? So that’s kind of the extent of my messing with that.
I just find that Google’s AI is just it’s so smart. I don’t really have to mess with as much as I used to.
Advice to New Comers in YouTube Ads
Ilana:
Yeah, their AI is pretty crazy, which was what we are experiencing as well. Someone might be thinking, how long would they if someone’s new to YouTube, they’re going to give it a shot?
How long would you recommend people persist with it? If like, you know, let’s say for the first couple of days, they’re getting No, it’s just spending money and they’re sort of starting to kind of sweat a little bit going, Oh, no, this is working. What what’s your advice to someone in that situation?
Patrick Kenney:
My advice is not to look at it like a quick when I did this presentation a couple weeks ago in Austin, and I had this kind of this epiphany of how can I get people to really invest in the Long term because I know like, it’s like stay the course.
And the first week is probably going to be a bit challenging because it’s AI is learning all the things about your pages and your offers and who’s viewing and all this stuff. And it’s making changes.
And I came up with this bit for taking like personifying Google’s AI look at it as when you create your ad account.
Google is basically giving you a virtual assistant, and give him a name, or give her a name, you know, name your Google AI, and treat it like an employee.
So if you’ve ever tried to bring on a virtual assistant, you know, you would give them more than a couple days to learn about your business and learn about your processes before you’d say you know what, you’re not worth it. Goodbye.
So I would encourage the people to look at it like personify the Google AI, give it a name, and invest in the presentation. I said, Look, invest $1,000 minimum for the next 30 days. Because that’s what you would pay for a part time VA in most you know, so if you got a Filipino VA or Indian VA, you know, 12, maybe 1500 dollars for the first month?
Well, you need to train them properly on your business before they can actually hit a stride. And you know, I’m sure you and I both dealt with people, they’ll hire a VA for a few days and fire him because they didn’t make it rain for them.
But the real business owners that are listening to this, like you make an investment in an employee, you know, it’s going to take some time for them to ramp up, I would encourage you to look at the Google Ad platform in a similar way.
It’s going to take a little bit of time and investment on your part to really dial it in. But once that machine gets efficient, once it you get all the rough idle out of it, it’s such a juggernaut.
Ilana:
Absolutely, from my own experience, when I started my YouTube ads, a while ago, we were just doing a manual bidding, which is not really leaning into the whole AI thing.
And literally as soon as I switched over from a beating point of view, so not telling Google what I’m willing to pay for a view Telling Google This is my target cost per acquisition, really leaning on their AI.
I mean, the results were just I mean, I should show you the chart like it’s insane the difference in performance when I just made that switch over.
And as you say, like gave Google a little bit of rope to learn who is, I guess, is the person who’s more likely to convert and then it just came into its own it’s like hitting fifth gear on a highway is like…
Patrick Kenney:
It’s really something to see. And it’s, you know, the clients that get it will hit you kind of see him sweat for a few days. And I can tell you right now, I have a client that is spending north of 70 grand a day, and they have someone else managing their search and I’m managing all of their YouTube stuff.
And I actually so I properly set up the targeting like a target CPA, you know, I did all the best practices on YouTube. It’s you know, it’s not Rocket Science You follow? Our process is going to work.
Yeah. And you can see it’s getting a three to one. So for every we’re doing purchase conversions on their their product and it’s, you know, it’s a it’s a mid three digit product. I’m getting purchases around $85.
And on the search, they’re getting them for almost 400 because their search person isn’t following the AI practices.
They’re doing like enhanced CPC and whatnot. So I mean, it’s, it is the contrast is fantastic. Yeah. When you know, like when you let it do its thing, it is fantastic.
Ilana:
And coming back to what we touched on it right at the start of this episode where you said the platform is ever-expanding.
That’s why you’re able to spend 70 grand a day on there because it’s that you’re not, there’s not this limited amount of ad inventory that’s just getting rained upon like Facebook with the newspaper example which is like walking down times square right?
I need a certain number of buildings that you can put your billboard on, versus a city that just keeps growing and growing and growing with more potential ad inventory.
Patrick Kenney:
Yeah, it’s like the ocean. It’s, you know, it’s whether you show up with a Brinks truck or a spoon, it’s totally up to you, if you want to spend $100 a day, they’re going to maximize your return for that.
I spent 1000 bucks, great if you want to spend a million dollars a day, you know, granted, you get into some other, you know, larger worldwide inventories, but it’s going to operate similarly.
Yeah. And that’s, I love that because it’s not like you’re talking about Facebook, you double your budget, and then your, you know, your cost per thousand triples or quadruples. And then you know, that doesn’t happen with Google ads.
Ilana:
Yep. Awesome. Alrighty, well, hopefully we have given people a good taste of what is possible on the YouTube ad platform.
Do you mind sort of letting our listeners know where people can find out a bit more information about you if they want to work with you will closely and where can they sort of find out more information about you?
Learn More About Patrick Kenney
Patrick Kenney:
Sure, thanks for that. Yeah, if you want to download my guide you can go to getyoubooked.com. So get you booked, as in YouTube, G-E-T-Y-O-U. And if you download that guide, you’ll see I have the full script examples in there.
So if you want to create your own video scripts with their intros, I’ve put all my best stuff into that PDF guide. Download it and just promise me if you download it, you’ll actually implement.
Ilana:
That’s the case of it. Awesome. Well, Patrick, I feel like I could talk to you for a really long time but I am like that it’s probably eight o’clock at night now for you.
And wouldn’t didn’t take up any more of your time. So thank you so much for my pleasure agreeing to come on and yeah, I look forward to chatting again in the future!
Patrick Kenney:
I do as well. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.