There are many strategies that you can take to generate quality sales leads, but some are more effective than others. For example, ordering a review from John chow dot Com — like this one — is probably more effective than purchasing a simple text link in the sidebar. But what about video ads? How do those perform? LeadsByVideo is a site that is completely dedicated to 30-second video ads. And they guarantee a 5% CTR.
How Does This Work?
In a nutshell, LeadsByVideo is a traffic exchange program that makes use of video rather than directing unqualified traffic to your website. On the main LBV page, there is a window pane that will show three video ads in succession, and in between each one is a opportunity to visit the advertiser. To understand how LBV works, be sure to watch their brief promotional video.
The videos shown to visitors are taken from the playlist and selected relatively at random. Contrast this to YouTube or other streaming video sites where people select the individual videos they want to watch. You see, for video ads on YouTube to be effective, they have to become viral. With LeadsByVideo, you just have to make an effective sales presentation in the thirty seconds that you are given. The other key difference is that LBV is exclusive to video ads, whereas you have idiots running out of gas on YouTube.
For this and other reasons, the developers are proud to say why LBV works so well. This is supposed to be true whether you make your own video or use LBV’s custom video ad production service.
Free Traffic, But…
It doesn’t cost you anything to take advantage of LeadsByVideo and it doesn’t cost you anything to get your 30-second spot included as part of their playlist. This can all be done through the free DIY package, but you need to produce your own commercial. You also have to watch a whole bunch of 30-second ads yourself in order to build up playlist credits.
If you don’t have a video (or you don’t want to make one), LBV has you covered with their professional ad production service.
The $79 basic package includes professional video production with background music, optimized for maximum CTR. For an extra $20, you get 20 automatic spots on the playlist instead of having to watch 60 video ads to get the same number of playlist spots. This does not come with any kind of narration and I’d imagine that the video will just be made through Windows Movie Maker.
The $159 premium package adds professional voice-over narration. With this package, you can buy 40 playlist spots for $40 more, bringing the total price up to $199. For a limited time, you get an additional 100 guaranteed views and submission to top 10+ video sites.
One critical feature that I do not like about LeadsByVideo is their inclusion of Google ads. While you are trying to promote your own business via their video ad service, visitors can easily be distracted by the Google ad unit next to the video player, clicking away to your competitor instead of watching your ad all the way through.
When reading through most of the literature on the site, you’ll also get exposed to a series of Google link ad units, again directing traffic away from the site. There’s nothing wrong with running Google Adsense, but I don’t think that it is appropriate for a site of this nature. LBV is better off promoting their ad production service or perhaps they should try selling more playlist spots.
But Who’s Going to Watch These Things?
Ah, and there’s the rub. Whereas people hit up YouTube and other social media sites to be entertained, you’ve got to wonder how many random visitors LeadsByVideo is going to get. After all, visitors get inundated with nothing but video advertisements. I don’t know about you, but when I’m flipping through the channels on TV, I’m not exactly inclined to spend hours on end watching a channel with nothing but ads. Maybe LBV is targeting the late-night infomercial crowd.
By and large, the only people who will likely watch the ads on LBV are other advertisers, because they are trying to build up playlist spots of their own. They might convert, maybe, but that’s not their primary motivation. For this reason, I don’t think the referral program is very effective either.
So, how do you motivate people? With prizes of course!
If you watch video ads at LeadsByVideo, you have a chance to win fabulous prizes, including portable GPS navigators, laptops, and digital cameras. For every three 30-second videos you watch, you get one entry into the monthly prize draw.
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