For a promising online marketing strategy, it is imperative to also have a presence on the world’s largest video platform, YouTube.
For younger people in particular, YouTube has become as much a part of everyday life as breakfast or a meeting with friends. For marketers, the popular video portal is again interesting because of its enormous reach and its extensive targeting functions. This also includes, for example, the placement of YouTube ads in videos that a very specific target group gets to see .
Definition: What are YouTube Ads?
YouTube Ads are a special form of video advertising. They are advertisements that are placed in YouTube videos for a fee. Depending on the setting and ad format, the ad is then displayed to a previously defined user group.
How you can successfully place ads on YouTube and which advertising formats are useful at all, you can find out here. We’ll also show you what else you need to consider to ensure your video ad campaign gets the results you want.
The advantages of YouTube Ads - What are the advantages of video ads?
Whether it’s a product video or a professional recruiting video: Content in video format attracts attention much better than pure text content. You can take advantage of this by placing your ads on video portals. The targeted placement of YouTube ads in particular has proven its worth here.
YouTube ads give you the opportunity to get your brand out there quickly and easily. In this way, it is easy to make your products or services better known and even attract new customers.
The advantages of YouTube Ads are obvious: Especially with a limited budget, it pays off to place ads on the popular video platform.
Advantage 1: YouTube has a high reach
Since 18- to 49-year-olds watch much less TV on average than older people, classic TV advertising is only conditionally suitable for reaching young target groups. While the average age of TV viewers in 2022 is around 59, streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime are very popular with the younger generation. But as much as consumer behavior differs between the age groups:
YouTube is highly popular with both young people and the older generation.
In December 2022 alone, the number of monthly page views on YouTube was about 35 billion
.
The potential reach of the videos shown is therefore enormous. YouTube advertising is therefore highly likely to reach a broad target group. What’s more, you can decide in advance who should see your video. This way you can get the most out of your advertising campaign. Whether it’s an explainer video or a vlog: YouTube is King!
Advantage 2: Manageable advertising costs
In terms of input/output ratio, ads on YouTube are vastly superior to other advertising measures. One of the reasons for this is the billing model of the video platform: Since you are only asked to pay for in-stream ads once users have watched your ad for a certain amount of time, the wastage is significantly lower than when you run a TV ad. This results in a lower cost-per-view (CPV) compared to traditional video advertising.
Advantage 3: Target group targeting made easy!
On YouTube, you can address your product or image film to exactly the people you want to appeal to. Finally, when running YouTube Ads, you have the option to pre-define your target audience. Depending on which target group you want to reach with your YouTube Ads, you can select appropriate segments. These are user groups with certain demographic characteristics (age, gender, income, etc.) or similar interests. At the same time, you can make sure that only people who are in a certain phase of life, such as those who have already graduated or gotten married, are shown your YouTube ads. So you have full control over who sees your ad and who doesn’t.
Advantage 4: Visible results with full cost control
You can always keep an eye on the cost of your YouTube Ads. First of all, you pay only if a user watches the video with your ad for at least 30 seconds. It doesn’t get any more efficient than this!
Advantage 5: Better Google ranking - through convincing YouTube Ads
YouTube videos are also displayed in Google’s organic search results. In terms of marketing, that means your business has a presence on yet another channel. For your SEO measures, this can mean the decisive booster.
Advantage 6: More traffic on your website
With appropriate links, you direct YouTube users directly to your website. This is then also a sign for Google that your site obviously provides very relevant content. The reward: a better ranking in the results lists of Google, Bing and Co.
Advantage 7: YouTube Ads as a data source
You can evaluate all activities on your YouTube channel in detail. This way, you always have an overview of all relevant figures and KPIs. It has never been easier to record and use all important key figures at a glance.
Cons: The disadvantages of YouTube Ads
Admittedly: Given all these benefits, we won’t hide from you that ads on YouTube also bring disadvantages. However, these are often mistakes that you can avoid with the right approach.
Problem 1: Not every advertising campaign leads to success
Of course, it’s possible that your ad won’t be as effective (at first) as you’d hoped. The causes for this can be very diverse. Maybe you placed your ad at the wrong time, maybe your target audience is not a typical YouTube user. The key here is to analyze why your campaign was a flop – so you can do better next time.
