YouTube Advertising

Perusal Tech Pvt Ltd

24 Jun, 2021

YouTube is a video platform, but, if it was a search engine, it had been the 2nd largest search engine in the world, only behind its Parent company Google. There are 1.9 billion and growing logged in visitors on a monthly basis. So, you have a lot of people that go to YouTube and watch videos on a daily basis.

It has local versions in more than 91 countries. So, if you are an advertiser, focusing on a specific market or you are in a different market with the different language, you have 91 different options to hone in on. Most YouTube users are on mobile, thus mobile advertisements receive viewers attention 83% of the time. Video is an engaging way to communicate and help in expanding your digital reach. It's a lot better than traditional text due to the engagement factor.

The other thing about YouTube is, it helps in finding a relevant audience for your ads using advanced targeting. It also allows us some additional features, where we can customise our ads. We can enable running cost effective campaigns too, alike Google Ads.

WHY IS ADVERTISING ON YOUTUBE A GOOD IDEA?

(1) HUGE AUDIENCE NETWORK: Online users can be classified into 2 basic categories:

(a) Information seekers

(b) Social interaction seekers

YouTube has the unique ability to entertain both it's kind. It's access and usage is much simpler, resulting in increased viewership, which in turn results in opportunities for businesses to reach their prospects. If you are trying to communicate a huge audience effectively and efficiently, YouTube is the platform for you. Video Ads are the another special feature of the platform to gain a huge audience network. Businesses can run them on videos on YouTube to further extend their reach.

(2) EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT: Another reason to love YouTube is for its efficiency, i.e how cheap it is to get started. It only requires an advertising budget and a video with some ads costing, at its most basic. There is no minimum expense, you can actually select cost as little or as much as you want to.

YouTube offers a huge number of advertising options with different cost rates, functionalities, business goals, etc. With such a wide range of options, it’s up to you to determine your ideal budget and take advantage of the ROI it can create.

(3) ADVANCED TARGETING: With the presence of YouTube Ads, there are several targeting options available to choose from and hence creating a desired advanced audience is now possible. The targeting options include: Demographics, Keywords, Placements, In-Market/Affinity/Intent Audiences, Topics, Devices, etc.

The above targeting options are predefined, which works even better when layered with audiences that can be customised manually. These types of audiences include: Custom Audiences, Remarketing Audiences and Similar Audiences.

(4) MULTIPLE AD OPTIONS: With a wide base of Video Ads it has to offer, YouTube is winning the advertising race. Depending on what goal you want to achieve with your ads, there are different types of ad formats available on YouTube.

The different kind of ads available on youtube include: TrueView In-Stream Ads, TrueView Video Discovery Ads, Pre-roll Ads, Bumper Ads, Outstream Ads, etc.

(5) YOUTUBE ADVERTISING METRICS: These are very easy to measure. If you are not measuring your success of your marketing campaign, then, you are surely wasting your time running it. Without knowing how your campaign is performing, you won’t have insight into how you could improve.

To check your Analytics, click on the 'Analytics' tab in your YouTube account. This way you will be able to learn more about the whole performance of your channel.

TYPES OF YOUTUBE ADS:

(A) BASED ON BUILDING BRAND AWARENESS AND AD RECALLS: If you are in the business of promoting your product, brand or service, then, these are the type of ads you want to run on YouTube. It's really going to get your ad out there in front of millions of people with the goal of potentially attracting new customers and ensuring your brand is on top of their mind. So, brand awareness is always introducing the brand, getting people familiar with the brand and getting them to your website, so that you can introduce them to your brand and service and product efficiently.

(1) TRUEVIEW FOR REACH: TrueView means the ads are going to appear in front of a video. These ads are Skippable, have Open Video Length and their Bidding is based on Cost Per Thousand Impressions. Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) means that you are paying YouTube for every 1000 people that view your ad.

(2) BUMPER ADS: They are Non-Skippable Ads, with which you can share your brands message in 6 seconds to drive reach and impact. The whole point of this bumper ads is really you have to get your message out there quickly because the video is going to start and you want to really make sure that your message is being delivered.

(3) RESERVATION ADS: Here, we are talking about reservation of 15 to 20 seconds. So, this particular ads can spend up to 20 seconds to increase reach and make a lasting impression. These are also Non-Skippable and can be up to 20 seconds. Embedding is based on a fixed CPM. By fixed CPM, we mean, if you are bidding on a regular CPM model, meaning that you are paying Google for every 1000 Impressions, that number could be variable what you pay Google, in which case the fixed CPM is fixed at a certain rate.

(4) OUTSTREAM VIDEO AD: These ads are going to reach users wherever they are watching, regardless of the size or application. These ads are also Non-Skippable and they can be 15 to 20 seconds long and their Bidding is based on Viewable Cost Per 1000 Impressions. By Viewable Cost, we mean, per 1000 Impressions and by Viewable Cost Per Thousand Impressions, we mean, if you are paying for ad, Impressions measured as viewable. You can use this model and basically what that means that an ad is counted as viewable when 50% of your ad shows on screen for one second longer or plays continuously for 2 seconds or longer.

The key number here with viewable CPM is 2 seconds or longer. That's the difference between regular 1000 Impressions CPM and Viewable 1000 Impressions VCPM.

