YouTube ads agency, Melbourne Video makes the demand Search catches.

Two separate numbers. Your ad spend goes to Google, and video inventory is bought far more cheaply per view than a Search click — a six-second bumper reaches a lot of people for very little. We recommend a minimum of A$5,000 a month across paid channels for most businesses, and the largest companies we work with currently invest up to A$30,000 a day in advertising. Our management fee is separate and scales with the work, and production is quoted on its own if you need us to make the video. The first call is free and you get a real number for your situation before you commit to anything.

Less a question of the monthly figure than of whether it can run long enough to be read. Video is judged over weeks, so a budget that funds three weeks and then stops has bought you nothing you can learn from. We would rather run a smaller number for three months than a bigger one for three weeks. In practice that usually means YouTube sits alongside a Search budget rather than replacing part of it — and if the numbers only stretch to one, we will tell you to spend it on Search.

Views and watch data arrive within days, and they are genuinely useful — the drop-off curve tells you the exact second people leave, which is the fastest creative feedback in advertising. Business results take longer. Expect four to eight weeks before view-through conversions, assisted conversions and branded search movement say anything trustworthy. Judged on last-click after a fortnight, video will always look worse than it is.

No long-term lock-in. We would rather keep the work because it is producing than because a contract says you have to stay. What we do ask for is enough runway to be fair to the channel — video read at two weeks is being read during the part where we are still finding the right opening. The terms are put in front of you in plain English before anything is signed.

We own and run the ads account, because the build is proprietary methodology refined across 250+ engagements — audience stacks, exclusion lists, creative systems and conversion tracking. You get full-visibility reporting on performance and spend at all times, and on long-term marketing agreements ownership and handover options are available to discuss. Video we produce for you is yours to use anywhere — your website, your socials, your sales emails — and we hand over the master files.

We tell you, in the report, in plain English, and we change what we are doing. With video that usually means the opening, not the offer — a new hook against the same body is cheap and often decisive. If a second and third attempt still do not move anything, we say so and move the budget to the channel that is working. If the honest answer is that video is not the right buy for your business right now, we would rather say that than keep billing you for it.

We report on a fixed cadence, good news or bad. Every report says what you spent, what it produced, what we changed and why, and what we are doing next — with view-through and assisted conversions kept in their own columns so nothing is flattered by being counted twice. For video we also show the drop-off curve and what your branded search volume did over the same period. You can see live performance and spend for yourself at any time.

No. Polish helps far less than people expect, and on YouTube it can actively hurt — an ad that looks like an ad gets skipped faster than one that looks like a person talking. We have seen phone-shot footage of an owner explaining what they do outperform a studio edit. What is not optional is clarity in the first five seconds, legibility with the sound off, and captions. We can work with what you have, guide you through shooting it yourself, or produce it properly — all three are real options.

Either. We script, direct and edit if you want that handled, and we quote it separately from campaign management so you can see exactly what you are paying for. If you would rather shoot it yourself, we give you the shot list, the script and the framing rules, then handle the edit and the three orientations. And if you already have footage — a testimonial, a job in progress, a walkthrough — that is often the fastest path to a first campaign.

Both, in a specific order. Video action formats put a call-to-action, sitelinks and a lead form directly in the ad, and remarketing video to people who already visited your site does produce enquiries on the spot. Cold prospecting rarely does — what it produces is the recognition that makes your Search ad the one they click a fortnight later. That is why we build viewer lists and watch branded search: the value shows up in the rest of the account before it shows up in the video campaign's own column.

Four things, kept apart. Direct conversions from the ad, which are usually the smallest number. View-through conversions, from people who watched and came back later. Assisted conversions, where the video was one step in a path that ended on Search. And the plain sanity check — what happened to branded search volume, direct traffic and your Search cost per job while the video was running. Watch time and the drop-off curve tell us how to fix the creative; they are not the business result.

For an online store, start with short product video against your own site visitors and past customers rather than a cold audience — people who already looked at the item, shown the item doing what it does. Video campaigns can be linked to your product feed so the listings appear beside the film, which puts the price and the buy button next to the explanation. It runs alongside Shopping and Search rather than instead of them, and the viewer lists it builds make both of those cheaper to run.