YouTube users spend an average of 19 minutes a day on the platform. That’s 32.4 hours in 120 years. And since it is the second largest search engine in the world, you can bet that YouTube ads will provide significant reach (51.8% of the total population and 51.8% of Internet users, to be exact).
In this beginner’s guide to YouTube advertising, you’ll get everything you need to create profitable advertising campaigns on this vast platform.
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- Why Advertise on YouTube
- How much does YouTube advertising cost?
- Types of YouTube Ads
- YouTube advertising metrics
- How to Advertise on YouTube in 10 Steps
- How To Make Awesome YouTube Ads
Check Out: How to Research YouTube Keyword for Beginners
Why Advertise on YouTube
At this year’s Google Marketing Live, we focused on visual content and also announced a new advertising feature in YouTube Shorts. Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of advertising on YouTube.
- Exposure: YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.
- Sales: 70% of people bought a product after seeing it in a YouTube ad.
- Brand identity: YouTube videos allow you to create a unique brand experience and express your business personality.
- Date: YouTube Analytics provides a wealth of data, including where viewers stop watching videos. For example, take a look at the YouTube Studio reports that you can’t find in Google Ads Analytics.
- Remarketing: You can run retargeting campaigns targeting users who have already seen your previous videos on YouTube or the Google Display Network.
How much does YouTube advertising cost?
Like Google Ads costs, these will vary by business and goals, but here are LOCALiQ’s general benchmarks for YouTube advertising costs:
Types of YouTube Ads
When you say ‘YouTube ads’, you probably think of skippable 30-second in-stream ads. But you probably didn’t know it was called that! There are many different YouTube ad formats you can use to achieve different goals, and of course, they are constantly changing. Currently, there are three YouTube ad formats.
- Skippable In-Stream Ads: Play before, during, and after another video can be skipped after one second.
- Non-skippable in-stream ads: Play before, during, or after other videos, but are non-skippable and are 15 seconds or less.
Also Read: Latest YouTube SEO Guide 2022
- Bumper Ads: Play before, during, or after another video cannot be skipped by less than one second.
- Outstream ads: These are mobile-only ads that appear on Google video partner sites, but not on YouTube.
- Masthead Ad: Appears in your YouTube home feed.
- Overlay ads: These are text/image display ads that appear over YouTube videos on a desktop, rather than video ads.
- In-feed ads: Previously called video discovery ads (not to be confused with discovery campaigns), these are technically not video ads at all. How to get YouTube to recommend your videos in YouTube search results and in the “Watch Up Next” section. On mobile, in-feed ads look like this:
Here are some key considerations to consider when choosing a YouTube ad format:
- Length: Video ads can be any length, but generally a “view” is counted at the 30-second mark or at the end of the video, whichever comes first. Bumper ads are 15 seconds, non-skippable in-stream ads are 15 seconds, and skippable in-stream ads are 30 seconds.
- Skippable: Does the user have the option to skip the ad after 6 seconds? Or should I watch the whole thing? Bumper ads and out-stream ads cannot be skipped.
- Networks: When video ads are served within the YouTube video player, they are called in-stream ads. They are called out-stream ads when they are played on other sites (for example, within display ad slots on partner websites).
- Sound: 95% of YouTube videos are watched with sound on. This is in stark contrast to Facebook’s just 15%. Most YouTube ads play with sound on. However, out-stream ads and mastheads start off with sound off by default.
YouTube advertising metrics
This is when it becomes very important to understand the difference between ‘views’ and ‘impressions’ for YouTube ads.
- View. As long as the ad is skippable, a “view” is counted at the 30-second mark or at the end of the ad, whichever comes first. Think of a ‘view’ the same way you think of a ‘click’ in a search ad. This is a sign of participation.
- impression. If the ad is non-skippable, there are no views, only impressions, because the user has no agency. whether or not to participate in the selection. By default, anyone who views your ad, regardless of format, counts as an impression, but only people who view your ad engage with it, so only people who see your ad can be added to your YouTube remarketing lists.
How to Advertise on YouTube (Step by Step)
Before launching your YouTube campaign, decide if you want to focus on awareness, consideration, or conversions. This will affect the format and bidding strategy you choose later. For example, you bid on impressions because the goal of an awareness campaign is to get as many impressions as possible, whereas the goal of a conversion campaign might be online sales, so you bid on conversions. We will discuss this in detail later. That said, let’s go through the steps.
Also Read: How to Monetize Your YouTube Channel
1. Create a new campaign
Open Google Ads Manager and select New Campaign. Always select ‘Create a campaign without goal guidance’ when prompted.
Select Video as your campaign type.
2. Choose a campaign subtype
3. Choose a bidding strategy
Depending on the campaign subtype selected, there are only one or two options. In this example, the custom video campaign’s bidding options are Maximum CPV (cost per view) or Target CPM (cost per impression).
- Target CPM: Set a target price per impression (used for non-skippable in-stream)
- Viewable CPM: Set a target price per viewable impression (used for out-stream)
- Max CPV: Set the maximum price to pay per view, similar to manual CPC bidding. This is a common bidding strategy for YouTube campaigns with low funnel audiences and less stringent conversion goals.
