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YouTube Advertising
Are you ready to conquer YouTube with cool videos? YouTube is the largest video platform the internet has to offer. For a marketer, YouTube advertising also presents countless opportunities! By using YouTube advertising cleverly, you can bring your brand to the attention of your target audience in a visual way. How you do this is entirely up to you. On this page, you can read all about how to use YouTube advertising. Get started straight away!
The benefits of Instagram advertising
Visual forms of advertising
Targeted marketing
Easily track the results of your adverts
High level of commitment
Integration with Google Ads
Suitable for any budget
What is Instagram advertising?
We probably don’t need to tell you what YouTube is: this video platform was launched in 2005 and grew rapidly to become the largest and most widely used video platform on the internet. You’ll find a vast array of different types of videos here: you can learn about a wide range of topics, watch Casey Neistat’s cool vlogs or PewDiePie’s gaming videos, or check out music videos from the world’s biggest artists. The possibilities are endless – including for you as a marketer!
When you click on a video on YouTube, you never actually see the video straight away: you’re shown an advert first. This is what we call YouTube advertising! Any business can have its advert appear in this way. Advertising via YouTube is highly effective, as it focuses primarily on the visual aspect. A video also includes sound: an advertising opportunity you’ll find almost nowhere else. This allows you to bring your product to the attention of your target audience in a unique way.
How does YouTube advertising work?
YouTube advertising is perhaps the best-known form of online advertising: people often express their frustration with it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t work as an advertising medium. If you want to advertise on YouTube, you first need to choose from the different types of adverts. Next, you decide on your message: what exactly do you want to say?
The power of YouTube lies mainly in the fact that you’re communicating visually. It is therefore important that you focus on this: you don’t even always need to use sound, but you can still manage to turn a potential customer into a new customer in fifteen seconds. Think not only about your product, but also about your branding. A YouTube video can serve as the first introduction to your business, so it’s important that your corporate identity comes across clearly.
Different types of YouTube Ads
To optimise your adverts as much as possible, it’s good to know what types of adverts are available to you. There are various ways to advertise on YouTube. We’ll list them for you!
Bumper Ads
Also known as pre-roll adverts: these are short videos of up to six seconds that play before a video. This advert is non-skippable, meaning it is guaranteed to be watched in full.
Trueview InStream Ads
TrueView Ads are very similar to Bumper Ads, but in many cases offer the option to be skipped. In-Stream ads can be as long as you like, but if you keep them under 30 seconds, the option to skip disappears for the viewer. If it’s longer than that, the video can be skipped after five seconds.
Trueview Discovery ads
The combination of YouTube and search engine advertising is achieved through Discovery ads. These are adverts that appear in YouTube’s search results. Not only do they appear for specific search terms, but it is also possible to advertise on the homepage.
Overlay Ads
Advertise via banner adverts during videos. These overlay adverts can be clicked away, but they are a good way to catch the attention of your target audience.
YouTube Short Ads
YouTube’s latest service is YouTube Shorts. It has recently become possible to advertise here too, in much the same way as with TikTok advertising. Your advert appears between various Shorts. Whilst your advert can be skipped immediately, it is often watched because it doesn’t stand out as an advert.
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What makes a good advert?
A ‘good’ advert is a relative term: it varies from business to business. Your objectives, target audience and product range mean that no two adverts can be exactly the same across different businesses. However, this does not mean that the same requirements do not need to be taken into account. The following three aspects of your advert must be right in every case!
- Your message is clear. In many cases, your viewers only see five seconds of your advert. It is therefore hugely important that, within those five seconds, it is clear who you are and what you can offer the customer. If someone is still watching after those five seconds, you’ve piqued their interest and can go into a bit more detail about the information you want to convey.
- Your advert is eye-catching. When you want to advertise on YouTube, you benefit from a wide range of different options. Not only must your advert look good in terms of graphic design and video editing, but the sound must also be perfect. This ensures you create an advert that is taken seriously, but also one that sticks in the mind. Just seeing your colours is enough to make people remember you!
- Your CTAs are spot on. Ultimately, the success of your adverts is determined by your conversion rate. These conversions don’t happen by themselves: adding a CTA to your advert is essential. It is very important that your CTA is correct, just as the link to your website must be correct. This not only encourages viewers to take action as quickly as possible, but also ensures optimal user-friendliness.
What objectives can you achieve with YouTube advertising?
If you’re unsure about advertising on YouTube, it’s worth knowing that virtually any objective can be achieved through it. Here are a few examples!
