Youtube Ads – Types and how to implement a successful strategy

Ready to start or improve your YouTube Ads strategy? YouTube is the second social network with more active users worldwide, having more than 2.3 billion unique users.

This is just one of the reasons why YouTube Ads is one of the most powerful tactics in terms of reach, traffic acquisition, sales or engagement, whatever business you are running.

Together with the fact that this platform visualizes more than 90 thousand videos per second, you have enough reasons to learn more about this advertising strategy.

What are YouTube Ads?

First things first. YouTube Ads is the advertising and video marketing system that Google offers to include ads before, during, or after the videos people watch on YouTube.

This platform, in combination with other campaign types available in Google Ads, allow you to perform a more solid and global digital advertising strategy.

Remember there are some free products,  that can help you create and optimize your campaigns easily and fast so you save time and money.

However, let’s discover how YouTube Ads work and how they can help you boost your performance.

YouTube Ads facts

• 81% of users acquire a product or service after watching a branded video. Also, 75% of advertisers say that this format helped increase their sales.
• Every year, the number of advertisers in this format increases by 40%.
• The average user watches more than one hour and a half of content per day, and 15% of them do it for more than 3h.
• 50% of users prefer to consume content in audiovisual format instead of other formats.
• According to Hubspot, 82% of the Internet global traffic will be of video content by 2021.

Being more specific, and after checking this data…

Why advertise your business through YouTube Ads?

Have a better positioning in Google.

Supporting your video content with YouTube Ads helps you generate more traffic for them and, as a result, appear among the first Google results. This also allows you to reach more people and have better CTR’s.

 

 

To reach a good video positioning on the first page, you’ll have to include a few different aspects:

• Link them in webpages with a good authority domain. 
• Do link building with them.
• Geolocate videos to improve positioning for your target audience.
• Upload videos frequently: the more videos with more views you have, the easier it will be to position them.
• Optimize your title and description for your main keywords. How to do a keyword research?
• Publish your videos hidden, and when it has a significant number of views, make it public.Boost your scope

As we saw in the data, this is, after Google, the second most used search engine worldwide. Is because of this that, as it’s in the same ecosystem like Google, YouTube Ads have a huge scope and are higher than the rest.

Reach your target audience wherever it is

It allows you to advertise your video content on any device, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, computers, and smart TVs, among others.

Video content has higher retention and engagement rates

Also, they achieve a higher user stimulation, and so a higher interaction and engagement level. 

This way, this type of ad keeps the user interested and retains them for more time, as they connect with their emotions, leading to better results.

You only pay when the user watches the ad

YouTube Ads allow you to pay when someone sees the ads for at least 30 seconds or when they click on them. This way you’ll only pay when the user effectively sees the ad.

Reach a more qualified public

Segment your advertising campaigns according to more than ten different targeting methods depending on your needs:

• Demographic groups like age, sex, parental status, or income.
• Demographic detailed data like university studies, householders, or new parents.
• Specific interests.
• Remarketing over users that have already interacted with your videos.
• Remarketing over users that have already interacted with your Web or App.
• Segmentations with your own online and offline data from your clients.
• Similar audiences based on your own data lists.
• Ad targeting through specific channels, applications or webpages. 
• Ad targeting for specific topics in YouTube and Google Display.
• Ads by keywords.
• Advertising campaigns by device.

This way you’ll be able to configure your campaigns so they appear to very specific audiences that are really interested in your business. This will allow you to decrease your advertising spend while increasing your ROI.

Monitor your results in real-time

With YouTube Analytics you’ll be able to see the impact that your ads have in this format in your users and make decisions having into account which campaigns perform better. 

This platform also offers you ad metrics with measurable data, like:

• The users that visit your YouTube channel.
• Demographic information of those users.
• Engagement level.
• Average display duration of your ads.
• Which videos generate a higher response and interactions.
• Amount of money invested detailed by segment.

Also, it gives you tips so you know how to improve your video campaign performance.

Now that you know the advantages of advertising through YouTube Ads, let’s discover and compare the different types of YouTube Ads so you can determine which ones interest you the most.

Which are the different types of YouTube Ads?

Skippable in-stream ads

• This type of YouTube ad displays before, during, or after other YouTube videos.
• The user can skip them after 5 seconds.
• They are charged by CPV (cost per view) when the user sees more than 30 seconds of your ad or when they interact with it (clicks it).
• Take into account that with the bidding strategies “target CPM”, “target CPA”, or “maximize conversions”, you’ll pay per impression and not per view.
• 8/10 viewers prefer this type of ad as they can have higher control over them. Also, 75% of them skip them by default, so you assure that you will only pay for people really interested in what you offer.

 

Non-skippable in-stream ads

• This type of YouTube Ads also appears before, during, or after other videos on YouTube but cannot be skipped anyhow. This way you make sure the users watch it complete.
• They have a maximum length of 15 seconds.
• You pay per impression, using the target CPM bidding strategy. 
• This type of strategy is the most adequate for brand awareness. 
• For this type of ads is very important to define adequately the targeting so you don’t waste your budget.

 

Discovery ads

• They are displayed in the search results on YouTube, with other related videos, and on the main page of the platform for mobile devices.
• Users should click to watch the video, so you’ll be charged per click (PPC).
• The size of this ad will vary depending on where it appears.

 

Bumper ads

• They can appear before, during, or after other videos and have a maximum duration of 6 seconds.
• They can be omitted. 
• They charge you by impressions (CPM).
• They allow you to reach wider audiences with short messages, and so they are more effective for brand awareness purposes.
• They are used to complement other YouTube ad types.

 

 

Masthead ads

• They display automatically without sounds for a maximum of 30 seconds until they click to activate the sound.
• They display both on computers, mobile, and TVs.
• They are available if reserved, so you are charged by day (CPD) or by every thousand impressions (CPM).
• They are used to reach a high volume of users in a short amount of time, this is why they are commonly used to increase the notoriety of new products or services.

 

 

Out-stream ads

• This type of ad also starts displaying with the sound deactivated, so users can activate it voluntarily.
• They are only made for mobile phones and Google video partners, so this video ad is not displayed on YouTube.
• They charge per every thousand impressions (vCPM) when your video displays for two or more seconds.
• They are used mostly for widening the reach of your ads specifically on mobile devices.

 

Conclusion 

If you haven’t explored the most known video platform worldwide and the platform with the second most users, now is the time!

Even if it’s a matter of attracting traffic, boosting your reach, your sales, positioning your brand, or creating engagement, this could be the final tool to make it happen.

• Try here our Google Ads Creator!