How To Use YouTube Adverts To Develop Your Enterprise
Being a marketer is an interesting job.
On the one hand, you are expected to keep up with trends. If a new social media platform is on the rise, you'd better be there to promote your brand.
Still, you can't just blindly follow these trends. Popular platforms are saturated with dozens of competitors and it becomes almost impossible to stand out.
Do not get me wrong; Social media advertising can work wonders. I just noticed that there are currently a lot of unused marketing platforms out there. The most noticeable are YouTube ads.
YouTube ads are one of the most overlooked ad formats in digital marketing, and it's easy to see why.
The massive focus on social media ads combined with the challenge of creating compelling, high quality video content makes YouTube ads difficult to sell for small business owners.
Can YouTube Ads Be Difficult to Understand? Sure, first of all. Fortunately, once you've cleared this initial hurdle, YouTube ads offer some pretty unique marketing tools that you can't find anywhere else.
That's why today we're delving deep into the world of YouTube ads, from ad types to strategy. We'll even walk you through creating your first!
5 YouTube ad types
If you are unfamiliar with YouTube, the primary advertising format is called a TrueView ad. Before we can understand the value of skippable in-stream ads, we need to take a closer look at YouTube's TrueView ad approach.
TrueView ads were created to solve a massive problem. Before TrueView ads, users had no meaningful way to control their advertising experience. Without a way to meaningfully interact with the content, ads ran the risk of being both frustrating and irrelevant.
YouTube had hoped to present itself as a valuable advertising platform, but its original advertising approach severely limited the effectiveness and efficiency of brand marketing efforts. No brand wants to waste precious time and money selling to viewers who just aren't interested.
Here's the simple explanation: your brand only pays for TrueView ads when viewers watch the video for at least 30 seconds, watch your entire video, or interact with your ad using call-to-action (CTA).
1. Skippable In-Stream Ads
The first variant of the TrueView ad is the skippable in-stream ad. In-stream ads will play a minimum of 12 seconds and a maximum of six minutes before a viewer's video on YouTube.
These ads have an on-screen countdown timer and a link to the brand website. You can also tag a companion banner ad, but please note that these companion banner ads will not appear on all YouTube pages where your in-stream ads will run.
The most important part of this variant is of course the ability to skip the video ad after five seconds. If they skip your ad and don't interact with it, you won't have to pay a dime. Assuming you've uploaded the video to your YouTube channel, once the viewer has watched the video for 30 seconds, one view will be associated with your number of views.
2. Video Discovery Ads
TrueView Discovery ads are advertised on YouTube and appear as thumbnails with up to three lines of text. These ads serve as a completely optional way for viewers to consume your branded content.
Discovery ads appear on the YouTube home page, at the top of a viewer's YouTube search results, and in the suggested videos list on the video's play page. The best part? Your brand won't spend a dime on these ads unless viewers interact with them.
This is what makes this advertising approach so useful for brands and marketers alike. TrueView ads protect both viewer time and your brand's money.
3. In-stream non-skippable ads
If the TrueView approach just doesn't interest your brand, YouTube has plenty of other options. Non-skippable ads work a little differently on this platform. They might look like skippable ads on the surface, but you're limited to a 15-second ad window for non-skippable ads.
In addition, you are dealing with a cost-per-1000 payment structure (CPM) that forces you to pay for every thousand views.
The only scenario in which you would want to use something like this is when you are dealing with a proven audience, or when your brand is trying to maximize its reach. Otherwise, there is a high likelihood that you will be wasting time and money selling to the wrong prospects.
4. Bumper ads
If you research YouTube ads, you will likely come across bumper ads and wonder what their purpose is. What makes them different from traditional in-stream non-skippable ads?
The main difference is the length of your ad window. Bumper ads should take less than six seconds instead of 20 seconds.
Why should this distinction be important? Well, a viewer's time and attention are valuable assets. YouTube needs to protect their user experience, primarily by providing relevant information to users. YouTube limits these bumper ads so as not to frustrate viewers with non-skippable ads.
The key to bumper ads success is creating something memorable. The format may not support long stories, but there are many ways you can get your brand out there in five seconds.