- Maximize Conversions: Let Google Ads get you as many conversions as possible and within your budget.
- Target CPA: Set a target price per conversion
4. Select Network
If you’re not a fan of search partners and the Display Network in your search campaigns, we recommend opting out of the video partners on the Display Network. For certain campaign subtypes or certain bid strategies, you may not be able to opt-out of all of these options.
5. Select Content Exclusions
We recommend that most advertisers use standard inventory. If you’re very concerned about running ads next to potentially sensitive content, you can choose limited inventory. If it doesn’t matter where your ads appear, choose Expanded Inventory. This will allow you to get more additional placements at a potentially lower cost due to reduced competition.
Exclude additional contexts: Even if you choose standard inventory, you still have the option to exclude certain types of content. I generally leave out the live streaming video and embedded video, but that’s a personal preference rather than best practice. Again, if you’re concerned about what kind of content you’re seeing next to your ad, exclude the yet-to-be-labeled content, DL-MA, and potentially DL-T as well.
This part of the YouTube campaign setup is often overlooked. Don’t forget to increase engagement by adding relevant videos from your channel. If you have a Google Merchant Center product feed linked to Google Ads, you must select it here to be able to display product cards alongside your video ads. If you want to do tricky things like frequency capping or ad scheduling, you’ll find it hidden under “More settings.”
7. Targeting
YouTube campaigns offer advertisers all of the targeting options in Google Ads. All types of audiences and a wide range of context options are available.
When you select campaign targeting, you’ll see two main options: people and content.
- People: You can set targeting based on who you want to reach. regardless of which video you are watching. You can target people by:
- Demographics (age, gender, parental status, household income) and/or all Google audiences
- Audience segments: all Google audiences or custom audiences:
recently married, interested in the accounting software market, similar to your customers, people with a specific app on their phone, people who recently watched a YouTube video, etc. can be targeted.
- Content: You can set targeting according to the kind of video you want your ad to appear next to. no matter who is watching them. The “Content” option allows you to target your ads based on keywords, topics, or placements.
- Keyword targeting Show ads with content that is most specific and related to that keyword. They can appear in search results, so they can be a good choice for things like in-feed ads.
- Placement targeting You can show your ads on specific apps or websites, such as specific YouTube videos, YouTube channels, YouTube ‘lineups’ (eg ‘popular content’), and display campaigns.
- It works just like a topic-targeted display campaign, where you can show your video next to content related to a specific topic, such as ‘Hiking and Camping’ or ‘Exotic Pets’.
I generally prefer to use people targeting over content targeting, but you can also narrow your reach by choosing from a variety of options and layering them together. For example, you can target people with the intent to purchase a car seat only for content related to car seats.
8. Create ads
Time to make that ad. To use YouTube videos in your video ads, you must upload them to YouTube. Don’t want ads running on your channel? No problem. Just set it to “Unlisted” instead of “Public”. Paste the URL of your YouTube ad here, and you’ll see options based on your campaign subtype. In this example, you can create a skippable in-stream ad (the “regular” kind) or an in-feed video ad (the kind that displays a thumbnail and description).
9. Bid Setting
Set your bid and you’re ready to go live! In this case, we typically set a maximum CPV bid of between $0.05 and $0.10.
10. Measure your success
How to choose the right metric for your campaign? First, remember if your goal is awareness, consideration, or conversion. If your YouTube campaign is built around awareness, measuring success by conversion rate is meaningless!
As a general rule of thumb for Google Ads campaigns, I like to choose one reach metric (impressions, views, clicks, etc.) and one efficiency metric (cost per view, view rate, click-through rate, etc.). ).
If you have a dedicated Google representative and you’re spending between $100,000 and $100,000 per month on YouTube ads, ask them about running brand lift studies. A special survey that Google can run for you to evaluate how well your campaign drives key results like brand awareness, ad recall, search lift or purchase intent. A minimum investment is required for a set period and varies by location, so ask your representative for current program requirements.
How to Create Awesome YouTube Ads with ABCD
The most important component of advertising is neither targeting, format, nor bidding. That’s creative!
YouTube has developed a framework called ABCD, a data-driven guide to creating effective video ads. Great YouTube ads have a few things in common.
- Attract a Tight frame, fast-paced, element of surprise, and use of real people on screen to grab your attention in the first ten seconds.
- Trademark: Introduce your product or brand within the first 30 seconds using text, video, or sound. For example, having an actor mention your brand name is associated with positive ad recall and purchase consideration.
- Connecting: By integrating functionality and emotion together, engaging users’ emotions (especially through humor), and making viewers relate to the people on screen, it makes consumers feel something about the brand.
- Direct: Encourage customers to take action with special offers, create a sense of urgency, and persuade viewers with specific instructions like “Buy Now” or “Sign Up.”
Get inspired by the YouTube Advertising Leaderboard for examples of the most successful YouTube ads. We also recommend taking a look at our tips for making YouTube ads more memorable.
