YouTube is the second most popular website in the world after Google, attracting 2 billion visitors a month, making it a very attractive advertising destination. If you decide to use your budget for video ads, YouTube has the best reach and targeting capabilities that will be relevant to your business. In this article, we will go over YouTube advertising options via Google Ads and create our first YouTube video campaign.
YouTube ad types
If you have already run a YouTube campaign in the past, you are probably familiar with YouTube ad formats from which you can choose the relevant ads you want to display. We will now briefly review the relevant ad types.
For more extensive information on ad types and advertising on YouTube, click here.
1. Skippable video ads
Skippable in-stream video ads are ads that play before or during a video, and viewers can skip them after 5 seconds. As advertisers, we only pay when the viewer decides to stay beyond the 5 seconds. For this type of ad, we pay on a TrueView basis, where we pay for an ad that the viewer chooses to watch in full or clicks on.
2. Non-skippable video ads
Non-skippable in-stream video ads are video ads that the viewer cannot skip and must watch the entire ad before reaching the video they want to watch. Since a high percentage of YouTube viewers choose to skip ads, you can display ads without giving the user the option to skip them. These ads are effective for increasing brand awareness and are paid for on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) basis. A subcategory of these ads is Bumper Ads, which are 6-second ads that also cannot be skipped.
In-feed video ads are ads displayed alongside videos rather than within the content. Discovery ads will appear next to organic search results on YouTube, so if your video is more relevant, viewers can choose it instead of an unpromoted video. The ads contain 3 lines of text and a thumbnail; clicking on them directs the user to the desired video or channel. We pay for YouTube Discovery ads on a TrueView basis because viewers actively choose to watch them.
4. Non-video ads
Non-video ads are ads designed for Google advertisers without a budget for video production who still want to advertise on YouTube. You can show display ads (in the right sidebar) containing an image and text, or text and image ads that appear within videos relevant to your niche.
How to Run Your First Campaign on YouTube (YouTube Ads)
Now we will move on to the complete guide on paid advertising on YouTube. First, your ad will appear on YouTube, so before that, you need to upload the video you want to advertise to the platform. Make sure the video is public upon upload, or select the “Unlisted” option so that the video does not appear on your channel and is used for the campaign only. Let’s start creating the campaign:
1. Create your campaign
Log in to your Google Ads account and create a new campaign. Then choose the goal of the campaign you are creating, which is essentially your brand’s marketing objective for this campaign. The options are:
- Sales
- Leads
- Website traffic
- Product and brand consideration
- Brand awareness and reach
- App promotion
- Local store visits and promotions
- Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance
Next, choose the desired campaign type (only some options will show you the option to advertise via video – if the desired option does not show video, you can always choose a campaign without goal guidance and then direct users to the site to generate leads or sales).
Note – Display ads can also be shown on YouTube, but it’s important to remember they are not videos, just text and a thumbnail, and they will also appear across the Google Display Network.
If you want to build a campaign with a video and have selected this option, you will now want to choose the desired video campaign subtype. We will choose “Video reach campaign”:
Now we will select the how we want to reach our goal. For this option, we will leave the default – efficient reach:
2. Define your campaign parameters
First, choose your campaign’s bidding strategy (usually selecting the campaign type will automatically determine the bidding strategy – as in our case – cost per 1,000 impressions).
Second, enter the desired budget by daily cost or enter the total amount you want to spend on the campaign. I personally enter a daily budget, which allows me to build a campaign with no end date. Next, choose where your ads will appear from the following options:
- Discovery only (in YouTube search results)
- Across the entire YouTube platform (search results, channels, videos, and YouTube home page)
- Video partners on the Display Network (non-YouTube websites)
Next, choose the language and location of your target audience where you would like your ads to be displayed. You can choose to display the ads globally or target a specific country. Finally, you can add related videos to the video featured in the ad to increase user engagement (optional).
3. Choose relevant targeting
If you don’t already have audiences saved in your Google Ads account, now is the time to create some relevant ones. The better you know your audience, the better you can target your campaigns and the higher your ROI will be. These are the best targeting options in YouTube advertising:
- Demographics – Targeting audiences by age, gender, parental status, and household income. YouTube also offers more detailed data on life stages: you can target new homeowners, college students, new parents, and more.
- Interests – Targeting by topics and keywords to focus on people based on their past behavior on the YouTube platform. This targeting also includes search topics, which means you can essentially target highly relevant users who previously searched for your niche or the topic your sponsored video discusses.
- Remarketing – Retargeting audiences who have already interacted with your videos, your channel, or your website.
4. Create the ad and publish the campaign
Enter the link to the video you want to appear in your ad and build the ad with a headline and URL just like you build a standard Google Ads ad for the Search or Display Network. In the ad creation options, you will also be able to choose whether you want to create multiple ads with different videos or different headlines.
Next, you will need to choose the desired bid for 1,000 impressions (CPM), which is essentially how much you are willing to pay (upper limit) for 1,000 ad impressions. Finally, click “Create campaign” to launch your first YouTube campaign.
Recommended Tips for High-Quality YouTube Campaigns
YouTube advertising options are highly diverse and powerful, and infinite optimizations and improvements can be made to YouTube ads. However, at the end of the day, the success of your ad on Google Ads will depend on how it connects with people. This means your creative choices matter. Here are a few tips from us for creating high-quality YouTube ads:
Use a hook for your audience.
A hook is essentially a marketing trick that helps you capture the viewer’s attention at the beginning of the video. It could be a familiar face of a celebrity, something funny, or a catchy song that will help draw the viewer into the rest of your video. Even if your video has no relation to its opening (which helped hook the viewers), it can work and convey your message effectively.
Introduce your brand early
According to YouTube, ads shown to customers perform well when the video’s branding (a small logo on the side showing who created the video) appears within the first five seconds and throughout the entire ad. Some advertisers prefer to place the branding later so as not to disturb the viewer, but according to YouTube advertiser statistics, there is no issue with placing the branding logo earlier.
Connect with users through the right story and appeal to emotion
Many advertisers use compelling stories that appeal to viewers’ emotions to convey the brand’s message they are advertising. The bottom line is that anyone can “tell a story”; the question is how well you do it and how strongly you connect your brand to the story to influence the target audience.
Explain to users what to do after watching
As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, your YouTube campaign needs a goal to measure its success. If the campaign’s goals are bottom-line actions like conversions or sales, consider switching to TrueView for Action paid campaigns, which will provide your ad with additional interactive elements that viewers can click on.
Summary
In this article, we covered the relevant ad options that can be used in YouTube campaigns. Then, we went over the process of creating your first YouTube campaign and what options you have at each step of campaign creation. For your first campaign, I recommend building the most standard campaign with one ad group and one ad on a low budget just so you can gather some data and insights on users exposed to the campaign, allowing you to learn how to optimize campaigns using the collected data. Get to know the system and YouTube advertising before creating large volumes of campaigns with high budgets.
About the author
Dvir Naaman, 27, a graduate of the Digital Marketing course at HackerU College. Experienced in building WordPress sites, PPC advertising on Google, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok platforms. Specializes in SEO at Fialkov Digital. Possesses rich experience in e-commerce and dropshipping, and is the owner of Merchant Center – a website consolidating information on e-commerce platforms and advanced marketing systems to increase business conversions with an emphasis on e-commerce store sales.
