In this article, you will be introduced to the main YouTube advertising formats and how to use them properly. If you want to give more visibility to your videos, you've come to the right place. If you're curious about how YouTube advertising works, you've come to the right place too!
When we talk about YouTube ads in this article, we are talking about ads in video format. It is possible to put text advertising on the Youtube.com platform, but this will not be discussed in this article.
WHY ADVERTISE YOUTUBE?
YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google and is visited by over 1 billion people worldwide each month. Needless to say, almost everyone on the internet watches a YouTube video.
On the other hand, it can be difficult for you to attract visits to your YouTube video. By using advertising, you will be able to increase the number of views and encourage more sharing of your videos.
THE DIFFERENT YOUTUBE AD FORMATS
There are three ad formats for videos on YouTube: TrueView InStream, TrueView InDisplay, and TrueView InSearch.
The best known is TrueView InStream , or more commonly called, pre-roll. This consists of playing your video at the beginning of another video. If the video is longer than 30 seconds, there is a “Skip Ad” button that appears after 5 seconds to allow users to skip the ad. You don't pay when the user has skipped the ad.
The TrueView InDisplay consists of making your video appear in the suggestions in the right column.
TrueView InSearch consists of displaying your video in search results when certain keywords are searched.
You can judge which type of ad to use according to your needs, but nothing prevents you from using all three at the same time for the same video.
The creation of video/YouTube advertisements is done through the Google Adwords interface and is very similar to the creation of advertisements on AdWords. In this article, I discuss the social media and less optimization aspect of the campaign from the point of view of performance-based web media buying.
HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR YOUTUBE ADS
The most important tip I could give you is to optimize your thumbnails . This is the visual element that visitors will see the most. Your thumbnail should grab and entice people to click while relating to the video.
For example, taking a case study made by Adviso, we could take one of these thumbnails:
While the first two thumbnails don't show much of a big deal, the last one talks about the number of participants. So we should go with this one.
On the other hand, we can also choose our own thumbnail . So there we can display the content we want, as long as it has a link with the video. YouTube recommends a captivating and clear image that will catch the user's eye without disappointing.
It's also important to end your videos with a call to action . What do you want users to do when the video ends? Why not put it directly in the video? Here is an example that clearly guides the user:
TWO GENERAL TIPS FOR YOUR YOUTUBE ADS :
- Name the video correctly (I've seen "15 second YouTube ads")
- Make sure you have your YouTube page updated with the right information
Finally, I would say to you, be original and creative! Here are some ads that caught my attention.
Here's an ad that takes advantage of the first 5 seconds before you can skip the ad to convince the user to watch:
Here is a video of Volkswagen which is short and itself clicks the button to skip the ad.
An advertisement that uses the "skip Ad" button to convey a message to change habits
.jpg)