- Increasing brand awareness
- Increase in newsletter subscriptions
- Increase in the number of conversions
- More followers on social media
- Stronger client relationships
- Increased client base
- Higher conversion rate
- Improving brand image
- Greater focus on specific products
YouTube Advertising bidding strategies
We’ve previously outlined the various bidding strategies used by YouTube; now we’ll explore these in more detail to make it easier for you to make the right choice.
CPV – Cost Per View
If your main objective is to build brand awareness, then CPV is the right bidding strategy. This strategy is not necessarily linked to a CTA: the sole aim is to ensure you are visible to your target audience. As you pay per view, YouTube pushes your adverts to your target audience. The cost per view is often low compared to other bidding strategies, but this also means there are no concrete results.
CPM – Cost Per Mille – Cost per 1,000 impressions
Another way to focus on brand awareness is through CPM. With this, you do not pay per impression, but per thousand impressions. In principle, the effect is the same as with CPC, but you pay in a slightly different way and collect results in a slightly different way too, as it takes place on a much larger scale.
CPA – Cost Per Action
If you want to direct viewers of your advert to your website in a targeted way, CPA is a smart bidding strategy. This strategy goes hand in hand with a compelling call-to-action: you only pay when this CTA button is clicked. The costs of this strategy are relatively high, but it also has a very high success rate: if someone clicks on your advert, they have already shown that they are interested.
Launch a YouTube campaign
Want to set up a YouTube Ads campaign? We’d be happy to guide you through the process, step by step.
1. Choose your goal
Whether you want to focus on increasing sales, improving brand awareness, getting people to sign up for your newsletter, or something else, it’s important to be clear from the start of your campaign about what you’re aiming to achieve. With YouTube Ads, you therefore start by choosing an objective, as this will guide you through the rest of the campaign setup. YouTube has pre-set details for each objective, which will be very useful to you.
2. What is your budget?
Now that you know what you’re advertising, it’s time to focus on the business side of your advert. You’ve probably already decided how much of your budget to set aside for your campaign; now it’s time to flesh out the strategy behind it. YouTube offers various bidding strategies: you can pay per view (CPV), per thousand views (CPM) or per action (CPA). Next, you enter your budget and the duration of your campaign, so that YouTube knows the extent to which your advert can be displayed.
3. Set your sights
The key to a good advert is effective targeting. YouTube knows this all too well, so before you place an advert, they ask you to enter your target audience’s details. First, you select your network; then you choose the correct language and further demographic details, and exclude certain target groups. Finally, you can even target by device. Do you want your advert to be viewed on a mobile phone or on a desktop computer?
4. Organise your campaigns with ad groups
In principle, you now have everything your advert needs to meet the requirements, but with YouTube Advertising, you’re also thinking ahead to the future. This is how you turn your campaign into an ad group. If you want to advertise a similar product again in the future, this group will already be ready for you and you won’t have to go through the process described above all over again.
5. Make your adverts relevant
Only now do you focus on the actual content of your advert. Perhaps you already have a video ready; if so, this is the moment to give it a YouTube makeover. This is how you add compelling CTAs or include a voice-over that provides just that little bit of extra information. Of course, you’ll do everything in line with your branding, but you should also keep your target audience’s preferences in mind at all times. Once you’re ready, you can go ahead and place your advert!
6. Optimisation
Your advert is online, so we’re done! A logical thought, but not the attitude that will lead to success. Now that your advert is online, it’s time to monitor it. You track your successes, but you also respond to disappointing results. You tweak your campaigns so that they still deliver the results you want them to.
Creating YouTube adverts
Creating YouTube adverts can come with a hefty price tag. Video production companies often charge a fortune for high-quality content for YouTube. To make creating YouTube adverts easier for all businesses – large or small – you can turn to the Ads Creative Studio.
The Ads Creative Studio is owned by Google and has been designed in such a way that any ads marketer can use it to create simple yet attractive display or video adverts. The great thing about the Ads Creative Studio is that companies can share their images with one another, meaning the database is constantly growing. What makes this tool particularly appealing is the fact that, from 2023, YouTube will allow advertising with 30-second adverts that cannot be skipped. This further underlines the value of YouTube adverts.
In addition, Google also provides a Google Ads video builder. Using around twenty templates, you can create simple videos that you can fully customise to match your own corporate identity. This benefits you not only within YouTube advertising but also within your Performance Max campaigns.
Tips for YouTube Advertising
You now know better than anyone how to use YouTube advertising to achieve a successful end result. As a final helping hand, we’d like to share these tips with you!
