The Lowdown on YouTube Advertising

The Case for YouTube Advertising

If you’re tossing up whether YouTube advertising will be worthwhile for your business, here are some key stats to consider:

• YouTube now has over 1.5 billion monthly active users.
• These users are engaging with about an hour of video a day, which gives advertisers a great deal of opportunity in terms of the precise demographic they want to target.
• Over the last two years, the number of small and medium-sized businesses advertising on YouTube has doubled.

Who You Can Target on YouTube

With so many monthly active users, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’ll be able to advertise to your target demographic on YouTube. That being said, it’s always a good idea to look at the numbers. Here’s an age breakdown of the people on YouTube:

• 82% of teens are on YouTube (14-17)
• 72% of millennials are on YouTube (18-34)
• 58% of Gen-X are on YouTube (35-50)
• 43% of Baby Boomers are on YouTube (51-69)

Beyond age, YouTube has a powerful mechanism for showing your ads to a specific target demographic. You can choose your audience based on location, age, gender, parental status, household income and over 100 interests that can be mixed and matched.

If you haven’t done so already, we’d suggest creating some detailed marketing personas to figure out how many targeted campaigns or ad groups you’ll need to run. Here’s a short, snappy guide to determining ad groups for your YouTube campaign.

The Cost of YouTube Advertising

With YouTube ads, you only pay if someone;

• Watches your ad for 30 seconds
• Watches your entire ad
• Clicks on your ad

Data from 2017 showed that most YouTube ads cost between AUD$0.15 – AUD$0.40 per view of a 30 second ad. However, the cost of your campaign is dependent on three things;

• Video quality (higher quality ads will garner much better results)
• Effective targeting (poorly targeted ads will drive costs up due to their irrelevance)
• Your overall goal (once video quality and effective targeting are optimised, the more you’re hoping to achieve, the more your campaign will cost)

YouTube recommends businesses spend at least AUD$10 per day for the duration of a local advertising campaign, but you can set any budget that suits your business. And you can change this budget at anytime if you feel like you’re spending too much or too little.

Choosing an Ad Format

YouTube has three ad formats to choose between – TrueView in-stream ads, TrueView video discovery ads, and bumper ads. Here’s a breakdown of what they’re best for:

TrueView In-Stream Ads

This type of video can display before, during or after a YouTube video. After 5 seconds, a user can choose to skip the ad. You pay for the ad when a user watches 30 seconds, or interacts with the ad, whichever comes first. These types of ads can display on YouTube videos, videos on partner sites and throughout the Google Display Network.

TrueView Video Discovery Ads

This type of video displays as a thumbnail image with text in places of discovery throughout YouTube, such as within YouTube search results, on the home page or within the related videos that appear on the side of the page when you’re watching a video. This type of ad invites users to choose to watch it, so it needs to be interesting and helpful to your desired audience. You pay for the ad as soon as someone clicks on the thumbnail.

Bumper Ads

Bumper ads appear in the form of a six second video either before, during or after a YouTube video. Viewers do not have the option to skip the ad. This ad format is best if you have a short, memorable message to communicate to your audience. For this type of ad, you pay based on number of impressions (the number of people your ad has been displayed to, regardless of how they responded).

Tips for a Successful Campaign

• If you have an AdWords account, make sure you link your YouTube and AdWords accounts. Doing this will allow you to see more detailed analytics, and implement remarketing to people who have previously interacted with one of your ads. Read more about linking accounts and remarketing.
• Make sure your video hooks users within 5 seconds. The average attention span has dwindled to about 8 seconds, so you’ve got a short time frame to make the most of your ad spend.
• Continuing on from the point above, make sure your most important messages are communicated early in the video. YouTube reports that ad viewings drop off significantly after 45 seconds.
• Have a clear call-to-action in your ad, like making a purchase or browsing your website. Also make sure the landing page you direct customers to is relevant to the content of the ad.

Need More Help?

If you need more help setting up your YouTube advertising campaign, Google and YouTube have a series of helpful pages. To get started, Lance Montana has a team of talented videographers and digital advertising experts who can create an effective campaign for your business. Get in touch with us to get the ball rolling.