5. Masthead Ads
Think of the YouTube masthead as YouTube's premium advertising experience. Imagine your ad is the first thing viewers see when they use the platform. Every marketer's dream comes true, and for good reason.
Of course, there's a reason you've never seen a small business on this masthead. This premium experience comes with a premium price. At around $ 2 million a day, masthead ads are extremely expensive and well beyond the marketing budget of an average brand.
Think of these like Super Bowl ads: impressive reach and traffic, but not reasonable for most marketers. YouTube's other ad formats are cheaper, easier to experiment, and generally more valuable to your brand's marketing journey.
What Makes YouTube Ads Unique?
With all the different flavors and the extra work of creating a compelling video ad, some marketers may be wondering why they should use YouTube ads over social media ads. After all, if you could just do some simple graphics on Facebook ads, that's a lot of extra work.
While it is certainly easier to run ads on social media, YouTube is a powerful tool for brands that want to bring quality video content to a large audience. In fact, in a head-to-head comparison, an Agorapulse study found that YouTube ads generated more views, more clicks and higher conversions than Facebook ads!
This is how you decide which type of YouTube ad is right for your business
You are ready to start with your YouTube video ads. You have done all of your audience and keyword research and you know what the message should be. Now all you have to do is choose an ad format.
Determining which format to use can get confusing at first. Should you be using TrueView ads as you are only billed per interaction? Are impressions more important or is traffic your only priority?
If you're new to the world of YouTube ads, this breakdown of video ad formats by marketing goal will help you take that first step forward. Don't worry, over time your brand will determine what works well through testing and data collection.
Brand Consideration: Video Discovery Ads
One of the most compelling reasons to experiment with Discovery ads is their potential as a branding tool.
Instead of focusing on putting a quick ad before someone else's video, you can integrate your ad content with the YouTube search experience. This is where your keyword research can really shine. Create content that revolves around these low competition, high volume keywords.
When viewers click on your ad, they will be directed to your YouTube channel to watch this video. This is less about CTAs and conversions and more about taking a closer look at your brand. If you have great instructional videos or interesting presentations, a discovery ad can do wonders for you.
Brand Awareness: Non-skippable ads
For the sake of clarity, let's define a few terms before we proceed. Brand awareness is about maximizing your brand's visibility. Ideally, it lays the foundation for effective lead generation.
The main goal of lead generation is both to quickly identify potential leads and to offer properly defined metrics. Both lead generation and brand awareness are powerful tools when used correctly, but it is important that you know when to best use them.
Think of brand awareness as the top of the marketing funnel that leads to high quality lead generation.
If your primary marketing goal is to cast a wide web, non-skippable ads can be effective in building brand awareness. These ads can appear pre-roll, mid-roll, or even post-roll. If you're worried about placement, YouTube will run these ads whenever they think viewers are most likely to see them.
Lead Generation: TrueView In-Stream Ads
Maximizing brand awareness is great, but if you want to turn your traffic into interested prospects, you need ad content that really converts.
TrueView in-stream ads are perfect for this as they are skippable. They add a level of reliability to the marketing experience. This prospect found the first five seconds of your ad compelling and willing to stick with it.
My favorite place? If a viewer doesn't want to consume your content, they can just leave at no cost to you. Now, if the viewer wants to interact, they have provided you with some very valuable information. You are really interested in your brand!
Message reinforcement: bumper ads
Let's say you've already built an audience through digital media. You want to send them a message, perhaps to announce your latest shoe release or your phone launch. You need to maximize your budget, but you don't really need to educate your target audience about the brand.
This is one of the scenarios where bumper ads perform well. The bumper ad doesn't allow for much in terms of storytelling or education. What it can do is allow just enough time to showcase a new product or service.
Reach: Masthead Ads
We've already established that masthead ads aren't for the average small business. While they may not be an inexpensive way to market your brand, they highlight a lesson about advertising budgets in marketing: specifically, the concept of ROI.
On the surface, it can seem ridiculous to spend millions of dollars on a single ad. What if the message doesn't land perfectly? What if you were wrong about target audience pain points? It seems like such a big risk. Still, big brands do this on a regular basis. Why?
Think about how these big brands approach marketing. With millions at stake, their latest marketing campaign consists of a detailed, layered strategy with one element at its core: data and lots of it.
