YouTube Advertising | 5 Benefits of Using Video Ads

Joseph Mucira | Posted on June 13, 2020 |

Today, we are going to learn about How to Grow your Brand through YouTube Advertising. Including some of the Best Practices for Maximizing your YouTube Videos Conversion Rates.

Agreeably, as the second most popular search engine worldwide, YouTube is one of the most powerful platforms for businesses trying to capture customers’ attention.

And with nearly two billion users logging in every month, the platform has a tremendous capacity for helping brands attract new audiences and establish a loyal following.

Given how vital YouTube has become a successful digital strategy, it’s surprising to remember that advertising on the platform started only a decade ago.

YouTube is one of the best options for creating a cost-effective advertising campaign. With an Average CPV of $0.026, Average view rate of 31.9%, and Average view CTR of 0.514%.

What is YouTube Advertising?

Be seen where everyone is watching! With YouTube ads, reach potential customers and have them take action when they watch or search for videos on YouTube – and only pay when they show interest. Not to mention, you can get $100 free credit when you spend $50 on video ads.

Through YouTube Ads, you are able to reach the people who matter most. Whereby, it helps you connect with people who are interested in what you have to offer. From sports fans to fashionistas, and everyone in between, people come to YouTube for the content they love.

Due to the many different types of YouTube Ads (more on those later), businesses have the ability to choose the formats that best help them achieve their goals. These video ads give businesses the capacity to be as creative as they’d like and let their voices be heard.

What’s Find My Audience?

What’s more is that, with Find My Audience, it’s easy to get a deeper understanding of your most valuable customers – their interests, their habits, and what they’re planning to purchase.

And so, you can discover new audiences. And learn how to reach them individually with relevant messages.

Find My Audience helps you;

Understand who your most valuable customers are on YouTube.
Discover new audiences based on their interests, habits, and what they’re planning to purchase.
Get your free audience profile, with insights to help inform your video ad strategy.
Use your insights to start a YouTube campaign that reaches people who matter most to your business.

What is the Cost of YouTube Ads?

Google owns YouTube. Therefore you advertise on YouTube using the Google AdWords network.

As with any other type of Google AdWords campaign, the price of YouTube ads involves you bidding for ad placement. Therefore it is impossible to say how much YouTube ads cost definitively.

For one thing, the cost will vary based on your audience targeting, your marketing goals, and your video. But, according to Penna Powers, the estimated costs are:

In-Display Ads: $0.30 Average Cost-per-View (CPV).
In-Search: $0.10 Average Cost-per-View (CPV).

With the power of Google AdWords behind it, it should be no surprise that YouTube is now a favorite medium for advertisers worldwide.

Read and learn more about How Much Do YouTube Ads Cost?

Types of YouTube Ads include;

YouTube offers a variety of ad formats that businesses can use to keep their customers engaged:

Trueview.
Pre-Roll.
Bumper Ads.

Each of these formats has its own unique advantages and use cases.

Depending on what goal you’re trying to accomplish, you may want to use only one format or potentially combine multiple formats. In that case, read and learn more about the types of YouTube Ads.

What are the Benefits of YouTube Advertising?

There are many benefits of YouTube Advertising — from targeting and customization capabilities to measurability and affordability. But the most important benefit is actually the simplest one; outreach. After all, what good would a billboard do if the road it’s on doesn’t get any traffic?

When we talk of Customization, maximize your revenue with a variety of unique video ad formats. Deliver in-stream and out-stream video ads across your sites and apps. Get actionable insights. Manage revenue. Types: Video Ads, Native Ads, Out-stream Ads, Rewarded Ads.

Its Measurability options allow you to see how you’re doing. By getting real-time insights about how people are responding to your video ads, so you know where to make adjustments.

Like I mentioned, talking of Affordability, unlike other platforms, through YouTube Advertising, you only pay when they watch your video ad. Meaning, you only pay when someone chooses to watch at least 30 seconds or clicks on your TrueView ad.

Having said that, let’s walk through exactly what YouTube advertising can do for your brand;

1. Allows you to Find Customers through Advanced Targeting

Besides basic identifying information like age, gender, and geographic location, what other recognizable characteristics do your current customers have? Through YouTube Advertising, you have the capability to target videos by Topic, Category, and Keyword.

In doing so, you can increase the likelihood that the audience finds your ad to be relevant. Additionally, with Placement Targeting, you can identify specific YouTube pages you want your ads to appear on.

Utilizing targeting features like these make it much easier to ensure your ads get in front of the right customers at the right times. In addition to letting businesses narrow in on their intended audience, YouTube Advertising grants a certain level of customizability. Allowing the advertisements to be more personalized than Search Ads.

2. Helps your Brand Expand its Digital Outreach

Along with the almost two billion YouTube account holders who visit the website monthly, there is a vast, unregistered group of youtube users who contribute to the platform’s approximately five billion daily video views.

With each video view, there is the potential to expose your ad to someone who could be interested in what your business offers. The question is: how do you find them? With YouTube Ads, the bigger the net you cast, the more potential customers you can connect with.

