Play Buttons on Youtube Video or Not?

[ianternet]

Play Buttons on Youtube Video or Not?

In this case study I was testing the CTR results for using a play button on my add or not using the play button.

Landing Page Play Button

So I so a lot of testing and sometimes I tend to think that my experience or way of thought will result and steer me in a way to get the data without really doing much testing. Well this time around, I want to see if my thoughts are true. Usually I tend to create actionable images or actionable landing pages. When I buy traffic I create a landing page but for this specific traffic source, PPV - I have an ad which clicks to a landing page which clicks to an offer.

Here are 2 snapshots and here are the results of each:

Play Button

No Play Button

These 2 snapshots are images I used as an ad to the actual landing page. What do you think did better? The play button? That seems to be an obvious choice, because it has an actionable call to action.

My test engine shows the ad with the no play button results better, about 30% more clicks arrived to the non play button ad. This obviously surprised me, the call to action is the play button and should result in more clicks because it is an actionable call.

I concluded the reason why the non play button didn't do so well is because I made the play button too big than usual. Everyone is use to seeing a Youtube player and their play button. So it can be the issue of users are not drawn to that button. Maybe I made the play button too big that it takes up too much of the video player image as a whole? There are multitudes of reason why the non play button image did better. I just know that my test shows the first image doing much better than the traditional play image button.

This test was to simply increase my CTR to the landing page. My goal is to get more clicks to the landing page so more viewers can know what I am selling. Testing is very important and what you think will work will not work to some other verticals or demographics. This proves it, so test and test.

 

[Andy Haskins]

Great guide on outside the box thinking.

This is similar to the idea of putting a mouse pointer/cursor over call to action buttons to show the users the clickable area.

I will do a case study on this in the coming weeks.

 

[Emvee]

Good case study. The play button usually does act as the call to action button. In fact a play button frozen over a moment at which something is just about to happen is extremely effective. For example a person turning around with his arms held out to do something, or someone about to fall into the water etc.

 

[ritsan.com]

Hi IAN , can you share some stats about the no. of more conversions you got with the extra 30% clicks ? it seems though clicks are there but conversions would have been too less.

 

[Andy Haskins]

Hi IAN , can you share some stats about the no. of more conversions you got with the extra 30% clicks ? it seems though clicks are there but conversions would have been too less.

It's a good point to raise and I'm sure the results could vary quite widely. Will be good to see some figures.

As long as you are providing the user with what they wanted when they clicked the ad (i.e. to watch it) then conversions could quite easily be in line with the extra clicks.

 

[copyninja]

I wonder what would happen if you made the play button a little more realistic...good spin on this technique though, it's awesome to see it brought up here in The Dojo.

 

[thefister]

Hi IAN , can you share some stats about the no. of more conversions you got with the extra 30% clicks ? it seems though clicks are there but conversions would have been too less.

Great point here Egg. I see a lot of people getting really hung up on CTR but that in itself is a useless metric. On numerous occassions I've tested new PPC ads where the CTR fell by a considerable amount but the conversion rate went through the roof. Ultimately, ROI is all that matters

I'm not saying that CTR is not important but people should just remember to look at the whole picture.

 

[Dario]

Nice little guide! Maybe you could make some test with different button style.

 

[PiQano]

Nice Case Study man