This data, which has likely been gathered over several years, confirms that this investment will generate a positive ROI. Where small brands see risks, big brands see opportunities for growth.
Of course, it's not just big brands that have a right to this trust. The obligation to make data-driven decisions is what adds value to any marketing strategy.
Masthead ads aren't impressive because they're expensive. They impress because they show that with enough data, even the greatest risks can be managed.
How to create a video ad for YouTube
For example, suppose you've never created a video ad. All of this video ad strategy sounds great, but it won't make you a visual content creator overnight. Fortunately, you don't have to spend months learning how to edit to create compelling videos. If in doubt, a little external guidance will help.
Google is working hard to bring YouTube Video Builder, its accessible video creation software, to the public. Meanwhile, tools like Promo and Animoto will walk you through the process of creating great video ads in minutes.
Measure the success of your YouTube ads
YouTube ads automatically track a lot of metrics for you. If you are interested, everything from playback time to data on active views is available.
Unfortunately, so much information can be overwhelming when you're new to the platform. To get started, focus on your skippable ad view rate. This is essentially your true engagement rate, which will determine how well you can turn viewers into interested prospects.
If your view rate is low, there are several options. Maybe your headline isn't drawing people in. Perhaps your video is not grabbing the viewer's attention fast enough. Remember, the first five seconds have to be convincing.
For non-skippable ads, the focus remains on engagement. The only difference is that you use the click-through rate (CTR) to determine if your ad is engaging your target audience.
If your CTR is abnormally low, there are two options. Either the video is being delivered to the wrong audience, or the video itself doesn't connect with your target audience. I recommend testing both by experimenting with different audiences and making multiple videos.
How to create YouTube ads
Ready to start? How to create your first YouTube ad.
- Upload your video
Sign in to your brand's YouTube account and click the camcorder icon in the top right corner of YouTube. Then click on "Upload Video".
From there you will be taken to the upload window where you can now upload your video. Make sure you enter the title, description, and tag information. - Build your campaign
Sign in to your Google Ads account and select "New Campaign".
You'll see an option to choose a campaign goal, but for now just click "Create a campaign without a guide for a goal". You can now select a campaign type, ie select "Video" or "Display" depending on your goals.For our purposes, we'll focus on the Video option. At this point you will be asked to select a campaign sub-type. Choose the most appropriate option and click Next.
- Configure your campaign
Now that you've created your campaign, it's time to properly configure it. First, give your campaign a name for easy data collection.
Then confirm your bid strategy, ad budget and campaign duration. Confirm your networks, locations and languages from there as well.
Content exclusions are also included in this section. This will determine where your ads will appear. If your brand is generally family-friendly, you will likely want to choose a limited inventory. As your brand matures, an expanded inventory could be a good solution. You can also exclude certain types of content and labels here.
- Address your target group
When targeting your audience, first define their demographic information, including age, gender, parental status, and household income. On Google, you can also experiment with some more specific audiences like "Bachelor" or "Healthcare".
Use keywords, topics, and placements to further narrow your targeting.
- Complete your ad
Set your maximum bid. In the "Create a Video Ad" section, find your YouTube video and select the appropriate video ad format (as detailed in the sections above).
Once you've selected your video ad format, fill in the "Final URL" and "Displayed URL" sections. You can also enter your call-to-action and your heading here.
You can automatically generate a companion banner or upload your own below.
When you're done, click “Create Campaign” and you're done!
Final thoughts on growing your business with YouTube ads
Listen i understand Getting involved in creating YouTube ads can be a challenge at first.
The idea behind this guide is to give you a solid basic understanding of how YouTube ads work and how you can make your own.
Feel free to bookmark this guide if you ever need a refresher course, especially when it comes to campaign and video creation.
Fortunately, YouTube ads work like any other digital marketing platform. Focus on your most important metrics, test regularly, and most importantly, respect the data. The path to constant growth may not be glamorous, but it definitely produces results.
In your opinion, which digital marketing platform is currently underutilized?
See how my agency can drive Firmly Amounts of traffic to your website
- SEO – Unblock huge amounts of SEO traffic. See real results.
- Content Marketing – Our team creates epic content that is shared, gets links and attracts traffic.
- Paid media – Effective paid strategies with a clear ROI.
Book a call