People who would be interested in your products will probably come from all walks of life. So, taking the time to consider the multiple different customer demographics that your ads on YouTube would serve well is the best way to capitalize on this advertising platform.

3. Allows you to Customize Ads to meet your Set Goals

Unlike Search and Shopping Ads, which need to follow strict guidelines in order to be eligible to run, YouTube Ads give businesses more freedom in choosing their advertising approach.

Thereby, brands can use the platform to tell stories about themselves and their customers, share valuable information, explain their products, and more. This wide range of possibilities truly makes YouTube one of the most dynamic and flexible advertising platforms out there.

Additionally, given the platform’s advertising capabilities, it’s surprisingly affordable for businesses of all sizes. However, if you’re concerned that it will take a large chunk out of your advertising or marketing budget, you should take a closer look at the fine details.

4. Helps you Run a Cost-effective Lead Campaigns

Of course, Yes! You don’t necessarily need a fancy camera or the assistance of a creative agency to create your ads. YouTube put together this handy guide to help businesses prepare, shoot, and edit video ads all on a smartphone.

Obviously, a typical ad view generally runs between $0.05 and $0.10, which is low compared to the cost of some keywords on the Search Network, which can run for $50 per-click or more. And not only are video views themselves relatively cheap but, as with PPC Marketing Ads, advertisers only pay when users choose to engage with the ads.

Even compared to Search ads, YouTube has an affordability advantage. Because whereas Search ads count a quick click of a button as engagement, the TrueView ad format only counts sustained viewing as engagement. This means you never pay for people who see your ad but quickly skip it.

5. You are able to Measure your Ads’ Success

It is important to realize, figuring out which types of the Ad makes the most sense for your business will take some trial and error.

By checking your Google Ads account, you can track views and costs, and get an idea if you’re reaching the right audience. Also, under the Analytics tab in your YouTube account, you can learn more about the people who’ve viewed your ads.

Digging into this data can provide you invaluable insight into how well your ads are really doing.

For example, you can learn:

Which ads your customers are watching
How long they watch them.
At exactly what points they disengage.
You can also use the Analytics tab to help you determine which of the many ad formats are performing best.

You can also connect your YouTube account with your Google Analytics account to dive deeper into your video campaign data.

Also, you can see, for example, the top “pages” on your YouTube channel with more in-depth metrics like bounce rate, unique page views, and average time on page.

Best Practices while Using Video Ads

There’s no magic formula for a successful YouTube ad campaign. But there are some tried and true strategies that have worked for other businesses in the past. As a content hub for your business, your channel should create an experience of your brand that goes beyond advertising.

You can remarket to YouTube Ads viewers (or even channel visitors) with either additional YouTube Ads or Display Ads. These video ads don’t have to be a single touchpoint you complete then you hope the best for. Instead, you can follow up and re-engage with users on your remarketing list to drive them to your website.

Managing a successful account requires continuous attention. And when looking for ways to increase performance, always optimize your targeting before optimizing the ad content. Refining your ad content before targeting is a waste of time, as you could be making changes no one will see.

How to Use YouTube Ads to Grow Your Business

By testing multiple audiences or targeting parameters, you can figure out what drives the most engagement. Also, consider testing multiple ad formats as well.

YouTube and Google provide complementary brand lift studies in which they take your audience, split it in half (creating a test and control group), exposing your video ads to one half and not the other. They then directly measure the lift in brand searches and ad recall between the two audiences.

So that advertisers have hard numbers to demonstrate what kind of lift the video campaigns are generating outside of what’s easily trackable. The study is free, advertisers just have to pay for the advertising cost.

Video Advertising | 9 Pros & Cons Marketers should know

Instead of relying on youtube views or clicks to properly evaluate ad performance, you should be focusing on the lift. You shouldn’t treat YouTube Ads and Search Ads the same way, especially since people online don’t.

Users don’t come to YouTube to watch a video, see an ad, and then immediately click off to go buy something. Instead, they absorb the ad message, and then if compelled enough, will likely do a follow-up search later.

To determine ad success you should first look at views and view rate to make sure that people are watching the video. Then look at earned actions, or what users did after watching the video.

Did they watch other videos?
Did they subscribe, or share, or like the video?

After that, you should look to see if direct traffic to your website or brand search volume on Google has increased.

Resources;

As you can tell, YouTube Ads require a more hands-on approach than its Search and Display counterparts. But that time spent will result in better-performing ads.

Having a well structured and planned out YouTube strategy will elevate your brand and help you promote your products. A few businesses have become masters of this valuable platform and it is worthwhile to take a look at the approaches they took to get where they are.

What is your take on YouTube Advertising? Please let us know in the comments section. And if you’ll need more support on this or more of our blog topics, please feel free to Contact Us.

Here are more useful and related topic links;

Finally, if you’re convinced enough, you can start right away with the Google YouTube Ads program.

You can also read more about How to choose the right type of YouTube ad for your company.