We’ve generated millions of views from video clipping campaigns. Whether you’ve explored this new trend or you’re just learning about it for the first time, below are the key points you should understand before launching your next campaign.
What Is Video Clipping?
Video clipping is the method of extracting short, focused segments from long-form video to generate organic awareness on social media.
Originating with Twitch streamers who pay viewers for social shares, video clipping has expanded beyond gaming and live streams as brands utilize armies of “clippers” to promote album releases, crypto projects, podcasts, merchandise, product releases, YouTube shows, and general thought leadership content across TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube Shorts.
What is the goal of video clipping for brands?
The purpose is to generate organic awareness and virality on social media vis-a-vis video views for short-form video content. The benefit is that distribution comes at a fraction of the cost compared to advertising the content on the same platforms and it feels organic and not sponsored.
While Meta ads often cost $10-$14 per 1,000 views (CPV), clipping campaigns typically range from $2-$4 (and often much less) depending on the content and platform(s).
How do I run a video clipping campaign?
First, you need video content for the campaign. See below for our content recommendations. If you don’t have videos, or if you have low-quality videos, don’t waste your time and money on a clipping campaign. We cannot emphasize this enough.
Once you have quality video content, you can connect with clippers using Whop, or you can find clippers on various Discord servers. Or we can manage this for you.
You supply the clippers with your videos as the source material and share the campaign parameters (e.g. flight dates, video length, budget, channels, etc.) before launching the campaign.
How do I Measure The Performance Of the Video Clips?
Clippers will submit their videos for approval, and once the videos and clippers are vetted to ensure they meet the campaign guidelines, they’re either approved or rejected. Video views and engagement data from approved videos are tracked through Whop or Discord Bots via API. You pay only for views from approved videos.
What content performs well in video clipping campaigns?
Only use videos that perform well organically. The content should be entertaining or deliver value to your intended audience. Self-serving content will flop, and clippers won’t participate in your campaign if they think it will be difficult to generate views. Then you’ll have to raise the campaign CPV to incentivize clippers to join your campaign.
Also, to increase the likelihood of reaching your intended audience, use videos that cater to that audience rather than broad, general purpose content. If you want to reach designers, and designers are engaging with your content, the algorithm will deliver the content to people who share characteristics with designers.
Lastly, rather than sharing a large amount of content and deferring to clippers on what portions to edit, be intentional about the exact videos you want clippers to use in the campaign and include hooks. We also suggest cropping the content to a 9×16 aspect ratio since some clippers won’t take the time to crop your source material for vertical placements, which is where most of the views will come from.
What are some common pitfalls I should avoid in my clipping campaign?
A big issue we see is when brands set unrealistic expectations. These are not direct response campaigns, and these aren’t influencer or creator campaigns. Any equity you gain from the clippers who share your content is a bonus.
Also, if you’re extremely sensitive about your brand, tread carefully or work only with a curated list of clippers, which may raise your CPV. You can set strict guidelines on which videos are eligible for the campaign so that you can control what views you pay for, but you can’t prevent clippers from sharing edits that may be subpar or lack the polish that you desire. In most instances, though, clippers will remove rejected videos since there’s no incentive to keep them published.
Lastly, don’t expect granular data on the clipping campaign performance beyond video views and engagement.
Can I run a clipping campaign without supplying video content?
Yes, you can ask clippers to add your brand logo as a watermark to their videos. Stake is an online casino and sportsbook that does this often. In these types of campaigns, the CPV is often well below $1. But you run the risk of associating your brand with questionable or irrelevant content.
How can I control the audience I reach?
The best way to ensure you reach your intended audience is by nailing the content (see above).
Beyond that, you can require clippers to share a video of their analytics before they get paid to ensure that a certain percentage of their viewers come from your target country.
What about video views generated from bots?
Protect against paying for bot-generated views by setting engagement and minimum view thresholds and requiring clippers to submit channel analytics for vetting.
It’s important to note that videos with artificial views from bots typically are not circulated by social media algorithms, and they generate few views outside of the ones they pay for via botting.
How do I measure the success of clipping campaigns?
We analyze many data points to gauge the success of these campaigns. Here are some checklist questions:
- Is there traffic growth to your site and social channels corresponding with the date(s) of the campaign?
- Is there an uptick in social media follower growth on the channel(s) where your campaign is running? Does that growth correspond with the date(s) of the campaign?
- Is there an increase in branded search impressions corresponding with the date(s) of the campaign? We look at Google Search Console and Google Trends data.
- Did the performance of any paid campaigns improve during the date(s) of the campaign?
- How many video views did your campaign generate? What was the CPV? How does that compare to what you would have paid in an ad campaign?
- If you use a tool to measure sentiment analysis on social media, do you notice any positive changes during or after the campaign?
- If you use a market research tool, are there any changes to aided or un-aided brand awareness for your brand after the campaign ran?
If you have additional questions or want our help launching and managing your clipping campaign, email us at [email protected] or click the button below.
