Now there are exceptions, but let me explain…

A common strategy is to use video ads to create a funnel. You create one ad set optimized for ThruPlay to promote a video. You create a custom audience of the people who watched that video. And then you create a separate campaign to target the people who watched the original video.

The Problem

The problem is that the quality of these views is almost always terrible. Especially if you include unskippable or rewarded video placements, people will be forced or incentivized to watch your video. They may not care about it at all.

I saw this when running ads optimized for ThruPlay. Once I noticed I received more ThruPlays than people reached, I knew there was something wrong.

I might be interesting, but I know my limits. I’m not so interesting that everyone who sees my video is going to keep watching it.

Your assumption is that you’re reaching people who showed interest in your product by watching your video. But in many cases, this just isn’t the case. As a result, your remarketing campaign is based on low-quality views. I wouldn’t take this funneled remarketing approach with video ads because it’s unlikely to be worth the money.

Exceptions

The primary exception might be if you get a decent amount of organic views on your videos. Since these aren’t forced from an ad placement, you can absolutely see good results by remarketing to them. This is something I did for a while, and it was effective — but it targets such a small group of people that it’s not incredibly impactful.

It’s possible you could get okay results if the initial video ad were part of a Sales campaign optimized for conversions. At least then the algorithm isn’t incentivized to pump up ThruPlay. But, you’re still likely to run into this same issue based on placement.

Do you run video remarketing ads?