How do you start with YouTube ads?

Because 76% of people say they automatically skip ads, some advertisers choose to run pre-roll or mid-roll ads that have no “skip button” at all. When do you choose this ad type? When you want to increase brand awareness and are sure your ad is strong enough to hold the audience's attention for the full 15 seconds. With non-skippable ads, advertisers pay per impression, at CPM (cost per 1,000 views).

Bumper ads are 6 seconds long. With this ad type you pay for impressions. Bumper ads appear as pre-, mid- or post-roll, and they are generally best used for reach campaigns.

While in-stream ads work roughly like a traditional TV commercial, discovery ads are more similar to the ads you see on Google's search results page. For many users, YouTube is indeed a search engine. This is something many people don't realise because they don't use YouTube themselves in that way. Discovery ads are shown alongside organic search results. So if your video looks more relevant than the organic results, people may choose to watch it. Discovery ads contain three lines of text together with a thumbnail. If interested people click on the ad, they are sent to your video page or YouTube channel.

These are image or text ads that can be shown as an overlay in the bottom 20% of the video. These ads are displayed in the form of:

• Display ads: These ads are shown in the right-hand sidebar and contain an image and text, alongside a CTA linking to your website.
• In-video overlay ads: These ads are shown floating on top of video content.

First, your video ad must be available on YouTube, so start by uploading the video file to your YouTube channel. Make sure the video is public, or, if you don't want it to show up on your channel, you can hide the video.

Create a campaign

Log in to your Google Ads account and select “new campaign”. Choose your campaign goal, based on your company's marketing objectives. You can choose from several options:

• Sales
• Leads
• Website traffic
• Product and brand consideration
• Brand awareness and reach

Next, select the campaign type. These include all forms of Google ads (including search results, text, shopping), so make sure you select Video or, in some cases, Discovery campaigns to show your video to the audience on YouTube. Display ads can also be shown on YouTube, but remember that they are not videos, it is just text and a thumbnail, and they are also shown on Google's Display Network.

Since you will most likely be working with video, you will want to select your video campaign subtype. The types of video campaigns are described in detail at the start of this blog:

• Skippable in-stream ads
• Non-skippable in-stream ads (including bumper ads)
• Video discovery ads (formerly known as in-display ads)
• Non-video ads (overlays and banners)

Don't forget to give your campaign a name that lets you easily find, manage and optimise it in the future.

Define the campaign parameters

Select a bidding strategy (for the most part your campaign type will determine this: do you want conversions, clicks or impressions). Enter the budget per day or as the total amount you are willing to spend on the campaign.

Then select where the ads will be shown:

• Discovery only (YouTube search results);
• All of YouTube (search results, but also channel pages, videos and the YouTube homepage)
• YouTube Display Network (non-YouTube affiliate websites, etc.)

 Then select the language and location of your potential customers. You can choose to show ads worldwide or target only a specific country or region.

Target the audience

If you haven't created a target audience yet, take the time to define one. The more you know about your target audience, the better you can target them, and the higher your ROI (return on investment).

• Demographics: This includes age, gender, parental status and household income. But YouTube also offers more detailed data on life stages: you can, for example, target new homeowners, university students or parents.
• Interests: Use topics and keywords to target people based on their interests. In this way, YouTube helps you find people at crucial moments, such as when they are researching their next electronics purchase or trying to learn how to build a website.
• Remarketing: Target audiences that have already interacted with your other videos, your website or your app.

Launch the campaign

Enter the link to your ad and click the “create campaign” button to start your campaign. For more detailed information, YouTube has its own guidelines for creating ads here.

Curious whether YouTube ads could be relevant for your marketing strategy? BE Digital regularly helps clients with setting up and optimising YouTube ads. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us!