By: Alex Futo
Second only to Google as a search engine, YouTube is the heavyweight champion of online video platforms. With billions of users watching a billion hours of content each day, it’s hard to imagine a better home for your video advertisements. Video marketing trends suggest that incorporating YouTube video advertisements into your digital strategy could prove successful for your brand. Lucky for you, YouTube has plenty of advertising options for commercial use available to help you reach your target audience.
Here’s what you need to know to successfully advertise on YouTube’s video platform.
Looking at the Numbers
If you’re on the fence about YouTube, or you’re not sure if video advertisements are worth your time and money, take some time to look at the numbers. On YouTube’s website, they post dominant statistics, such as: “In an average month, 18+ year olds in the United States spend more time watching YouTube than any television network.” An impressive stat, and one that reflects how powerful video advertising can be on their platform.
According to ‘The State of Video Marketing 2018,’ the average consumer watches more than an hour and a half of online video content per day. 81 percent of people are persuaded to purchase a product or service by watching a brand’s video. Not to mention, 76 percent of businesses have confirmed that video advertisements have helped increase their sales. These numbers are only projected to keep growing as people demand and consume more video content.
Types of YouTube Ads For Commercial Use
So, you’ve decided to advertise on YouTube for commercial use. What are your options? Well, there are four video ad categories YouTube offers:
- Trueview Ads – These are the usually skippable ads that begin before the YouTube video starts. There are also Trueview In-Stream Ads, which play during the video; Trueview Discovery Ads, which are display ads that pop up as recommendation videos on YouTube’s homepage; and Trueview for Reach, which says businesses will pay per 1,000 views to help reach audiences quickly.
- Non-Skippable Video Ads – As the name says, these are the ads that viewers can’t skip. There are two types: Pre-roll ads, which play before the video, and Mid-roll ads, which appear at the midpoint of videos that are 10 minutes or longer.
- Outstream Ads – These are mobile-only ads that play on partner websites and within apps.
- Bumper Ads – These are the non-skippable ads that are the easiest to tolerate, playing for six seconds at most. They typically appear at the end of the video, hence the name “bumper.”
Time is certainly a factor to consider when creating your video advertisements. You pay every time someone watches at least 30 seconds of your ad, the full video, or interacts with it in some way such as clicking a link – if the viewers skips the ad, it doesn’t count – so be mindful of ad length. Shorter is better, generally speaking, but taking the time to tell a story can produce good results, too.
Reaching Your Target Audience
YouTube is complementary to Google Ads, meaning they run all their video ads through Google’s advertising algorithm. So, combining these two search engine giants should give you an edge video marketing-wise. Through Google, you can find and reach your target audience using a variety of different targeting methods: demographic groups, detailed demographics, interests, placements, keywords, and device targeting. Essentially, you can pinpoint a specific audience based on their user profile (who they are), what they’re interested in, and what videos they’re watching. You can also specify your marketing goals for your ads once you reach your audience. These goals may include building awareness and ad recall, growing consideration and interest, or driving action.
Say you’re a cosmetic brand looking to build awareness – your ad could be paired with a makeup tutorial video to help reach makeup aficionados that may be interested in your brand but don’t know about it. Considering YouTube’s huge network of content creators and video content, the possibilities are endless.
Budgeting Your Ads
YouTube is flexible when it comes time to decide on a budget that works best for your business. According to their website, most businesses start with at least $10 per day for local campaigns. On average, businesses pay $.10 or $.30 per view or action. So, you pay every time someone views or interacts with your ad. You don’t pay when someone skips your ad or doesn’t watch at least 30 seconds. In other words, you invest in the times your ad reaches your target audience.
It’s your budget at the end of the day – how much you spend on advertisements for commercial use is up to you, as well as how you’d like to pay. YouTube makes it easy to make adjustments to your spending at any time.
Check Your Progress
While running a video marketing campaign on YouTube, you’ll want to track your overall performance to understand how you can improve and make necessary adjustments – in account changes, creative updates, and more. Luckily, YouTube gives you the play-by-play to help you calculate helpful optimization metrics such as:
- View Rate – The number of people who watched your video (for at least 30 seconds) or interacted with your video (by clicking, for example, a call-to-action overlay) divided by the number of times your video ad appeared (otherwise known as impressions).
- Average Cost Per View (CPV) – The average amount you’re paying for each view.
These metrics will help determine if you should create a new video ad, alter ad length, broaden your target audience, change video titles, etc. to boost your video marketing campaign results.
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