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YouTube Advertising

Is it time to grow your business with video marketing? Video continues to drive traffic, and YouTube remains a popular platform with its mecca of content. This makes it an effective advertising channel to implement in your content strategy.

Why use Youtube?

YouTube is the world’s most popular video sharing platform and is the second most popular search engine after Google. Almost 700,000 hours of video are streamed every minute on YouTube, 54% more than is streamed on Netflix. This provides an enormous reach and makes YouTube an exciting platform with major potential. With YouTube, you can advertise to your customers using text and images and thus create engaging content targeted via data-based segmentation criteria.

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What YouTube advertising gives you

YouTube went live in 2005 and it now has 1.7 billion unique monthly visitors making it the 2nd most popular website in the world. YouTube is accessible in over 100 countries and in more than 80 languages. People upload 500 hours of video on the platform every minute and the number of hours users spend on YouTube is increasing by more than 50% from year to year. Therefore, there is a lot of content that is being watched by many visitors. This makes YouTube one of the most efficient advertising channels, especially if you compare it with TV. The major benefit of YouTube is that your call-to-action is only one click away.

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of unskippable advertising

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needs to be viewed before you pay

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is the typical cost per view (CPV)

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of online adults in the UK use YouTube

Types of YouTube advertising

YouTube provides an opportunity to advertise to many different targeted criteria, such as interests, remarketing, subject areas or demographics. YouTube calls its advertising platform TrueView, which is split into two different advertising types: In-stream and In-display.

Using images in your ads

In-display TrueView video ads appear in the search result on YouTube, similar to standard Google Ads. You can also display ads on the right-hand side of YouTube, while the video is playing. Ads are also shown as encouraging suggestions on YouTube's home page. For in-display ads, you only pay if visitors click on the ad.

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Using videos in your ads

In-stream is advertising video ads, which appear before the visitor can watch their desired video. The visitor can skip the ad after 5 seconds if they don't find the content of interest. You only pay if the user has watched more than 30 seconds of the video, or the whole video if the video ad is under 30 seconds. This type is often used as a branding video, to spread awareness of the company.

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Types of In-stream ads

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    Skippable Video Ads

    Displayed on computers, mobile devices, TVs and consoles, these are the standard video advert that allows the viewer to skip the ad after 5 seconds

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    Non-Skippable Video Ads

    Displayed on computers, mobile devices, TVs and consoles, these are non-skippable 15-20 second adverts (depending on regional standards) that must be watched before the main video can be watched

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    Bumper Ads

    Displayed on computers, mobile devices, TVs and consoles, these are 6-second, non-skippable adverts that must be watched before the main video is watched and are turned on when either skippable or non-skippable adverts are turned on

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    Overlay ads

    Displayed on computers only, these are overlay image or text adverts that appear on the bottom 20% of the video

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    Audio Ads

    A new ad type launched at the end of 2020 designed to work with podcasts, concerts, or lectures and which is particularly useful for YouTube Music. Audio ads only show on music or podcast content.

Unique Selling Point

It's important that the company's USPs (Unique Selling Points), are displayed - and preferably early on - in the video, so that the user is clear about who the company is. It is also important to make the video personal and for it to contain a form of call-to-action so that the user knows how to contact the company. Finally, it is important that the content is captivating in the first five seconds so that the user is motivated to watch the rest of the video. Visitors that voluntarily watch to the end of the video are considered engaged users which would be interesting for most companies.

Optimise your channel

Many often forget to focus on their channel when working with YouTube as a medium. Many focus too much on advertising, but we believe that YouTube as a channel is itself a highly important element, not least because it reflects the company's look and acts as a landing page. That's why it's essential that the channel comes across as consistent with the company's website. Equally important is to create engaging content that users can interact with, just like with other social media.

It's not enough to just make ads and other commercial content. It's better to have a strategy as to what the purpose and the content of the channel should be. This obviously depends on the type of company and industry. That's why the channel's content should reflect the purpose. Is the goal to sell products, branding or to increase awareness?

Consider your target group

Next, consider who the channel's target group is, and the value you want to give them. It's important to think about your target group when developing videos, as these should reflect behaviour, interests and needs. This makes the channel an even more valuable platform that can generate relevant traffic for your website.

Shopping ads on YouTube

Shopping ads on YouTube bring purchase options right up to where the consumers are. However, this requires your company to run videos on YouTube.

Advertising in own videos

In addition to traditional video ads, where you try to boost selected videos, you can also create smaller ads in your videos on the channel. You can create small ads in the videos that direct the user straight to the website, such as via a call-to-action text or a good offer.

Reach out to your customers using YouTube Shopping Advertisement

Did you know that you can utilize your shopping feed to advertise on YouTube? With shopping ads on YouTube, the shopping opportunities have come even closer to where the consumers are. However, it requires that your company has videos on YouTube.

There are many possibilities so where do you start? 

You might already be familiar with the regular Google Shopping Advertisement that is shown at the top of Google SERPs - if not can you read about Google Shopping here. With YouTube Shopping, you have the same opportunities so people can click directly on your video advertisement, where you can integrate clickable links and references in the video. The intention of this kind of advertisement is to bring the user even closer to the purchase when they already are spending time on YouTube.

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Speak to us about YouTube

The simplest way to get in touch is to complete the form.
We aim to get back to you within a couple of working hours.

If you'd prefer to call +44 (0)20 8144 8142

Or we can chat via email [email protected]