Problem 2: Your target group is not sharply enough defined
Of course, it is always difficult to identify and then reach the right target group. Do you have little experience with YouTube Ads or do you not have the necessary data about your target audience? Then the display can hardly provide the expected results.
Problem 3: Fewer conversions than expected
There is also the possibility that many people click on the ad, but the conversions (for example, in the form of product purchases) fail to materialize. This is especially the case if you haven’t defined your target audience clearly enough. The result is often financial losses due to a lack of sales in the face of increased advertising expenditure.
Problem 4: YouTube Ads: Less success due to competition
The video streaming market is highly competitive. That’s why running YouTube ads is always about setting yourself apart from the competition. It is not uncommon for other companies to have more money and resources available to place ads. These are then more likely to be played and accordingly seen and clicked on more often.
Problem 5: Lack of time
Not to mention the time you have to invest in a campaign. You simply need them to manage and create your advertising campaigns. And before that, of course, you need to create the YouTube Ads themselves and shoot a corresponding video.
YouTube advertising: YouTube Ad is not equal to YouTube Ad
Before you place an ad on YouTube, you should first familiarize yourself with the common types of ads. They ultimately determine in what form and when your ad is played out to the audience in the video. The most important thing here is to distinguish between skippable and non-skippable YouTube Ads.
Skippable in-stream displays (TrueView)
Such an indicator appears before or optionally during the video (also known as “pre-roll” or “mid-roll”). This way, viewers can easily click away the ad within the first 5 seconds . The ad itself must be at least 12 seconds long, but should not exceed 3 minutes.
The advantage for you is that you only pay when the viewer:
- clicked on the ad,
- looks at the entire display (for displays of less than 30 seconds)
- or (for longer ads) has seen at least the first 30 seconds of the video.
Skippable YouTube Ads are an effective way to significantly increase the number of your conversions. That’s because most viewers find skippable YouTube ads less annoying: About 50 percent of all users refrain from canceling skippable pre-roll ads – even though they could.
Good to know: The term “TrueView” refers to a very specific ad format in which viewers have several choices in principle. This way, the user decides for himself whether to look at the ad or rather skip it.
Non-skippable in-stream ads
Alternatively, you can run non-skippable YouTube ads. With pre-roll or mid-roll ads without a “skip” button , you ensure that viewers will definitely watch your ad to the end. You are convinced that your video is so good that you can capture the viewers’ attention for 15 seconds? Then you should definitely go for non-skippable ads. The price of such an ad depends on the number of video views.
Good to know: “Bumper Ads” are ideal for reach and awareness campaigns. They belong to the non-skippable ads and are just 6 seconds long. They are also calculated by views and can be shown as pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll.
Video Discovery Ads
Discovery ads also belong to the so-called TrueView ads. Users have to actively click on them in order to see them at all.
In terms of format, they resemble advertisements as you know them from the Google search results page. So they are displayed next to the organic search results on YouTube, contain a thumbnail and three lines of text. If someone clicks on it, they will be automatically redirected to your YouTube channel or to a landing page.
Ads without (own) video
Generally, you can place ads not only within your videos, but also elsewhere:
- Video Overlay Ads: Here, the ads float above the video content of monetized YouTube channels. Users are shown various ads before or during the video. However, YouTubers have no influence on which ads are played. 55 percent of the revenues go to YouTube itself.
- Display Ads: These are banners that appear in the right sidebar. Mostly they are composed of an image, a text and a CTA (including a link).
- Ads in partner videos: An ad like this is often a great way to reach and grow your audience. It is displayed only in videos from selected advertising partners.
Shopping Ads
These are special ads from the field of e-commerce, which are played only in videos that have a certain relevance.
Advertise properly on YouTube: Place your YouTube Ads in 4 steps
It’s time to launch your first campaign on YouTube. You should know that each ad will be uploaded as a “normal” YouTube video first. Only afterwards can the technical specifications be changed and adapted.
However, there is one exception: Discovery Ads deviate from this somewhat. Their maximum file size is 1 GB and they must be uploaded in AVI, ASF, Quicktime, Windows Media, MP4 or MPEG format with the video codec: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4. Your audio codec may be AAC-LC or MP3. An aspect ratio of 16:9 or 4:3 is recommended.