(5) MASTHEAD ADS: They only Run for 24 hours and on top of YouTube's homepage. They are highly visible and can run on multiple devices, desktop app, mobile, etc. These ads are Non-Skippable. They have an Open Length and their Bidding is based on Fixed Price Per Day. YouTube is now offering the option to buy masthead ads on a Cost Per 1000 Impression basis.

(B) BASED ON CONSIDERATION AND INTEREST: The whole idea behind Growth Consideration and Interest is to get ads in front of people who could be potential customers, but, at the same time we want to influence them.

We want to influence them at a point in time, when we think they are going to be most receptive to our message. That means getting our add out in front of the right audience, at the right time because the message we put out there is going to be centre around getting them to not only take notice of our brand but potentially take action.

(1) TRUEVIEW ADS: These are one of the most popular ways of advertising on YouTube. If you are interested in getting growth, leads, conversions, you might want to think about some TrueView ads. Because basically these ads can run before, during or after videos on YouTube. You can run them on video partner sites and applications, if you are interested in driving not just brand awareness but, clicks to your side.

These ads are Skippable. They have an Open Video Length and their Bidding is based on Cost Per View, i.e., you are paying when somebody view your ad. Cost per view is the default way to set the amount you will pay for a TrueView Video Ad. There's a threshold here, a view is counted on YouTube, when somebody watches at least 30 seconds of your video ad. If it's shorter than 30 seconds then that's still going to be considered as a view.

(2) TRUEVIEW DISCOVERY: It is placed in YouTube search results next to related videos on the YouTube homepage. This way you are getting your ad discovered more or less throughout YouTube.

(C) BASED ON DRIVING ACTION: The whole point of driving action is getting that potential customer to actually take action on the ad that they see. So, in the case of videos, we are going to have some stronger Call-To-Action to get these folks over to the website to purchase or download.

So, if your business model is selling a product, then the whole point of driving action on your ad is getting them to buy your product. Showing the whole point of driving action is, making it easier for potential customers to take meaningful measurable action.

(1) TRUEVIEW FOR ACTION: Again these ads discovery can show up on search result on YouTube's homepage. You have your traditional In-Stream TrueView, where they show up before, during or after. These TrueView for Action ads are Video Ads to drive any action that's important to your business.

Again it goes back to that marketing strategy. The ads we looked at on early on were about Impressions. A lot of cost models for a lot of the ad types were Cost Per Thousand Impression and notice now that it's Cost Purview for TrueView Ads. You want to be on a different model when your marketing strategy is more aligned with getting people to take action.

These ads are intended to get users to interact with a clickable button that leads to your site. So that's the whole idea behind TrueView for Action type ads. These are Skippable, have an Open Video Length and their Bidding is based on Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). CPA is in this case, since we're trying to drive action, we are going to pay when somebody actually take that action.

(2) UNIVERSAL AD CAMPAIGN: This is all about driving action as well. This ad promote your app on YouTube, where your ads are more likely to be clicked and your app downloaded, to again targeting audience.

These ads are Skippable, have an Open Video Length meaning you can make them as long as you want and again their Bidding is Cost For Acquisition. There is another cost model here, Cost For Install i.e. you only pay when that person view that ad.

IMPORTANT METRICS FOR YOUTUBE:

YOUTUBE CHANNEL METRICS:

(1) SUBSCRIBERS: It is the total number of people who have subscribed to your YouTube channel.

(2) REALTIME VIEWS: It is the number of views your last published videos have received in the past 48 hours.

(3) TOP VIDEOS: It is the snapshot of your top performing videos based on views, over a given period.

(4) CHANNEL VIEWS: It is the number of views your channel gathered over a given time period.

(5) CHANNEL WATCH-TIME: It is the total amount of time, in hours, people have spent watching videos on your channel over a given period.

AUDIENCE METRICS:

(1) UNIQUE VIEWERS: It is an estimate of the total number of people who watched your videos over a given period.

(2) AVERAGE VIEWS PER VIEWERS: It is an average of the number of times a viewer watched videos on your channel.

(3) WHEN YOUR VIEWERS ARE ON YOUTUBE: There is a bar chart that displays the days and times most of your viewers are on the platform.

(4) AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS: It is the age, gender, and location of your audience on YouTube.

YOUTUBE DISCOVERY METRICS:

(1) IMPRESSIONS AND CTR: Impressions click-through rate measures the percentage of people who clicked on the thumbnail to view your video.

(2) TRAFFIC SOURCES: YouTube traffic sources include search, browse features, playlists, and suggested videos—all of which are powered to varying degrees by the YouTube algorithm.

(3) TOP YOUTUBE SEARCH TERMS: Under Traffic Source: YouTube Search, you can see the top search terms that led people to your videos.

YOUTUBE VIDEO METRICS:

(1) VIEWS: It is the number of times people watched or engaged with your Video Ad, including repeat views from the same person.

(2) VIDEO SUBSCRIBERS: It is the number of people who subscribed after watching your video.

(3) WATCH TIME: The cumulative amount of time people have spent watching your video (or videos).

(4) AUDIENCE RETENTION: The audience retention report provides you with an average view duration.

YOUTUBE ENGAGEMENT METRICS:

(1) LIKES AND DISLIKES: While often considered vanity metrics, likes and dislikes can give you a sense of what people thought about your video.

(2) CARD AND END SCREEN REPORTS: If you’ve added interactive content to your videos, these reports will give you an idea of the elements that work best.

(3) TOP PLAYLISTS: See what playlists are in high rotation. Track your most popular playlists, total views, average view duration, and watch time.