You Tube
Video Kill The Radio Star
With all that time invested, we can’t stop at just embedding the video on a homepage or sharing it on social media and hoping someone watches.
While great content is bound to be found, it’s also important to be proactive about gaining the attention of and educating prospects and those unfamiliar with your brand. Running a series of YouTube ads is one way to make sure more of your target audience finds the video content you’ve produced.
And with new formats and tracking capabilities, you can also use this information to report on its ROI.
Show Don't Tell
Marketers can now target ads at people who recently searched for a certain product or service to target the video ads they’ll be served on the platform. If the content of a video ad is closely related to a search the viewer has been researching, they might be more likely to watch the entire ad or click through the ad to the website.
Keywords are relatively less expensive to target on YouTube than in traditional Google Search. When YouTube targeting includes search history, it may be a more cost-effective way to target your audience with a more engaging form of content — video.
1 True-View Ads
TrueView ads are the standard video ad type on YouTube. Advertisers only pay for TrueView ads when viewers watch or interact with their ad (for example, by clicking on a call-to-action), and videos can be easily customized to share a variety of content.
Advertisers only pay when a user watches the ad for at least 30 seconds or until the end of the video or if the viewer takes an action, such as clicking on a call-to-action. YouTube requires that skippable TrueView ads be between 12 seconds and 6 minutes in length, and that non-skippable TrueView ads be 15-20 seconds in length.
There are two types of TrueView ads with which you can optimize your YouTube channel:
Video Discovery Ads
Video discovery YouTube ads show up on the YouTube homepage, search results pages, and as related videos on YouTube video watch pages.
These ads appeared after performing a YouTube search: This display ad appears as a related video on the right-hand video sidebar:
In-Stream Ads
TrueView in-stream ads play before someone watches the video they’ve selected on YouTube. Viewers sometimes have the option to skip the ad after watching it for five seconds. You can also make them play anywhere in the Google Display Network (GDN) — or sites that purchased Google video ad space.
In-stream ads let marketers customize video ads with different CTAs and overlay text, as highlighted in the skippable in-stream ad example below from Grammarly.
What TrueView Videos Can Include
TrueView video campaigns can include people, dialogue, and music that was retrieved with permission — or is considered royalty-free. However, it’s best not to run a standard promotional commercial. Because these videos can be skipped, you need to give your audience a reason to keep watching, and product plugs historically don’t get the views you might expect.
Instead, tell a story with the time you have in this video. People love seeing case studies of those who faced a struggle that they can empathize with. It’s a source of entertainment that makes your brand memorable and less tempting to skip.
With TrueView ads, advertisers can gain a ton of information about the performance of their ads for optimization and testing purposes.
Using AdWords, YouTube account managers can collect data on an ad’s completed views, partial views, if the video drives channel subscriptions, clickthrough rates on CTAs, views sourced from a user sharing the content, and views on the brand’s other content that can be attributed to a person initially viewing a video ad.
These actions help advertisers better understand the full value of their video ad spend and where to allocate budget to increase results.
2 Pre-roll Ads
Some in-stream ads are non-skippable and can play before, mid-roll, or after the main video. These are called Pre-roll ads, and they can be 15 to 20 seconds in duration.
Here’s an example of a non-skippable video ad before the main content on YouTube:
There are also non-skippable, mid-roll video ads, which appear midway through a YouTube video that’s 10 minutes or longer in length.
What Pre-roll Videos Can Include
Pre-roll ads give you just as much freedom as True-View ads in their allotted content. You can include people, dialogue, audio, and more elements that you find best represent your brand in 15 to 20 seconds.
Because pre-roll ads can’t be skipped, these videos are best created with a call-to-action (CTA) so you can optimize the attention you do have from the viewer. In other words, encourage viewers to click on your ad and receive something in return. Perhaps you’ve released a new product or promoting a major event this season and are looking for signups — use this pre-roll ad to get those clicks.
Keep in mind YouTube sells Pre-roll video space on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis. Make the click worth it.
3 Bumpers
Bumpers are the third and shortest type of YouTube video ad available to you. At just six seconds per bumper, these ad spots play before a viewer’s chosen video.
Bumper video ads obviously can’t tell a good-enough story in just six seconds, but they make terrific complements to larger video campaigns on a new product launch or event. Just be sure to use this six seconds wisely, and include only the components of your brand you want your audience to remember.