Importance of YouTube as an Advertising Platform and Different Ad Options Available
Do your marketing strategies fetch you the best returns?
Are you happy with your marketing efforts?
Have you ever tried YouTube to promote your business?
You are in the right place if you said ‘No’ to one or all of these questions. The following sections inform you about a fascinating place to pull in customers – YouTube.
Read on to know why YouTube must figure prominently in your marketing policy and the different ad formats you can try to popularize your products or services.
6 Reasons You Must Advertise on YouTube
From cost-efficiency to better reach, YouTube offers many ways to bring organic traffic to your brand. Here are the top reasons that compel new and experienced brands to include YouTube in their marketing strategy:
Marketing Becomes Cost-Efficient
Companies are always on the lookout for finding ingenious solutions to save money. From optimizing their marketing campaigns to tweaking their budget, they do many things with the sole purpose of improving their bottom line.
But did you know that YouTube is a much more cost-effective method of advertising than conventional advertising channels?
YouTube follows the PPC advertising method, which means Pay Per Click. Under the PPC model, you pay the video owner money only when someone clicks the ad. Moreover, you are free to negotiate the amount you want to pay per click directly with the video owner(s).
Hence, YouTube advertising saves your money in two ways. First, you only pay to get valid leads. Second, you do not need to spend a fortune on advertising space.
Statistics Speak For Itself
Sometimes, words cannot achieve what numbers can. Here are a few facts to help you understand how significant a medium YouTube is for marketers.
2 Billion – The number of monthly active users on YouTube
Rank-2 – The place of YouTube on the list of the most popular websites in the world.
Rank-2 – The place of YouTube on the list of the most popular search engines in the world
55% – The percentage of marketers using YouTube for video marketing
100 – The number of countries YouTube serves
33% – Baby boomers take it to YouTube to learn about products or services before making a purchase decision
70% – of all content on YouTube is watched on smartphones, tablets, and the likes.
89% – Marketers willing to include YouTube in their video marketing strategy in 2021
62% – YouTube users open the website/app daily
These numbers must have prompted you to make YouTube a vital part of your marketing strategy. In case you need more motivation, sift through the following sections.
Granular Targeting Makes Marketing More Impactful
In a data-driven world, you must analyze data to make meaningful decisions. YouTube offers various tools and analytics to help you decode complex data and use it for targeted marketing.
Granular targeting refers to evaluating your audience’s demographics, age group, gender, location, preferences, etc., to gauge users’ reaction to your videos and modify the content to suit their requirements. You can use the data for remarketing your videos to people who have clicked on your YouTube ads before.
You can also use analytics to find affinity audiences, meaning audiences that will most likely like your products or services. Fortunately, you don’t have to do the complex number-juggling by yourself since YouTube does this all for you. All you need to do is create an impeccable YouTube ad and use the analytics to make it relevant for the target audience. If you want to know how to make your video ads stand out.
Now that you know the many benefits of marketing through YouTube ads, figure out the types of YouTube ads in the next section.
The Four Most Popular Types of YouTube Ads
The following are the four most popular types of YouTube ads preferred by businesses worldwide:
Display or Discovery Ads
Designed exclusively for desktops, these ads come on the right side of feature videos. They may also appear above the suggestions list. The resolution of display ads is generally 300×250 or 300×60.
Unlike in-stream ads, display or discovery ads are much like the ads you find on Google’s home page. This reaffirms YouTube’s popularity as a search engine. These ads typically contain three lines of text and a thumbnail. On clicking the link, viewers land up in the advertiser’s YouTube channel or website.
Overlay Ads
Designed exclusively for desktops, overlay ads are generally semi-transparent and appear at the bottom 20% of a video. You can put images or text in the ad. The images must be in .gif, .png, or.jpg formats. The resolution of overlay ads is usually 468×60 or 728×90. For more information click here.
Display and overlay ads generally appear in conjunction. So, while an overlay ad occupies a prominent part in the video, the display ad shows relevant content to encourage viewers to visit the website. You may create the correct mix of display and overlay ads to scale up your marketing efforts.
Skippable Video Ads
Skippable video ads are meant for both desktops and handheld digital devices. Users may skip a skippable video ad after five seconds of its start. You can insert these ads in the beginning, middle, or after the feature video. The minimum video length for skippable ads is 12 seconds, and the maximum is 6 minutes.
You may create a skippable video ad if your content is exciting. Remember, if a viewer stays after the first five seconds, they will most likely watch the entire video and visit your website or YouTube channel.
Non-skippable Video Ads
As the name suggests, non-skippable video ads cannot be skipped. These videos are usually 15 to 30 seconds long.
Since non-skippable video ads guarantee viewer attention, these are often more effective than most other ad types. However, non-skippable ads might also turn viewers away since some viewers consider them time-consuming.
Conclusion
Besides the four types of YouTube video ads mentioned above, bumper ads and sponsored ads are also preferred by marketers. Bumper ads are non-skippable and may last for six seconds. Sponsored ads display products you have seen in the video.
Whichever video ad format you choose, YouTube can be a perfect platform for showcasing your products or services. Ramp up your efforts and create the best marketing campaign to boost revenue and save money.
