YouTube Advertising: How to Guide.

As part of our efforts to help your business, we’d like to share valuable information with you and educate you on the tools and platforms that can help you reach your advertising goals.

YouTube advertising allows you to promote your brand to viewers with specific interests and aid engagement with an emotional approach and an appealing format, but without the appropriate techniques, it can be overwhelming to do on your own. Our simple guide covers every key aspect you should be familiarized with, to make the most out of your YouTube Advertising efforts.

Why do YouTube Advertising?

Through YouTube advertising, you can create brand awareness and that is undoubtedly vital for your business. What we love about advertising with YouTube is that it’ll connect you with the audience who matters in a visually stunning way while allowing you to easily manage and measure your efforts.

A quality that is definitely worth to highlight is that unlike other video ads media, YouTube was created to watch videos. With 4 billion videos watched on YouTube every day, you are certain that precisely that is what your potential clients are doing there. If you want to make sure your video ads are being watched, YouTube is the place to go. With proper guidance, you will skyrocket your success!

Let’s Get to it: How to Make it Happen.

Success on the world of video advertising can be hard without a thorough knowledge and prior experience. You’ve already chosen the best tool to do it with which is YouTube, but now you’re probably wondering how to attain your desired goals. Well, we’ve shared the answer here! Our practical guide is set to help you succeed and will get you started with the right foot.

Understanding How it Works.

To start advertising on YouTube you need to understand how it works. Follow up closely as we share some simple steps to begin advertising.

Creating a Campaign.

In order to show your video ads on YouTube, you first need to create a video campaign on Google Ads. This will run your video ads on YouTube and other sites through Google’s Display network.

Go ahead and sign up to Google Ads to create your campaign if you haven’t already. Adjust your account settings based on your advertising goals. Put a name on your campaign and the type of campaign you’re going for (which in this case would be video campaign), select your network (Display network), the geographic location where you want your ads to be displayed and the language (preferably the one you serve your customers in), a bidding (automated or manual) & budget to get your campaign started.

When you’re ready with your campaign, create your Ad Groups to independently target topics/products/services, this will enable you to group similar ads together (ads whose messages may be alike because they are promoting the same type of service/product). A good practice is to designate each Ad Group to the different services or products you want to advertise. Let’s take an electronics store as an example to paint a clearer picture, you may be interested in grouping together (creating Ad Groups for) computers along with other computers, although you may want to separate laptops and desktops into their own Ad Groups, similarly, you’d like to group phones, tablets, and other devices together. Hopefully, this brief example helped a bit in terms of grasping the concept of Ad Group structuring.

Going Over the Types of Ad formats.

Once you are ready to create your ads, keep in mind the type of ad you want to display as you will be charged differently for each. Between the different video ad formats available on YouTube you’ll find: Skippable in-stream ads, non-skippable in-stream ads, discovery ads, and bumper ads.

Here is a brief description of each:

Skippable in-stream ads:

These ads can show before, during, or after other videos, and viewers can skip them after 5 seconds. With these ads you get charged with CPV (cost-per-views) bidding, when a viewer watches more than 30 seconds of your video ad or interacts with your video, or with CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) bidding, paying when your ad is shown 1,000 times.

Non-skippable in-stream ads:

This type of ad guarantees your message will not get interrupted. It lasts 15 seconds or less and runs before, during or after a video. These ads use target CPM bidding.

Discovery ads:

You can promote a video in places of discovery like the YouTube mobile homepage and get charged when people click on your thumbnail. This is one of the latest options offered within the Google Ads ecosystem as it was recently announced on the latest Ads Innovation Keynote which took place on June 7th.

Bumper ads:

Similar to the non-skippable ads, it shows before, during or after a video without the option to skip it for 6 seconds or less and it charges with CPM bidding.

Outstream ads:

This video ads are exclusively for mobile devices and are very cost-efficient. You pay for outstream ads when more than half of the ad screen space is shown 2 or more seconds.

What About the Targeting Methods?

The last step is to choose the right targeting method for your video ads. Not only is the audience able to choose whether or not to interact with your brand but you as an advertiser also get to choose which is the audience with whom you’d like to interact. This can be defined according to location, demographic groups, or detailed demographics; your viewers’ interests including affinity audiences, custom affinity audience, life events, in-market audiences, and custom intent audiences or video re-marketing, based on the viewer’s past interactions with your videos.

Your ads will be shown based on the targeting methods you define: placement, topics, keywords, and devices.

Ready to Start Creating?

Now that you understand how the mechanism works you can move on to creating your YouTube ads, you can learn how to structure them in this post too. Keep in mind that using Google Ads is a little complex, especially if you’re giving your first steps in the world of online advertising. If you’re still unsure about how to properly advertise with Google Ads, we invite you to get in touch with us to learn more about it and how we can help your business grow.

Producing Quality Content.

It is true that video ads are appealing to almost any audience but this is only a reality when your video ads have quality content. The content you put out there will reflect your business. Audiovisuals only give you the base to tell your story and attract your clients but how you tell your story is what genuinely makes you engage with them. You want to connect with people whose interests correspond to that which you are offering. Adjusting your mindset to match that of your target audience is how you will build a loyal community for your business.

Producing Video Ads.

The objective of your video ad is to communicate a specific message to your target audience. Structuring your video with the correct elements while directly speaking to the interests and needs of your audience guarantees they will actually understand that message. In this easy step by step, we show the ingredients to create the content for your video ad.

Attention.

You’re trying to communicate a message but you can’t do that if you don’t have your viewers attention. Captivating your audience is the first step. You can achieve that with a shocking or surprising element, phrase or question. Always keep your target audience in mind and think of something that might interest them. Encourage them to keep watching your ad, making sure to direct it specifically to them.

Problem.

Once you have their attention, introduce them to the problem. Let’s say for example “the lack of quality video content can turn off potential clients to purchase from your brand”. When you introduce the problem, speak to the pain or desires of the audience.

Connection.

Presenting the problem your audience is facing leads you to a very important step which is building a connection with them. This is known as gaining credibility. The connection can be made by building trust or with the feel felt found technique which is very compelling. It basically consists of you telling your audience you know how they feel because you’ve felt the same way but you’ve found a solution.

Solution.

Once you’ve let your audience know you have the solution, you have to explain it to them. This is the part where you offer them your product or service as the answer to the problem. Keep in mind that you need to convince your client that your offer is what they look for.

Call to Action.

If your audience has made it this far on your ad the final step is to invite them to engage with a call to action. This can vary from learning more about your business, filling a form, buying something from your website, etc. It is important that your call to action includes a clickable link for your potential clients to take the next step.

More to Consider.

Before you get started with the formula, things such as quality content require quality resources. High-quality pictures, video, and audio state a clear distinction from average ads. Another thing to have in mind is that the tone in which you’re speaking is important. If you lack passion when speaking to your viewers, your audience will be turned down from watching. And finally, of course, make mobile-friendly video formats to connect with the audience through the most used devices.

Measuring your Effectiveness.

So you’ve got your video ads and your campaign is running. However, are you 100% sure that your ads are performing and paying off? There is only one way to know so, analyzing your campaign’s insights.

With Google Ads, you’ll be able to track your results to optimize your ads so they’re always running and engaging your customers.

YouTube Advertising can help you expand your brand awareness and bring you closer to your potential customers. Top Floor Marketing wants to open the doors for your success in the ever-growing and evolving world of online advertising. Contact us and we’ll let you know how we can make it happen!