As the second largest search engine, there are many reasons why YouTube should form part of your online marketing strategy. Video marketing is fast becoming a very popular – and highly effective – advertising medium, which is why more and more marketers are using YouTube as an advertising platform.
YouTube is much more than just a platform where you can enjoy interesting videos. It has now become one of the most powerful advertising platforms online, with video marketing continuing to rise in popularity. YouTube has more than one billion unique views each month, with more than 1.2 billion videos being watched every day – just by people in the US alone. This makes it a very powerful advertising platform, and one that you should definitely consider.
There are many different ways to advertise on YouTube, these include:
- In-stream. These refer to ads that are displayed before, or during another video from a YouTube partner. The user can skip these ads after a few seconds, but you’ll only be charged if they watch for more than 30 seconds at a time.
- In-slate. These ads are shown at the beginning of content that is 10 minutes or longer. Users can choose to skip the ad and you’ll only be charged if they watched it.
- In-display. This refers to other ads that are not necessarily displayed on the YouTube website. This can be ads displayed alongside video content that is embedded on another site, on websites that form part of the Google Display Network.
Regardless of the type of ad you choose to run, you should always continue to improve, test and optimise your campaigns. You’ll quickly learn what works and what doesn’t, and who responds to specific ads. That will help you to target a specific demographic more effectively and reap the benefits of video marketing.
The data that will be available in your reports include the number of impressions for in-stream ads, the number of times your ad was displayed, what percentage of a video that users watched, as well as the number of times that the videos were actually watched. If you’re already familiar with AdWords, this will be easy for you to manage and it’s the perfect way to complement existing advertising campaigns.
Measuring Your Results
Since TrueView was launched by AdWords, YouTube advertising has become much more measureable and cost effective. TrueView will make sure that you only pay when a visitor clicks on your ad, or when they’ve watched a video for a specific amount of time, also called cost per view. YouTube ads are also generally more affordable than AdWords ads.
You can target your ads according to users within a specific demographic, or according to their interests. This makes it possible for you to tweak your ads and achieve better results. Managed Placements is another way for you to place your ads on specific YouTube pages, and this is a great option if you know exactly what type of user will find your ad interesting. But keep in mind that if it’s a very popular page with a lot of views, it may become more expensive to place your ads on it.
10 Reasons why YouTube you should consider YouTube ads
Here are 10 reasons why you should consider YouTube as a marketing platform for your brand:
- Offers targeted advertising
- Affordable marketing platform
- It’s a platform that boasts with a rapidly growing audience
- Highly measurable results
- You can customise your content
- Multiple ad display options
- Your ads will show on multiple devices
- Can supplement your existing PPC campaigns
- Unsaturated market
- Video is much easier to consume than text
Before you plan your YouTube advertising campaign, make a handy checklist to ensure that you plan effectively and that you’ll get the most out of your campaigns. Your video should provide a clear explanation of your services or products and a call to action. Lastly, it’s extremely important that you keep your target audience in mind throughout the entire process of the campaign.
With the above in mind, YouTube marketing should definitely be considered as a top priority and tool in your online marketing arsenal. With more than 6 billion hours of video watched every month, it’s no wonder that YouTube is proving to be a highly successful and cost effective marketing tool.