Combine different services
YouTube in itself is a brilliant channel, but if you really want to engage with your customers effectively, we recommend not limiting yourself to YouTube alone. By using these different channels, you can cross-promote them, enabling you to build a strong following across various media. Your YouTube advert links to your website, where you can promote your social media channels, which in turn link back to your YouTube channel.
Don’t limit yourself to just adverts
As a business, you have a great deal to share. Given that you’re already using YouTube for advertising, the step towards creating your own videos isn’t that big. Think carefully about what your business can add to the customer experience and make sure you have a good camera – you’re ready to get started!
Keep track of data
Your first adverts may not be an immediate success, but that doesn’t mean they’re useless. In fact, by keeping the data you collect from these campaigns, you’ll already have a good idea of what isn’t working. For subsequent campaigns, you can adopt a different approach, repeating the process until you’ve found the winning formula.
Outsource it
On this page, you’ve learnt a great deal about YouTube advertising, but trying it out for yourself is still a bit of a gamble. It’s therefore not a bad idea to team up with an online marketing agency, such as Traffic Today. Our social adverts marketers know everything there is to know about YouTube as an advertising channel and are keen to put this to work for you. So success is within your grasp!
View the ‘ Advertising ’ video on YouTube
As YouTube is part of Google, it is possible to apply various techniques familiar from this search engine here too. One service that may sound familiar is Display Advertising: advertising via banner adverts. This is also possible on YouTube. Your banners appear alongside a search result or video, but can also pop up during a video. You can choose to use text only, but it’s also possible to add a visual element. This allows you to reach your target audience subconsciously! Unfortunately, it is possible to click the advert away, but this also means that an action must be taken, so your advert will still make an impression if you design it cleverly.
YouTube vs other social media
As well as YouTube, there are also a host of other media you can use in the field of social media marketing. Whilst YouTube focuses primarily on video, the following media allow you to attract your target audience’s attention in a different way:
- Instagram Advertising: grab people’s attention with photos!
- LinkedIn Advertising: reach a business audience with text, photos and video
- Facebook Advertising: Facebook’s target audience is, on average, slightly older. You can reach them with a combination of text and images.
- Pinterest Advertising: do you have a creative product, or something that inspires others? Then Pinterest is the channel for you!
Conquer YouTube with Traffic Today
Traffic Today is your go-to marketing agency when it comes to YouTube advertising! Not only do we have extensive knowledge and experience with this service, but we also ensure that we work in line with your business philosophy at all times. We achieve this through close collaboration, which begins the moment we sit down for a cup of coffee and get to know one another. From there, we’ll look at your objectives: which services work best and how do we implement them? Through monthly check-ins, we’ll keep you up to date with all developments, so you always know what’s going on and can provide feedback wherever you see fit. Excited about this approach? Great! Get in touch, and we’ll create some brilliant YouTube adverts for your business.
Frequently asked questions about YouTube advertising
Why Advertise on YouTube?
There are countless reasons why YouTube advertising is a tactical move for your business. Not only does it emphasise a visual message, but it is also a smart way to target your audience effectively. As YouTube is part of Google, you’ll gather a wealth of valuable insights that you can utilise across multiple areas. Furthermore, YouTube is quite simply a massive platform: the chances of your target audience not using it are very slim.
How much does it cost to advertise on YouTube?
The cost of advertising on YouTube varies from person to person. It simply depends on your bidding strategy and how much of your budget you’re willing to allocate overall. Of course, the more you invest in YouTube, the better the results, but even with a small budget, there’s already a great deal you can achieve. If you create compelling adverts that clearly convey your message, you’re guaranteed to succeed with YouTube advertising, whatever your budget.
Can anyone advertise on YouTube?
In principle, any business can advertise on YouTube, though it is wise to first assess the extent to which your target audience is present there. YouTube offers a wide range of targeting options, making it easy to reach your specific target audience. Given that almost everyone uses YouTube, it is therefore also possible to advertise on YouTube.
Who sees my YouTube adverts?
You’re in charge of your own adverts. Before you launch your campaign online, you enter the precise details of who should see your adverts. This means you know exactly who will see your adverts, making it possible to estimate their impact. You can target based on various demographic details, as well as online behaviour and the device being used. In addition, you can also exclude certain target groups, allowing you to be extremely precise in your approach.
Want to get the most out of YouTube?
Are you curious about the possibilities of YouTube Advertising? Please feel free to contact us for a no-obligation chat. By phone, online or in person? Just let us know what suits you best.
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