YouTube - The most prominent landscape for the advertiser to magnify their business to the huge audience. Yes..!! It is the world’s second-largest search engine after Google, with billions of active users.
One more billion of users watches more than 6 billion hours of video on YouTube. It is no wonder that video can capture huge audience attention rather than text and make them watch the full video. Many marketers say that video gives a better ROI.
YouTube advertising has become the most preferred place for marketers to advertise the business product/services and create brand awareness. But one who has the right YouTube marketing strategy will be able to get a better result from a video campaign.
By sticking up this article until the end, you’ll know about all the aspects of complete YouTube advertising and start to promote your business with video ads today.
Let’s get started.
Table of contents
1. Reason to advertise on YouTube
2. Youtube advertising Formats
3. How to set up a YouTube ads campaign
4. YouTube non-video ad format
5. YouTube Ad specs
6. Best practices for YouTube ads
7. Conclusion
1. Reason to advertise on YouTube
For a decade, Television is the only platform that business owners can spend a huge amount on 30-sec video ads to advertise their business. And it is not fit for small-medium scale businesses. Television ads are full out of reach for these businesses.
But now, Youtube breaks all those challenges and it always opens a red carpet for all business people to promote their business. Nowadays, YouTube acts as a TV for the audience. Every day millions of users are watching so many videos on YouTube.
Even some television and news channels are started their channels on YouTube because television engagement has been decreasing for the past few years. Due to its tremendous reach, YouTube has become the most beneficial platform for business people.
Here are some of the points are listed that how business can benefit from YouTube advertising,
1) Immersive outreach.
2) Influences buying behavior.
3) Track video ads metrics.
4) High-level targeting.
5) Better RoI.
And one more important thing is that you can only pay for pennies per view and if your video ad will be watched for more than 30 sec. With YouTube advertising, you can boost your business revenue without any fail.
2. Youtube advertising Formats:
Google offers different video advertising options on YouTube. They are
1) TrueView ads
2) Non-skippable video ads
3) Bumper ads
1) TrueView ads:
TrueView ads are skippable ads that appear at the beginning of YouTube videos and run for 30 seconds. After 5 seconds of your video ads, the user can able to skip it. So, here you’re rarely to waste your money on sometimes.
Advertise your video ads on how-to, demo, testimonials videos and more. Mention the call-to-action from the start of the video, or via overlay and sponsor cards.
Because CTA(Call-to-action) is the best way to drive more immediate engagement towards your destination. It may be either your website, YouTube channel or others.
Low-risk at a cost: It is the best cost-effective way to reach your business towards the relevant audience.
i) Pay if video ads played for 30 seconds or more.
ii) Pay for the number of clicks generated not for the number of views.
TrueView ads display on other publishers website in the network, and it depends on the ad type you choose: In-Stream or Discovery
TrueView In-Stream ads:
In-stream video ads play during YouTube videos, and it also plays in other display networks like games or apps. This video ad type can be up to 3 minutes long, but 30 seconds are recommended.
When your In-stream ads play, a companion banner (display ads) shows up the upper right corner. It drives engagement towards your website.
TrueView Discovery ads:
Previously, It was named as in-display ads. Discovery ad type will appears at the YouTube home page or as recommended videos on a search result page.
The discovery ad type has no limit for video length. Relative headlines and body content has a limitation. The headline of the video ad has 25 character limit and the body can contain two lines but each with a 35-word maximum.
More users are likely to skip video ads. But there’s a high possibility that users are likely to watch eye-catchy or innovative video ads and have a chance to visit or subscribe your YouTube channel.
TrueView For Reach
Google Introduced TrueView For Reach in April 2018, a new optimization in campaign goals. Instead of paying for the watches video ad completely, pay for the 1000 views(CPM- Cost Per Mile or Cost Per Thousands). To be qualified for the TrueView to reach video ad type optimization, Your video ad must be between 6 to 30 seconds.
2) Non-Skippable Video ads:
Generally, users feel non-skippable video ads as tedious. But they are adopting to tolerate this kind of video ad type nowadays. But, It’s good for marketers. Non-skippable ads may appear in pre-, mid- or post-roll while viewing the video content.
In January 2018, these ads on mobile and desktop can be up to 15 to 20 seconds long. Non-skippable ads are sold on a CPM basis. Make sure that your video ads must be perfect in audio as well as video.
