With over 13 billion visits per month, video-sharing giant YouTube is currently the second most popular website in the world (guess which site is number 1). Between 2014 and 2019, the amount of video content uploaded to the platform increased by 40%, and as of 2022, more than 500 hours of new media are added to the site every minute.
YouTube is no longer a platform used solely for entertainment, and with over 30 million queries per day, the site is now the world’s second-largest search engine – its users rely on it not just for their favourite music videos, but for information, instruction, and education.
With this huge variety in content comes huge opportunities for advertising and digital marketing. YouTube advertising allows for a huge range of format options, from video advertising to more traditional display advertising, the platform has ad format options to suit all budgets, allowing small businesses to enter the space just as easily as massive corporations.
What’s more, as a Google-owned company, YouTube benefits from the company’s superior ad targeting and analytics software, ensuring video ads are seen by the right people.
For many, the question of how to advertise on YouTube is significant – this is where a YouTube advertising agency like The Bank can help!
We offer a full suite of YouTube and digital marketing services and assist our clients in all aspects of ad campaign strategy and development. From audience analysis and demographic targeting to media creation and implementation, to optimisation and performance reporting – our team are on-hand to get your ads on the YouTube videos which will bring you the greatest return on your investment.
Give us a call today!
The Benefits of YouTube Advertising
Aside from its huge market, there are a number of distinct advantages to advertising on YouTube over other social media sites such as Facebook or Instagram.
Engagement
The average YouTube viewer watches 14 minutes of content each day, with a great many visitors watching significantly more. This is non-passive, high-engagement, active participation in the platform, which allows advertisers the perfect opportunity for getting their message across.
Cost Effective
The PPC model of YouTube advertising allows advertisers to set a budget which fits their needs. A charge is only levied when a viewer interacts directly with an ad, making it ideal for startups and businesses with limited ad budgets.
What’s more, as you begin to see positive returns on your YouTube ads investment, it’s a simple process to increase your ad spend, or adjust the focus of your target market.
Highly Targeted
As a Google-owned operation, YouTube benefits from the consumer behaviour and data analysis models that the search giant has developed over the past two decades.
With YouTube advertising, you are able to specifically target viewers based on demographics, interests, and even past behaviour away from the site. This makes it possible to target your ads to an extremely precise audience, increasing the chances that they will take action on your ad.
Creativity
When it comes to creativity, YouTube ads provide your business the opportunity to reach its target audience in the most innovative and engaging ways possible.
Through high-quality video content, you can impress your potential customers, while also informing them of the quality of the products and services.
Reach
YouTube’s reach across the globe is astonishing, not only within the US and Western Europe, but throughout Asia and South America. Locally, a massive 35% of the UK population actively use the platform, with increasing engagement coming from Baby Boomers and Gen-X-ers.
Its dominance in the video streaming sector makes YouTube marketing an extremely appealing proposition, with the option for businesses to hit the right target audience, no matter its demographic.
YouTube Ad Formats
YouTube offers a range of paid advertising options – selecting the right one for your digital strategy depends on a number of factors, including the nature of your goals and the type of audience you hope to reach.
Before we examine the strategic elements in more depth, take a look at this list of the YouTube ad formats currently on offer:
Skippable Ads (TrueView In-Stream Ads)
At present, skippable ads (formerly TrueView Ads, or TrueView In-Stream ads) are the most common form of video ad found on the platform. Allowing viewers to skip the ad after 5 seconds, these commercials offer a cost-effective way for the startup or small business to enter the space.
Non-Skippable Ads
Non-skippable video ads are usually 15-20 seconds in length and are shown to a viewer before they can watch their chosen content.
Their increased length provides non-skippable video ads more scope for engaging with new customers, though their higher cost-per-view makes them an expensive option for most companies.
In-Feed Ads (TrueView Discovery Ads)
In-feed video ads (formerly TrueView Discovery ads) appear in search results pages, as well as the right-hand sidebar of watch pages. These ads consist of a standard image thumbnail, and up to three lines of text.
Bumper Ads
A form of non-skippable video ad, bumper ads are up to 6 seconds in length.
For companies with the ability and the creativity to get their message across swiftly, bumper ads can be an extremely cost-effective method of video marketing on YouTube.
Overlay Ads
Overlay ads are a form of display advertising, consisting of image or text media which appears in the lower 20% portion of a video.
Unlike the other formats, overlay ads are only available to desktop users, making it a less-than-optimal option is your target audiences tend to use mobile devices.
Whilst not offering quite the same options for creativity and innovation, overlay adverts are significantly cheaper than YouTube video ads.
Influencer Ads
More many companies looking to advertise on YouTube, pairing up with an influence can be an extremely attractive proposition.
An endorsement from a popular YouTube channel can result in valuable lead generation, particular if the influencer’s target audiences are in line with those of your business. However, this form of advertising is not offered directly by the platform, making it a potentially risky and contentious form of content marketing.
YouTube Ads: Creating Video Marketing Materials
With a handle on the types of ad format available, you might want to start thinking about how you will go about creating video ad materials.
Whether you decide to create entirely new content, or use your company’s existing video assets, here are some things to bear in mind:
Relevance
It’s important to ensure that your video ads are relevant to your target audience, and faithful to the product or service you’re selling. Selling a product? Create a video which shows it being used. Selling a service? Highlight the ways your business can serve its customers and make all their dreams come true.
