In the early days of Google AdWords and Facebook advertising, the businesses who took advantage early enjoyed much lower costs and rules, ultimately resulting in more sales. For those of you that missed out on cashing in on the early days, you now have a shot at cashing in on the next big thing: YouTube.
A statistic provided by Google Partners states that between the end of 2013 and the end of 2014, the amount of time that people spent watching video on the Internet grew 38.5%. Every month, more than 1 billion people watch more than 6 billion hours of YouTube video. In addition, more than half of YouTube video views come from mobile devices. This represents a lot of potential customers, both at home and on the go. This allows you to decide where and when a video ad shows and which potential customers see it.
What are some benefits to advertising your business on YouTube?
- Connecting with customers: Customers like identifying with a person behind the business. A video of you explaining a product or a service will have a greater effect on a customer than just an image.
- Reaching the correct audience: YouTube allows you to use targeting options such as keywords, topics and demographics.
- Measuring the success of the campaign: Learn where your views are coming from. Are they coming from searches where your AdWords campaign assisted, or are they coming directly from YouTube? Adjust budgets and follow trends to strengthen your campaigns.
All YouTube videos use the TrueView video ad format. TrueView video ad formats give viewers control over which advertisers’ messages they want to see and when. One type of YouTube ad is an In-Stream ad. In-Stream ads are used when you would like your video to appear before, during or after other videos on YouTube. These work similar to your AdWords campaigns in that you only pay for the video when someone watches the duration of your video. In the event that someone watching hits “Skip Ad,” then you are not charged.
Scenario:
Advertiser: Family Fun Park Keyword: “Birthday Party” Search Query: “How to plan a birthday party”
The person searched for “How to plan a birthday party,” and Google displayed the results shown below. As you can see, Google AdWords ads showed up on the top with the yellow ad buttons next to them. Videos showed up next. Google is incorporating more videos into search results due to their new algorithm. Let’s say the searcher now clicks on the video for “how to plan a birthday party.” At that moment, an ad will start playing prior to the video that was requested. If the searcher clicks “Skip Ad,” then you don’t pay, and you just advertised to that person for FREE. If that searcher was interested in the video and watched the whole thing, then you would be charged for the ad.
This is an example of how you could be on both the Google search results page with an ad via Google AdWords and an In-Stream ad prior to the video via AdWords and YouTube Ads. The potential customer was just presented with two different ads for your company within the same search.
In conclusion, advertising on YouTube is a great addition to an existing Google AdWords campaign and is yet another way to target potential customers in the digital age.