If someone, not paying attention to watching your video then might have a chance to hear what you would say. This ad type showcases your brand value towards your target audience.
3) Bumper ads:
Bumper ads are short, non-skippable ads which let you reach more audience and gain brand awareness for your business. It has a video length of 6 seconds longer, appears at the end of the video and paid on a CPM basis.
This bumper ad can be especially effective on mobile devices and a view of your bumper ads won’t increment the video views count.
3. How to set up the video ads campaign
Assume that you’ve already created a video ad footage and here we’re going to know about how to use that ad in a YouTube ad campaign. Let’s get started,
Upload a video to YouTube: The first and foremost step is to create and upload a video on your YouTube channel. If not exist, click here to set up a Youtube Channel.
After that click the Create a Video icon on the upper right corner and upload your video to Youtube.
Create Your Campaign:
After uploading a video, Sign up the Google Adwords account with the same mail-id which you have created a Youtube channel. Now follow the below steps,
1) Click the campaign tab on the main toolbar
2) Click the ‘+’ button to add a new campaign
3) Select campaign type as “Video”
4) Set your campaign goal.
5) Name your campaign.
6) Enter your budget & dates.
7) Set your bidding strategy
8) Enter your network, language, and locations.
9) Create your ad group.
10) Establish targeting for your video.
Set your campaign goal: Google Adwords offers a different set of goals which are sales, leads, website traffic, product and brand consideration, brand awareness and reach, and app promotion. Pick the goal which best suits your video content.
Name your campaign: After finishing the goal setup, the below screen will appear. Name your campaign regarding your video content.
Enter your budget & dates: Enter the budget type, amount, start and end date in the corresponding field and then choose the delivery method. Standard mode will spend your budget evenly throughout the day and accelerated mode will spend your budget as fast as possible.
Set your bidding strategy: The step is to set up a bidding amount for your video ad. First, choose the bid strategy from the list of options and then enter the bidding amount.
Enter your network, language, and locations: In the network tab, pick the place where your video ads will be shown. It offers three options which are YouTube search results, YouTube videos, and video partners on the display network.
In the language tab, select the language that your customers can speak. And next location tab, Pick the target location to promote your business product/services. Make use of advanced search and you can pick the particular city or region for your business product/services.
Create your ad group: Name your ad-group regarding your video content.
Targeting for your video:
There are two options for you. One is People - who you want to target and another one is Content - where want your ads to show. In the people tab, there are two categories,
Demographics: Here, you can filter the audience by their age, gender, parental status, and household income.
Audiences: In audiences, there are four basic different options out there which are,
i) Detailed Demographics
ii) Affinity and custom affinity audiences
iii) In-market, life events and custom intent audiences
iv) Re-marketing and similar audiences
Detailed demographics - You can target audience with more specific options which are marital status, homeownership, education and parental status within your demographics.
Affinity audiences - It is for companies who publicize their items on TV and need their battle to have an online presence. Affinity audiences incorporate gatherings like audience inspired by PC gaming, or individuals who gather dolls.
Custom affinity audiences - It builds on affinity audiences with more specific targeting. For example, Customer affinity targeting helps to point out the frequently searching for specific items rather than using a common search term.
In-market audiences - Target your video ads to users looking for items like yours. Google decides if somebody's "in-advertise" for an item or administration dependent on promotion click history, transformations, search history and how frequently somebody's looking through explicit terms.
Life events - People’s purchasing behavior and decision making are changing, after the completion of graduation, getting married or having a baby. Scrutinize your marketing strategy by targeting an audience based on life events.
Custom intent audience - Target an audience whose search terms indicate that they are rushing to make a purchase.
Remarketing and similar audiences - Fix the audience based on two criteria 1) watched other videos on your YouTube channel 2) which video they have watched. Click here to know more about retargeting.
Content: It consists of three sections which are topics, keywords, and placements.
Topic - Establish your video ads relevant to the topics regarding your business which you have chosen.
Keywords - Focus on the audience based on the search terms. In this tab, you can get keyword ideas by giving website URL, business keywords. It delivers top searchable keywords on the Google search engine. Just add all keywords ideas which help to view your ads when these keywords searched by the users.
Placements - Using this you can target YouTube channels, YouTube videos, Websites, apps, and app categories. Your video ads will be shown in other youtube videos, youtube channel, and other places.
