How to market your YouTube videos 

What are YouTube Ads and what are their advantages?  

With the debut of Participatory Ads and Brand Channels in 2006, YouTube began to embark on the direction that would make it the second highest-ranked website in the world with over 2 billion monthly active users: that is, offering businesses the ability to reach an ever-growing audience.  

Over the years, advertising options and tools have multiplied, and creating ad campaigns has been increasingly easy and customizable. When you consider that 500 hours of video content are uploaded to the platform every minute and each visitor spends an average of 11 minutes and 24 seconds on YouTube every day, when each visit leads to 6.5 views on average, it’s easy to understand how YouTube ads produce countless opportunities that can consolidate your online marketing strategy. 

In fact, when users watch an ad to the end, they are 23 times more likely to take action depending on the CTA, and even when they don’t watch the ad entirely, they are still 10 times more likely to take action, compared to those who are not exposed to any YouTube ads. Not surprisingly, a survey by Wyzowl shows that as many as 88% of marketers who participated confirmed that they will use YouTube in 2022 (Source: Wyzowl). 

YouTube Ads bring a number of benefits: from targeting and personalization, to measurability and affordability, to the most important yet simplest benefit: coverage. The combination of video marketing content and the use of ads in distribution strategies is a crucial step in a modern online marketing strategy. Companies can use YouTube ads to increase brand awareness and boost sales, interact with target audiences, promote events, and share useful content related to products and services.  

Below, we’ll look at the different types of YouTube ads and the benefits they offer for companies that use them.  

Different types of YouTube Ads  

There are different types of YouTube Ads, some in video format and others in the form of still images or text boxes. What are they?  

In-feed video ads 

This type of ad is displayed directly on YouTube during a user’s search for video content. They are usually placed among the search results, on the YouTube home page, or in the right sidebar next to a related video. They can be recognized because they are marked with a yellow square. Unlike other ad types, these require the user to click to view them. Through this type of ad, you can recognize high-potential leads because if someone chooses to click on the ad specifically, it’s a signal that they are highly interested in what your company is offering.  

Skippable Ads  

This kind of ad is played before, during, or after a video that someone is watching on YouTube. When you choose this type of ad, you can decide to superimpose a call to action on it or, in some cases, make a banner visible next to the ad even after it has finished. They are usually displayed and start playing automatically when you are about to watch another video, and they can be skipped after a few seconds, usually 5. Ignored ads do not have a cost, but if they are always ignored, they might be marked as low quality and thus the price for showing them to viewers might go up. For this reason, you should always make sure that your content is engaging and high quality.  

Bumper Ads 

Bumper ads are the shortest type of ad, lasting only 6 seconds. They can have a maximum size of 1 GB and the following formats are accepted: AVI, ASF, Quicktime, MP4, or MPEG. They are not ignorable and can be played back before, during or after a YouTube video.  

The advantage of bumper ads is that they are available for both desktop and mobile devices. Their brevity makes them the perfect choice when incorporated into a larger video campaign: using longer ads to introduce your company to new viewers and using the shorter ones to reinforce your brand. In fact, according to research by Google, out of 489 bumper ad campaigns, 61% generated a significant increase in brand awareness (Source: Google).  

Non-skippable Ads 

Non-skippable ads, sometimes referred to as “pre-roll” ads, can run before, during, or after someone views a video. They can last up to 15 seconds or 20 seconds, depending on geographic location.  

How to Make YouTube Advertising  

These types of ads allow the company to tell a more complete story and to a better selected audience. Although we are talking about an ad that cannot be ignored and consequently guarantees the viewer’s full attention, the amount of time available is very limited. So, you want to create the best possible story to impress the user so they will decide to click on it.  

Here are the main steps to create a YouTube ad. 

1. Link Google Ads to your YouTube channel. 
2. In the Google Ads dashboard, click on “+” and select “New campaign”. 
3. Choose the goal of your campaign and select it from the preset options, for example: sales, leads, website traffic, product and brand consideration, brand awareness, and coverage, and then select “video”. 
4. Choose the ad format that best suits your goals  
5. Name the campaign and enter the budget. In most cases, you’ll set the budget based on cost per view (CPV). Choose the maximum amount you’d like to pay per view or choose a daily average as your limit. You can also increase or decrease your bid for ads that run on mobile devices. 
6. Enter the networks where you want your ad to appear (YouTube videos, search results, Google) 
7. Narrow your audience, choose your target audience based on: geographic location, language, demographics, interests 
8. Refine your targeting on mobile devices by specifying operating systems, devices, and operators. 
9. Use advanced settings to set start and end dates for your campaign and maximum daily impressions. 

YouTube Ads: costs and budget 

The advantage is having the right timing to carve out your right slice of audience, without initially investing too much. Getting to know your audience better and adapting your content to their tastes and interests helps you scale back your budget and invest more in content with a higher reach. 

It is crucial to remember that an essential part of YouTube ads is the cost of creating the content itself and the subsequent management of the various campaigns set up. In this regard, keep the following points in mind:  

• When measuring campaign profitability, remember to consider the cost of content. 
• Remember to combine campaign management costs and include pricing in the overall campaign budget. 
• Keyword targeting with YouTube ads can be less expensive than their counterparts in Google Search and could be an opportunity if your industry has an overall high CPV. 
• The ability to use search history targeting allows for more comprehensive retargeting options, so you can reduce the cost of conversions. 

Optimize your YouTube campaign 

Depending on your goals, use different metrics to optimize your performance.  

• View rates: view rates tell you how many users watched your ad for 30+ seconds or more in relation to how many users glimpsed the ad. A high view rate implies that your chosen targeting is working. A low view rate could mean your content is not working for your audience. 
• CTR (click through rate): measuring and optimizing click through rates are essential metrics for improving ad performance. A low CTR in your campaign implies that your audience is not interested in the content you are producing. Changing your targeting, improving your content, and testing different CTAs can improve your CTR percentages. 
• Conversion rates: conversion rate optimization comes into play when you’re actively trying to get more conversions from your campaigns. Look for the content and audience segments that perform best when you improve conversion rates. 
• YouTube Analytics: YouTube Analytics shows and collects user data from your channel, and the data provided can be useful for building current and future campaigns.  

Personalization with Babelee Video Automation Platform 

Creating video content tailored to your audience isn’t always easy, and it’s often not possible to rely on a team of in-house experts. That’s why more and more companies are turning to video creation platforms like Babelee, which can optimize the content creation process. 

Babelee is based on automation and personalization, and is able to automatically transform the data you have into engaging narratives for your audience, creating personalized and interactive videos based on the individual needs of your users.