Step 1: Let's get started - with a "new campaign
Your video is ready, you’ve uploaded it to your YouTube channel and set it to “public”. By the way: You can also set the video to “not listed”.
Now the task is to create a “New Campaign” . Just click on the corresponding button in your Google Ads account.
Step 2: Define your campaign goal
Next, set your campaign goal . You have the choice between:
- Leads: You should choose this option to get more conversions.
- Sales: This campaign goal is ideal if you mainly want to increase your sales.
- More traffic to the website: If you primarily want to increase traffic to your website, this option is the right one.
- Brand awareness and reach: You want to reach the widest possible target group and significantly increase awareness of your products or services? Then you should also set your campaign goal accordingly.
- Purchase readiness: opt for this campaign objective to motivate viewers to learn more about your products or services.
Apart from that, you also have the option to create a campaign without specific targets.
Step 3: Set campaign parameters
Based on this you can now choose a bidding strategy. Then set a budget (either per day or as a total amount. In addition, you can now decide when and where your ad should be played:
- Time of publication: On which days and at which times should the ad be displayed?
- Publication location: Where do you want your ad to appear?
– Everywhere on YouTube (not only in videos, but also on channel pages and the homepage),
– exclusively in the search results (Discovery)
– or within the YouTube partner network (for example, on partner websites). - Geographical coverage: In which countries do you want your ad to appear – worldwide or only in a few countries?
- Language: What language does your target audience speak? For example, do you want your ad to appear only in German- or English-language videos?
Now you just need to set the “Sensitivity” settings for the brand safety policies.
Step 4: Clearly define target group
In this step, you can further narrow down your target audience, for example, using the following criteria:
- Past search behavior: Use related topics and keywords to reach people who have searched for similar products in the past.
- Demographic characteristics: These include, for example, age, gender, marital status and household income.
- Remarketing: With this option, you ensure that your ads are seen primarily by those who have already commented on a video of yours or interacted with you in some other way. It doesn’t matter whether the interaction took place on YouTube itself, on your website, or within an app.
Last but not least, enter the link of the ad – and then click on “Create campaign”.
Best practices: How to make the advertising campaign a complete success
The success of your YouTube ad depends on how it resonates with your viewers. Here are our 4 best tips for great video ads on YouTube.
1. secure the attention of your audience - from the very first moment
Can you reach your audience emotionally or otherwise captivate them? Then that is already half the battle. Does a familiar face appear in your video? Then you are guaranteed the attention of users! Narrow image sections have also proven their worth. Some videos also benefit from a surprising, unusual choice of genre or a particularly catchy song.
2. show your product right at the beginning of the video, except ...
… you know very well that your target group is already thinking about a purchase anyway. Then show your brand, logo, or product later in the video so the viewer can engage with the story of the ad.
In all other cases, the branding should be visible in the first five seconds of the film and remain displayed throughout the ad. In this context, one also speaks of “top-funnel awareness ads”.
3. appeal to the emotions of your audience
It’s best to wrap your advertising message in an exciting, funny or captivating story. With good storytelling, you will in all likelihood have greater success than simply showcasing your products. Because if you manage to convey emotion through your ad, viewers are more inclined to watch your ad in its entirety. If you’re lucky, your story will be so well received that viewers will even identify with your brand – the best possible conditions for creating customer loyalty and increasing your sales figures.
Tip: We’ll show you here what really matters when it comes to storytelling.
4. take the spectator by the hand
If you want to generate a lot of conversions or traffic with your campaign, it’s best to set your ad as a TrueView campaign for video actions. This means that in addition to the call-to-action (CTA for short), other elements are displayed that the viewer can click on before the end of the ad.
YouTube Ads - An absolute marketing must-have
Alongside TikTok and Instagram, YouTube remains one of the most widely used video platforms in Switzerland and Europe. Because of this high reach, Google’s video service is ideal for placing targeted ads – and doing so with optimal control of advertising spend. In order to achieve the desired results with your YouTube Ads, it is important to clearly narrow down your target group in advance and create corresponding YouTube segments. This immensely increases the chances that viewers will click on your CTA.
Have more questions about creating videos or running YouTube Ads? We’ll be happy to assist you with your next advertising campaign. Feel free to contact us.
Schedule a free consultation with our video experts.
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Dustin Bättig | CEO
Photo Credits: StockSnap, Ksv_gracis, , Freepik
