In today’s article, YouTube Ads For Dummies, I will show you how we use YouTube Ads in our own agency. And even though this post is intended for beginners, this is also helpful to people who already have the skills and knowledge on YouTube Ads and who want to know how to grow their business more.
Watch the video version of this article below:
Why market on YouTube?
What I love about YouTube Ads is the general impact it has on your business, especially if you are going after branding.
For one, a lot of viewers on YouTube say that they refer to YouTube videos to get more information, to help them get stuff done, and to help them achieve goals, among many others.
Because of this, YouTube is the number two search engine on the planet right next to Google. Also, it is owned by Google, which is great because it has an immense amount of data and information about your customers that you’re trying to attract.
If you’re after helping people by giving them knowledge, resources, and information, then YouTube is going to be a great tool for you to take advantage of.
YouTube has more than two billion active people every single month. More than a billion hours are watched every single day. There are a lot of people, a lot of watch time, and people are looking for answers.
If you can provide answers in your field of expertise, you can use YouTube in your overall marketing strategy.
Viewers are two times more likely to buy something that they saw on YouTube. YouTube is today’s television ads. YouTube gives you the ability to not just put out broad messages but to be able to home in on the customers and to measure and track people and conversion. With this opportunity, you can create your brand and may likely result in two times conversion. That’s 100% ROI.
Additionally, 70% of viewers say that YouTube makes them more aware of brands. You can just play in repetition by publishing the information in front of your customers.
YouTube Ads can help you achieve a lot of things, especially when running your ads using the features called “in-market” or “affinity” audiences. These features are so helpful that you don’t have to wait for somebody to come in and go to YouTube.
Running YouTube Ads target customers who are searching on YouTube and outside YouTube as well. You can have your ads run inside of Google. Using the display network that’s available through Google, you’re able to use your YouTube video as display ad shown to somebody who is interested in your topic.
Google has all the needed information about audiences, so when somebody is interested in something and they’re entering the shopping mode, you can take your YouTube video ads and you can run these ads on display. Additionally, your ads can also show up on related sites like Huffington Post or ESPN.
With this huge network of sites available for you to run ads on the Internet, you are maximizing your reach. But how much does it cost to run YouTube Ads?
Cost of running YouTube Ads
The cost of YouTube Ads is somewhere between 1 cent to 30 cents per view. The cost will depend on the types of ads you are running, your target market, your niche, and how well your video performs and converts.
Overall, if you do well on all the above factors, the cost of your ads will be cheaper. The cost will vary and you can get hundreds, thousands, and millions of views in the 1-3 cent range if you can get a good niche, a targeted market, and a well-performing video out there.
To start your YouTube Ads campaign and to also stop it, just head over to the Ads Manager to do this. One of the best practices in running your ads is to make sure that you are running different ad groups and you’re testing a lot.
Test different types of ads like skippable ads and non-skippable ads and make sure that all of them are running in groups so when one is not performing you can just hit the pause button inside of your dashboard.
I always look at the view rate and the percentage view. You need to get above 50 view rate and percentage view. This is how I judge my success rate and it comes easy for me to turn off my ads if they are performing. If this is the case, you can then shift the budget over to the videos that are performing.
Types of YouTube Ads
Trueview Discovery Ads– is useful in targeting people’s search intent. For example, you run a plumbing business. You can target people searching for plumbing terms especially terms on plumbing services.
These ads are shown in YouTube search results where the is the yellow or orange text that says “Ad” on it.
Trueview In-Stream Ads– these are the skippable and non-skippable ads. This is good for those who only like to target people who are interested in the ad. The skippable ads only charge you when someone watches the video for 30 seconds.
Bumper Ads– these are 6 seconds, non-skippable ads. These are useful for brand awareness, so you probably notice a lot of huge companies are using this type of ad.
Outstream Ads– are mobile-specific video ads that reach potential customers on partner sites. These ads are designed specifically for mobile and tablet, so users can tap to play your video ad or easily scroll past when reading the latest news or shopping for products.
Ad Sequence– a sequence of ads stitching together your YouTube video so that you can bring customers through a journey. YouTube will reward you when people are watching more of your videos and they stay engaged if you stitch your videos together into part 1, part 2, and part 3.
Final thoughts
Paid ads in other forms like the Facebook Ads are getting really expensive. If you are a local business who is looking for a budget-friendly way to run ads, then YouTube Ads is for you. You just need to figure out how to use YouTube Ads extensively for your benefit.