youtube video ads

youtube video ads

How does YouTube advertising work? YouTube video ads are the building blocks of YouTube channel promotion. Do you want to know more about video advertising? Then you have come to the right place.

This article covers all aspects of YouTube video advertising, starting with targeting your YouTube video ad campaign and the types of YouTube video ad formats available in Google AdWords. Additionally, the article also highlights video ad campaigns, including campaign subtypes and places on YouTube where you can use video ads. Finally, the article covers campaign budgeting and bidding or the cost of YouTube video ads.

YouTube video campaign goals

Creating YouTube video ads for your channel using Video Campaigns in Google AdWords involves choosing your campaign goals, which is the first step in the process. Goals are an important component of YouTube video campaigns because they determine which campaign subtypes you can use. Google AdWords has five main goals:

1. sales
2. huge
3. traffic
4. Brand awareness and reach
5. Consider products and brands

You have to choose from these goals for video campaigns in Google AdWords.

Ad format

Secondly, to know about YouTube video ads, it is very important to be aware of the video ad formats available in Google AdWords for YouTube. There are five main types of ad formats for YouTube video ads:

• Avoid stream ads
• Ads that go without a stream
• Video Discovery Ads
• Bumper ads
• Masthead advertising

We also mention external ads but don’t go into detail.

Avoid stream ads

Skippable in-stream ads can be added before, during or after videos on YouTube and are a great way to grab your audience’s attention while watching similar videos. These ads appear on YouTube watch pages and across Google Video partner sites and apps. Viewers can skip these ads after the first five seconds. After that, you will be paid if the user views your ad for 30 seconds or more. Skip ads are an interesting type of ad that enables your audience to interact directly with your channel. However, to use skippable in-stream ads, you must select all goals, including sales / leads / website traffic, brand awareness and reach, as well as product and brand considerations.

Skippable in-stream ads are a great tool to promote similar videos before, during, or after your channel’s ads.

Ads that go without a stream

Non-skippable in-stream ads can be placed before, during or after YouTube videos. However, users cannot skip these ads, which are about fifteen seconds long. Moreover, you pay for these ads based on your impressions, and you need to select brand awareness and reach goals to use non-skippable in-stream ads to promote your YouTube channel.

Video discovery ads

Furthermore, video discovery ads are an exciting type of ad that appears in the discovery space on YouTube. For example, you can place video discovery ads alongside similar videos on the YouTube homepage or as part of YouTube search results. To use video discovery ads, you need to choose a unique thumbnail for your ad that grabs people’s attention by clicking to view your ad.

Additionally, Google AdWords allows you to add some text next to your thumbnail to make video discovery ads more attractive to customers. Finally, you only need to pay for video discovery ads when customers click on the ad to view them, and to use this type of ad format for YouTube video ads, you need to select product and brand consideration targets.

Bumper ad

Use bumper ads to make an impact in just six seconds!

Bumper ads are another type of YouTube video ad that are only 2 seconds long. They can be added before, during or after the video to impact a short, memorable message. Bumper ads also appear on YouTube TV and run on websites and apps on Google Video Partners. Moreover, users cannot skip the bumper ads. Therefore, you only pay for bumper ads based on impressions. Finally, you need to choose brand awareness and reach goals for using this ad type in your video campaign.

Read more: What is YouTube advertising?

Masthead advertising

Furthermore, masthead ads are a superior type of YouTube video ad used to reach a large number of people quickly. However, to use masthead ads, you must make a reservation with a Google sales representative. Additionally, YouTube charges you on a cost-per-thousand-impression basis for masthead advertising.

Outbound advertising

Outstream advertising is available on various websites and applications running on Google Video Partners. But they are not available on YouTube.

Campaign subtypes

Additionally, there are three main campaign subtypes based on the goals you choose. These are Sales/Leads/Website Traffic Campaigns TrueView for Action Campaigns and Action Campaigns, Brand Awareness and Reach Campaigns and Product and Brand Consideration Campaigns. We will not go into additional details for campaign subtypes in this article. However, you can learn more about video campaign subtypes in this article.

YouTube is a place where you can use video ads

Furthermore, there are three important places where you can display your ads to promote your channel. These three places are YouTube videos, YouTube search results, and video partners on the Google Display Network.

YouTube videos

Your ad may appear on:

• On the YouTube homepage
• On YouTube channel page
• In similar videos such as in-stream ads or bumper ads

YouTube search results

This ad placement is only available for video discovery ads. Using this ad placement option will allow your ads to appear next to search results.

Video partner on the Display Network

Display Network Ad Placement Video Partners enable you to expand your audience beyond YouTube by displaying your ads across websites and apps that work with Google Video Partners.

Campaign budget and bidding/spending

Moreover, determining your campaign budget and bidding strategy is an integral part of placing video ads in a video campaign on Google AdWords.

budgeting

Budget defines the charging limit for an individual campaign to understand a tentative budget for a video campaign. However, your actual cost for the campaign may be lower depending on which bidding strategy you choose. However, there are three main types of budget formats you can choose from with Google AdWords:

• Daily budget
• Total Campaign Budget / Monthly Budget
• Shared budget

The daily budget sets the average amount you are willing to spend each day, while the campaign total or monthly budget sets the campaign’s total budget limit for a month. Alternatively, you can use the shared budget option to budget for multiple campaigns run for the same client. For example, shared budgets work well with seasonal campaigns for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Halloween.

Order

Moreover, bidding involves positioning your ad based on content and keyword relevance. Users often pay less than their maximum bid because they only pay what they need to maintain their ad position. However, you must select a maximum cost-per-click bid (Maximum CPC bid) that you are willing to pay for your YouTube video ad. Higher rates tend to generate more traffic.

Lower bids result in fewer overall clicks and conversions for your video campaign.

You can set bids through automated bid strategies such as maximum click bidding strategies or manual CPC bidding. The most clicks bidding system is the most straightforward automated bidding strategy that only requires setting an average daily budget and Google does the rest. However, you can manually set your maximum CPC bid using the manual CPC bidding strategy. These manual strategies allow you to set different bids for each ad group of your campaign or individual placement or keyword. That way, you can allocate more of your budget to keywords or placements that monetize better.

In short, this article covers everything you need to know about YouTube video ads. First, it highlights the different goals available in Google AdWords for video campaigns. Then we explained the different formats for YouTube video ads, including skippable in-stream ads, non-skippable in-stream ads, video discovery ads, bumper ads and masthead ads, as well as outstream ads.

Then, the article also provided an overview of video campaign subtypes and explained the places on YouTube where you can place video ads, including apps and websites running on YouTube videos, YouTube search results, and Google Video partners. Finally, we’ve highlighted campaign budgets and bidding for video campaigns.

However, if you want to learn about other aspects of YouTube video advertising, such as audience targeting, you can sign up for our services.