ADVERTISING ON YOUTUBE

Advertising on Youtube: Video ads run on YouTube and across the web through the Google Display Network. With more than one billion users, YouTube is available in 70+ countries and 60+ languages and offers rich content from all over the world. The Display Network reaches over 90% of Internet users worldwide through two million sites and apps (source: comScore). By creating effective video ads on YouTube and the Display Network, you can advertise to consumers at moments that matter.

When advertising on YouTube to obtain the correct audience, you must keep in mind:

• Demographic Groups: Choose the age, gender, parental status, or household income of the audience you want to reach.
• Interests: Pick from available audience categories to reach people interested in certain topics, even when they may be visiting pages about other topics.
• Affinity Audiences: Raise brand awareness and drive consideration with your video ads by reaching people who already have a strong interest in relevant topics.
• Custom Affinity Audiences: Create audiences that are more tailored to your brands, compared to our broad, TV-like affinity audiences. For example, rather than reaching sports fans, a running shoe company may want to reach avid marathon runners instead.
• In-Market Audiences: Find customers who are researching products and actively considering buying a service or product like those you offer.
• Video Remarketing: Reach viewers based on their past interactions with your videos, TrueView ads or YouTube channel. If you’ve linked your YouTube account to your AdWords account already, we’ll create custom lists for you automatically. Learn more about remarketing lists for YouTube viewers.

Different Types of Ads

• Standard In-Stream: This is a non-skippable format that plays before a video. It’s ideal if you want to communicate a simple, powerful message and get visibility. It forces the impression and won’t accrue views on the video. Standard in-stream ads can be a maximum of 15 or 30 seconds. Those that are a maximum of 30 seconds can run only on long-form videos (10 minutes or longer). 
• In-Stream Select: This skippable ad appears when someone starts a video (pre-roll). It can be up to 60 seconds long, and it’s skippable after 5 seconds. This format increments the view count on the YouTube video ad. Whether or not the ad is skipped, the advertiser pays on a CPM basis. Learn more about in-stream video ads.
• Desktop Custom Masthead: This is a 970 x 250 pixel, an in-page unit that spans the full width of the YouTube homepage below the navigation bar. This unit, which can include a video, can drive brand relevant activity and an increase in branded search. 
• Desktop Universal Video Mastheads: This is a 780 x 195 that runs on the YouTube homepage. It includes a video on one side and an information panel or a flash/image panel on the other. The flash/image panel can optionally expand/close when someone clicks on/closes it.
• Mobile Video Mastheads: Appears on the homepage of all YouTube mobile and tablet properties, including the Android native mobile app, the iOS app, and m.youtube.com for smartphones and tablets. It features a video thumbnail, channel icon, and customizable headline and description.

When advertising on YouTube, you can also reserve ads! A reservation campaign has a minimum spending requirement. Advertisers booking Masthead ads are encouraged to participate in a kick-off call with our technical team to get specs, turnaround times, and campaign expectations. Our advertising team sends weekly campaign performance reports for your review. You can then request targeting changes to help improve ad performance.

Where you want your ads showing up is very important! To help regulate that, there are content targeting methods. These let you define where you want your ads to show. These include:

• Placements: Target unique channels, videos, apps, websites, or placements within websites. For example, you can target an entire high traffic blog or just the homepage of a popular news site. Placements can include YouTube channels, YouTube videos, Websites on the Display Network, and Apps on the Display Network.
• Topics: Target your video ads to specific topics on YouTube and the Display Network. Topic targeting lets you reach a broad range of videos, channels, and websites related to the topics you select.
• Keywords: Depending on your video ad format, you can show your video ads based on words or phrases–keywords–related to a YouTube video, YouTube channel, or type of website.

Buying Reservation Advertising

Advertisers and agencies can buy reservation advertising on a fixed, cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) or fixed cost-per-day (CPD) basis.

Benefits of Advertising on YouTube on a Reservation Basis

• More control: You can buy impressions at a fixed rate.
• High visibility: You can run ads on the YouTube homepage.
• Brand awareness: You can reach a wide audience.

A CPM Campaign has to be booked six business days in advance, and creative assets need to be delivered for implementation at least four business days before the campaign start date.

A CPD campaign has to be booked a couple of weeks in advance, and creative assets need to be delivered nine business days in advance.

Call-to-Action Overlays

Call-to-action overlays are eligible to show on any TrueView video ad on YouTube. This feature is available at no extra cost to you, can increase viewer engagement, and add an interesting element to your ads. Also, because they’re associated with the video instead of the ad, call-to-action overlays will show whether your video is triggered through an ad or an organic (unpaid) view.

Steps to Add a Call-to-Action Overlay:

1. Sign in to your AdWords account.
2. Click the Campaigns tab, and then select the video campaign you want to edit.
3. On the Videos tab, click Edit Call to Action on the “Analytics” drop-down.
   • If you don’t see this option, you may still need to link your YouTube account with your AdWords account. On the “Analytics” drop-down, click Link your YouTube Channel.
4. On the box that opens, select either I own this channel or Someone else owns this channel, and then complete the steps to link your account.

After linking your YouTube account to your AdWords account, you can create these lists based on various ways people interact with your videos, such as watching a video, subscribing to your channel, or even liking. Learn how to remarket to YouTube viewers with AdWords.

You can target your video ads to people located in, or who show interest in, a geographic location. Choose one or more geographic locations that are relevant to your ads. By advertising to the right customers, you can hopefully increase your return on investment (ROI). Understand that users come to YouTube to learn, watch and be entertained. As such, create videos that feature original content.

There’s a lot of information when it comes to advertising on YouTube. It can be overwhelming, but we’re here for you! If you have any questions that may ease your advertising anxiety or you just want to leave a comment please do so below!