YouTube first opened its doors to advertisers in 2007, yet the number of ads we now get served before, during, and besides our video of choice seems to have increased at least ten-fold since then.
What is YouTube Advertising?
YouTube advertising is done through Google Ads. It is a way of advertising your video content on YouTube or search results to maximize your user reach. This could be either your video playing before a user views another’s video or showing up in YouTube search results for people to watch in full.
Why YouTube Advertising?
Implementing a YouTube advertising strategy is one of the best moves you can make as a marketer.
1. It is Cost Effective
As you know, PPC advertising is an extremely cost-effective strategy. If you are not familiar with PPC, it is easy to understand why it is profitable because you only pay when someone clicks your ad. Also, here you choose exactly how much you are willing to pay when someone clicks. These two properties mean that you will never over-spend on PPC ads, and therefore, you never waste money on advertising space.
Here, we are talking about PPC ads because YouTube advertising follows a PPC model that works the same way, i.e., making it extremely cost-effective.
2. YouTube advertising is highly targeted.
Highly specific and accurate targeting is crucial for a successful campaign. YouTube ads always allow you to get extremely detailed when targeting the exact audience you want to reach.
You can target your audience in many ways:
- Demographics: Target users based on factors like location, gender, parental status, and more.
- Topics: Here come the audiences based on topics of interest.
- Customer Match: Using the first-party online and offline data, you will be able to re-engage with customers who have shown interest in your company in the past.
- Similar Audiences: Similar Audience targeting allows you to use the Customer Match data to target users similar to those who typically show interest in your ads.
- Video remarketing: Target users who have already interacted with your videos or YouTube ads in the past.
- Affinity audience: It includes users who have a strong interest in topics related to your business.
- Custom affinity audience: Target the users in an even more granular way with custom affinity audiences that allows you to target a group of users with an extremely specific set of interests relating to your brand.
- In-market audience: Target your in-market audience by advertising to those currently searching for the products or services you offer.
- Life events: Target the users based on life events that they have recently experienced. Life events include milestones like moving, getting married, having a child, and more.
With the targeting options of YouTube, you can target an ultra-specific group of users, or more general groups, based on what kinds of products you’re trying to sell.
It can take some trials and errors to decide how to target the audience. Still, a YouTube advertising agency like WebFX can help you decide on the perfect targeting options for a successful campaign.
3. YouTube advertising with video helps you connect with your audience.
Most people say that they felt more connected after watching a commercial since they see a brand in action. They get to connect with the faces representing the brand, understand their attitude as a company, and see how a product or service works. Not only that, but YouTube video ads also allow you to truly connect with your audience by turning the camera on yourself.
Keep in mind that there are a variety of YouTube ad formats from which you can choose, but only when you do it right can you successfully connect with your audience using each format.
4. YouTube advertising metrics are easy to measure.
If you do not measure the success of any marketing campaign, you are wasting your time running it. Without knowing how a campaign performs, you will not improve it. Therefore, you must analyze your YouTube advertising campaign, and the platform makes it easy to do so. If you want to track the views, costs, and budget details related to your YouTube ads, you’ll want to visit your Google Ads account
5. YouTube advertising provides fast results.
Since YouTube has over 2 billion monthly users, it is easy to understand why you will see fast results. Getting your ads in front of more people simply means you will get more ad clicks, website traffic, and sales over time. The incredible user base YouTube has developed makes it a fantastic advertising platform where you’ll see results quickly.
6. YouTube advertising puts you in front of billions.
YouTube creates an opportunity for small businesses and enterprise businesses to reach more interested users than ever before, simply because it offers such a giant user base. Even if you choose to target an audience specifically, you will still get your ads in front of more people than you would with the other methods.
Types of YouTube Ads
There are five types of YouTube ads:
- Skippable In-Stream Video Ads
- Non-Skippable In-Stream Video Ads
- Bumper Ads
- Discovery Ads
- Non-Video Ads
Skippable In-Stream Video Ads
These ads can be served either before a video or during it. These ads play for a minimum of 5 seconds, and then the viewer can skip them. In general, a video ad needs to be a minimum of 12 seconds, and it’s recommended to keep it under 3 minutes. One of the perks of this type of ad is that you will only get charged when someone watches for at least 30 seconds.
Non-Skippable In-Stream Video Ads
These ads can also play right before a video or during it, and the only difference is that there is no skip button at all. Considering that a high percentage, some 76% of the people, skip the ads that get served in youtube videos, the non-skippable ad is the best when your brand needs to raise awareness and does not want to risk getting hundreds and thousands of ad skips. The way that these ads charge advertisers is a bit different; charges are incurred per impression, more specifically, per 1000 views (CPM).
Bumper Ads
Bumper ads are 6 seconds, non-skippable video ads that play right before an actual video. These ads are perfect for a simple message to get across and do not need full production of a minutes-long video. Again, these ads are a great spot for awareness efforts like promoting an event or driving the brand reach and frequency.
Discovery Ads
These ads are very different from the three previous ad types. They are similar to Google search ads, appearing amongst search results semi-organic. These ads help us view YouTube as a search engine. Like Google text ads, YouTube’s Discovery Ads also says “Ad” in a box to let the users know they are paid for results. These ads are composed of a thumbnail image and three lines of text. Interestingly, these ads can show on the search results page, video watch page, and YouTube homepage, which gives them quite a bit of visibility.
Non-Video Ads
YouTube also offers non-video ads for brands not looking to shell out a big spend. First, you can choose to serve a display ad on the right-hand side of the results while a video is playing. This ad features an image, some text to the right of the image, and a button to click on your website. Also, they can serve a banner ad overlay that pops up during a video from a channel that’s decided to monetize. These non-video ads charge the money on a cost-per-click basis.
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