Competition
Naturally, you want YouTube ads to be unique to you – copying verbatim the video ad practices of your competitors isn’t going to appeal to your new customers.
At the same time, it’s important to gain an understanding of what has been shown to work in social media campaigns specific to your industry. Which of your competitors’ videos resulted in major success, and what were the contributing factors.
A digital marketing agency can be particularly helpful here: by offering a wide perspective to YouTube ads and pay-per-click advertising in general, they can suggest creative solutions which have been found to work in other videos and by many brands.
Brevity
Unless you have the budget for non-skippable videos, your YouTube marketing materials will have to be built to grab attention instantly. The average user watches the 5-second skip countdown closer than they do any of the ad content they’re shown – you need to give them a reason to stick around!
Narrative
As a medium, video is the perfect form for telling a story. If your business has one to tell, make sure you get it across!
The Bank: Our Step-by-Step Approach to Building Your Video Ads Campaign
At The Bank, our YouTube advertising agency team have unrivalled experience and expertise across all digital marketing services – as one of our clients, you will benefit from our years of working with YouTube marketing and video PPC.
Whilst we always take a bespoke, collaborative approach to all our clients’ video ad campaigns, we tend to follow a few key steps when it comes to developing a marketing plan:
Step 1: Campaign Strategy
Our first job as your marketing agency will be to work with you to develop an overarching campaign strategy. This is an extensive process, consisting of, amongst other things:
Budgeting
Whilst YouTube advertising can offer significant returns, it’s extremely easy to go over budget. Our first priority is the financial health of your company – we never want you to over-reach with your ad campaign to the point that you end up in trouble.
As our client, we will collaborate with you to establish a budget that takes into account both your objectives and your financial limits. YouTube allows you to set a daily budget, monthly budget, or campaign budget – with this budget set, you can be confident you won’t over-spend as we take your campaign live.
Audience Analysis
From paid Google results to Facebook ads, effective audience targeting is a vital aspect of any social media or paid search marketing campaign. Your most valuable customers are the ones who you know how to target effectively, and to do that you must take the time to carry out data-driven research and statistical analysis.
At The Bank, our team have the tools to take this job off your hands. We can offer guidance and assistance to help you assess which new audiences are going to result in the best return for your business.
Demographic Targeting
Like Google Ads, advertising on YouTube allows for incredibly in-depth demographic targeting options.
From the broadest main categories like age, gender identity, parental status, and household income, to specific interests – YouTube allows advertisers to market to affinity segments, life events, in-market segments and more.
A YouTube advertising agency like The Bank can help you navigate this complex and intricate system.
Keyword Targeting
You may show your video advertisements based on terms or phrases that are related to a YouTube video, a YouTube channel, or to the kind of website that your target audience may be interested in visiting.
Finding the right keywords often involves a trial-and-error approach. As your video advertising campaign gets off the ground, you may find that some phrases aren’t effective. At The Bank, we’ll work with you to find the terms which are going to prove most effective, looking especially for words with are under-utilised by your video ad competitors.
Step 2: Social and PPC Audits
With an overall strategy mapped out, your digital marketing campaign manager will conduct an audit of any current paid social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) and PPC campaigns (Google Ads, etc.).
The aim of this process is to find opportunities for bringing your multiple campaigns together under a single umbrella, with a single strategy, and managed by a single digital marketing agency.
Step 3: Website Optimisation
In most instances, your YouTube ads will direct viewers to your landing page – it’s essential the same attention is paid to your website as to the videos themselves.
The Bank offers a full suite of website optimisation services to help your business get the most out of its online presence. Services include search engine optimisation (SEO), conversion rate optimisation (CRO), and copy generation.
Step 4: Content Creation
If you’re company already has video marketing materials to hand, then great! If not, The Bank and its team member network of creatives can help you come up with engaging video content that is on-brand and targeted specifically to your audience.
Additionally, we can help with the legal and regulatory aspects of content creation, from restrictions to licensing.
Step 5: Google Ads Setup and Implementation
Here’s where the fun begins…
With a strategy in place and content ready to go, we’ll help you set up a Google Ads account, and get your ads up and running!
We will deal with thumbnail generation, and all the technical aspects of video uploading, and will keep a keen eye on performance metrics.
Step 6: Performance and Optimisation
Ad performance and optimization is an ongoing process that should be closely monitored in order to ensure maximum results. The Bank offers a suite of services to help you track your ad performance, and make necessary optimizations in order to improve your campaign.
Our team is experienced in managing and optimising online marketing campaigns, and we will work tirelessly to ensure that your video and display advertisements are generating a profit over time.
Step 7: Reporting
It’s easy for your digital marketing services manager to tell you your ads are doing great – you want to know it!
That’s why at The Bank, you will provide you with regular, clear, in-depth reports so you know exactly where your YouTube ads are performing well, and where they’re not. Armed with this information, you can decide to up your YouTube ad budget, refocus your efforts, or move into another marketing area entirely.
The Bank: Your New YouTube Advertising Agency
If you business wants to advertise on YouTube, you will find no better service than that of The Bank.
Our team of social media marketing experts have the skills, knowledge, experience, and dedication to ensure that your video PPC campaign is targeted and profitable.
We will work with you to manage all aspects of your campaign and YouTube marketing strategy, from budget and audience analysis, to content creation and implementation, to optimisation and performance reporting – our team will be with you every step of the way!
Don’t hesitate! Contact The Bank today to see how we can help you in your YouTube marketing journey. We can’t wait to get started!
