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“Users aren’t satisfied by physical ads or static marketing anymore. They want interactive, aesthetic, engaging material.” -AJ Agrawal
There are many benefits of advertising your brand on YouTube these days! For one, video has become an excellent tool for lead generation and brand awareness. You may have already noticed how often video (particularly streaming video) is being utilized for marketing and advertising more so than ever before. In many ways, the demand and consumption of digital videos were accelerated with people being in their homes more often.
In 2020 YouTube was the #1 ranking video streaming app by “time spent watching” as App Annie reports. Mobile video streaming is also up across the board with 40% more hours streamed on mobile in 2020 compared to 2019, with viewers watching 38 hours of content each month on average. However, it’s not just the youngsters spending more time on YouTube.
When it comes to social networks, adults are using YouTube the most. According to a study from Pew Research Center, 81% of US adults say they use YouTube more often than any other social media platform.
Within the realm of digital video, no social platform comes close to the reach available on YouTube. Indeed, there are quite a few benefits of advertising your brand on YouTube. Here are some of the top reasons why you should:
- YouTube has over 2 billion monthly active users
- 68% of YouTube users watch review videos, and tutorials when making purchasing decisions
- More than 70% of YouTube watch time comes from mobile devices
- Video ads give a positive ROI
- YouTube has launched local versions in more than 100 countries
- You can navigate YouTube in a total of 80 different languages
Already Running Google Ads for Your Business?
YouTube video ad campaigns are set up and run through Google Ads. If you are already running google ads to advertise for your business, you should definitely take advantage of the video ad space google offers through YouTube.
YouTube allows you to run a paid ad that plays on other video content to help boost brand awareness.YouTube advertising is also more accessible than conventional TV ads. Instead of paying thousands of dollars for a 30-second TV commercial, YouTube advertisers typically pay pennies per view.
Many advertisers claim that YouTube ads can generate sales at a better ROI than other popular platforms like Facebook and Google AdWords. By aligning with emerging social media trends and seeing which platform and what format of content most individuals prefer, brands can have better traction at being discovered by an engaged audience.
In fact, as marketing evolves with the advent of AI technology, virtual reality, and interactive content will become more popular with brands looking to be at the cutting-edge of customer acquisition.
Before You Run Ads on YouTube
If you do not currently have a YouTube account for your company, you can create one very quickly. Before you can run any video ads, you need to link your Google Ads account with your YouTube channel. Once you have your YouTube account set up you can upload your video ad! Because your video ad will live on YouTube, you will need to first start by uploading the video file to your YouTube channel. Make sure the video is public—or, unlisted if you don’t want it popping up in your channel video lists.
But before you create your ad, it is important to take a bit of time and brainstorm about the buyer persona of your ideal customer. You can do this by looking at your analytics and studying your usual customer demographics.
What are their physical, occupational, and emotional attributes? What are the needs that you can solve for them with your product and service? And most importantly, will your ad speak to them? By flushing out your customer persona and buyer journeys, you will ensure a greater success rate and ROI with your ads.
Pro Tip: Do not set your YouTube video ad to private or the video link will not work!
How to Create a Google Ads Video Campaign
Click the “Tools and Settings” button to expand the menu, and click the link that leads to the linked accounts page.
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- In the page menu, click Campaigns.
- Click the plus button
- Select New campaign.
- Select from campaign goals.
How to Advertise With YouTube
The best part about YouTube is that every single user is there to watch videos in a prolonged format. YouTube has the most available digital ad space potential when it comes to digital video platforms because when compared to other social networks, there’s little socializing going on. With the medium focused on video, it is similar to TV, as it is focused more on one-way broadcasting than actual two-way communication. In Google Ads, you can create unique video campaigns with a range of video ad formats to engage customers in different ways on YouTube.
Video ad formats: skippable in-stream ads, non-skippable in-stream ads, video discovery ads, and bumper ads.
- Skippable in-stream ads play before, during, or after other videos. After this type of ad plays for 5 seconds, the viewer is given the option to skip it.
- Non-skippable in-stream ads are designed to allow you to reach customers with your entire message and are 15 seconds or less.
- Video discovery ads only appear on YouTube and reach people in places where they’re discovering content. When a viewer clicks the thumbnail for your ad, the video will play on its YouTube watch or channel page.
- Bumper ads are a short video ad format, designed to allow you to reach customers broadly and increase awareness of your brand by using short video clips. Bumper ads are just 6 seconds or less, and viewers can’t skip the ad.
For YouTube ad best practices, the best ROI of an effective YouTube ad campaign is to utilize various ad formats. This leads to a 29-44% more reach per dollar than using standalone format ads. Also, it is highly recommended not to layer different types of audiences in addition to your chosen main audience, since this will dilute and restrict your reach and may cause your campaign to miss out on targeted customers.
Another important tip is to not set your ad schedule to a specific time frame, since this could restrict potential customers from all over the world from seeing your ad. Interestingly enough, only 15% of YouTube’s audience comes from the US, highlighting the importance of an international reach.
However, this would only be relevant if your products or services are not solely sold in the US. By enabling the ad to run on an “all day” setting, you can reach a targeted audience anywhere whenever they search for your targeted keywords.
Advertise Effectively with YouTube Video Ads
Because of YouTube’s popularity, video content has become a vital component of advertising and overall marketing solutions. YouTube’s advertising engine is powerful and capable of endless optimization tweaks. YouTube allows you to create targeted ad campaigns based on category, keyword, and topic.
You can choose from available audience categories to reach people interested in certain topics, even when they may be visiting other channels about other topics – this significantly improves your chances of reaching people whose interests align with your industry.
YouTube also helps users discover your videos through organic searches, suggested videos on the watch page, or in between in-stream videos! Video is a type of media that’s currently universally popular among both marketers and their audiences, a win/win that is helping achieve a number of important goals for businesses and content creators.
YouTube is becoming “the” platform for business growth these days and in the foreseeable future. Learn all you can about the benefits of using video and social media for your business growth with the following helpful resources:
Using Video to Tell Your Business’ Story
Which Paid Advertising Type is Best for Your Business?
Should I be Using Every Social Media Platform?
Does Your Company’s Social Media Need a Makeover?
Final Thoughts on YouTube Advertising
There are many benefits of advertising your brand on YouTube – from greater engagement with targeted audiences to higher sales acquisitions. In the same manner that Google search and other search engines house website content, YouTube is a search engine only for video. Given the social media audience’s preference for video and consumer preference for visuals, YouTube is one of the best platforms for marketing your business!
If you’d like a bit more help with creating a targeted buyer persona and managing your YouTube ads, our Chicago web design company specializes in social media ad management! Contact us at Idea Marketing Group today for more information.