Live Your Video Ad Campaign
The final step,
i) Upload a video ad footage in the “create a video” tab.
ii) Select the ad-format
iii) Enter the landing page URL and display URL
iv) Name the call-to-action and headline of your video ad
v) Click save and continue.
Hooray..!! You’re ready to start your first video ad campaign.
Non-video ad formats on YouTube:
Without any ad-formats, you can advertise your video ads with overlay ads, sponsored ads, and display ads.
Overlay Ads: Overlay ads are only available for reservation sponsorship campaigns. It is not available in Google Adwords. Overlay ads can be in either text ad or image ad format and display at the bottom of the video. You can set up the overlay ads on YouTube watch pages.
To know the overlay ads specification, click here
Display Ads: Display ads can be managed in Google Adwords which helps to increase the outreach for your business. It appears on the video suggestion list.
Sponsor Ads: Within the Youtube video, it appears at the top right corner which is used to interact with the audience. It acts as the small CTA and also explores as large when the user clicks it.
YouTube ad specs:
Here’s the YouTube ad specification for every type-video and Non-video.
Video ad requirements:
The below specification for TrueViews, Non-skippable and bumper ads.
Video Codec: H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4
Audio Codec: AAC, MP3
Resolution: 640×360 (19:9 ratio) or 480×360 (4:3 ratio)
Frame Rate: 30 FPS
File Size: 1 GB max
Overlay ads specs:
It requires one image which appears over the lower 20 percent of the video. Having an animated image, then the loop will be under 10 seconds.
YouTube Ad Dimensions: 480 px by 70 px
Ad image format: PNG, JPG, GIF (static or animated)
Ad image size: 150 KB max
Display ads specs:
Display ads section, you can use an animated image but the loop must be 30 secs or under. If your ads contain a black or white background then the clickable area must be highlighted which is required.
YouTube Ad Dimensions: 300 px by 250 px
Ad image format: PNG, JPG, GIF
Ad image size: 150 KB max
Sponsored card ads specs:
Here, you can pick an image that displays your product and mentions the CTA
YouTube Ad Dimensions: variable (1:1 aspect ratio)
Ad image format: PNG, JPG, GIF (can be animated)
Ad image size: 2MB max
Best practices for YouTube ads:
An important aspect of your entire video ad campaign is to create an inventive video ad. Here’s the list of best practices for YouTube ads which help to boost your video ad.
Engage users with amazing content
Routinely, users are watching videos on YouTube. If users want to click your call-to-action on video ads that it must contain some interesting content with delightful action.
So, Make a video ad that tells a resonating story about your business product/services with innovative video. This makes the people watch out your ad and reach your website.
Search Optimization
It is very important to optimize the video for search. Without optimization, your video will not display at search results when the user searched for your business product/services.
Name the ad title as a simple and user searchable format. It helps to showcase your ad at the search place. Make sure the thumbnails should be attractive and visible which improve Click-Through-Rate(CTR)
Publish content frequently
Continually publishing video on your YouTube channel will build a better branding for your business and gain more subscribers. Video creation is not a tough job, make it simple and neat with free video creation tools or make a video in your home.
If you’re somewhere else, schedule your video posting properly. This will help to engage with the audience. Keep in mind, Your video must be built under the YouTube ad specs, rules, and guidelines.
Stand out from your competitors
Presently, YouTube marketplace is stuffed with heavy competition. It’s tough for the business people to stand out their business here. If we want to then have to do some smart work. Hook up with influencer marketing. Yeah..!! Promote your business with an influencer will reach your business among a wider audience and able to get a brand identity.
Include compelling CTA
The main objective of video ads to bring the audience towards your website, youtube channels, youtube videos or others. This can be achieved by including the compelling CTA on your video ads. Whether it drives customers towards your website or not, CTA makes it more actionable.
Conclusion:
YouTube advertising is the best platform to reach your business via video ads to the right audience at the right time. Yes. Video has the high potential to grab the audience and engage them.
So, many marketers are moving towards to invest in YouTube ads. Having a good video is not enough, If it will not be seen by many of them, it’s not going to benefit your business.
Right now, You know the importance and impacts of YouTube advertising and you’re ready to start a successful YouTube campaign. Still, If you feel that you want to get some more guidance to advertise your business on YouTube. Please let us know here. We’re here to serve you.