In my last blog post, I was ranting discussing the effects of YouTube ads and how it affects the user’s experience. If you didn’t get the hint on that post, I had my marketer’s hat off and was speaking from the average customer’s perspective. So, I do apologize if that made the post sound weird, especially coming from a digital marketer.
Now, I’ll put on my business hat and ask myself, “Why YouTube Ads?” “What makes YouTube ads effective?” If I were to grow my business, how can I reach my targeted and potential customers to show my services and/or products to them? How can I bring more people to look at and/or buy my products? How can I show them that my services are what they need?
That’s where YouTube ads come in.
But, David, you just said that ads are intrusive and yadda yadda yadda? Yes, I did. But for every one of me, there are others who don’t mind watching ads, or getting their watching experience interrupted for a chance to see new things.
And that is what is pretty unique with YouTube ads… it can serve as a conduit for getting better business for an organization, and yet, it can be challenging to have the right kind of ads to share with your prospective audience. We’ll get to that challenge as we discuss more about the effectiveness of these ads.
I’ll bite, David.
Why are YouTube ads effective? I’ll give you a few reasons why.
Reason #1: YouTube has the volume you need to reach your users
YouTube is such a massive platform (2nd search engine behind Google), so using this platform as part of your marketing strategy is typically a no-brainer. Your business is exposed to millions — or should I say billions — of people watching videos, searching for topics, and potentially looking for the products or services that you are selling.
More importantly, the platform is massive even for small businesses. The volume of audience that YouTube can provide to your business can bring lots of potential customers to your top funnel marketing initiatives, in comparison to other channels that may not have this volume (email marketing is a good example because that method is completely dependent on your existing list and ability to generate net new emails).
How or why is volume effective?
Think of a community pool versus a residential pool (like an apartment or condo). Community pools serve a wider audience, and thus more people are likely to come at any given time. Apartments that have their own residential pool are only going to serve those folks, and maybe the friends that they bring in. People will still come to that pool; it’s just that the size is less.
From a marketing perspective, you can cast a wider net in a bigger pool, and that can bring in people that you may not even consider as a customer base. A smaller pool can still bring in clients, but you may need to work harder to bring in the volume of customers.
Reason #2: Do with little for less
Counting the financial cost to run ads is one of the reasons why running YouTube ads are effective and thus an excellent choice. They can be cost-effective, even for very new businesses, startups and small businesses.
The average cost-per-view (CPV) of a YouTube ad is somewhere around $0.10 – $0.30, and your generated views will count towards your overall YouTube viewer count. You can get 100,000 viewers for around $2K, which is comparatively cheaper than other platforms.
If you’re not familiar with running YouTube ads, or running PPC campaigns (pay-per-click), there are tons of online tutorials and step-by-step guides out there that you can search. Some of the tutorials, guides, and step-by-step instructions that I found worthy of mentioning:
- Hubspot’s YouTube Advertising Guide: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/youtube-video-advertising-guide
- YouTube Ads for Beginners: https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/youtube-ads/
- YouTube Ads for Small Businesses: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/youtube-ads-for-small-business-how-to-get-started/
Reason #3: Reach your customers through targeting and segmentation
Another reason why YouTube ads are effective: the reach.
Reaching the right audience for your business is a crucial part of any successful marketing campaign. YouTube ads allow you to be more granular in your targeting, so you can focus on getting the most accurate segment of the people you want to reach. You can toggle different filters to reach your specific audience, and can even combine multiple factors to make that happen. Here’s a few filters to play with:
- In-market audience: Similar to an audience segment found in Google Analytics, you can target this audience by advertising to those who are currently searching for products or services that you offer.
- Affinity audience: Another audience segment found in Google, this audience includes users who have a strong interest in topics that are related to your business.
- Demographics: You can target any user based on other factors like location, gender, age, etc.
- Topics: You can reach audiences based on their topics of interest.
- Life event targeting. If your offering is more likely to be used by people in the middle of a significant life event (think college graduation, getting married, moving, etc.), you can choose to target people actively going through that life event.
It’s not exactly difficult to start off in segmenting, but it can be challenging to create these segments and have it perform well when you’re not familiar with your audience, or not familiar with the platform. If you’re stuck in any way with your targeting, let us know how we can help you.
Reason #4: YouTube has fewer ad blockers
This reason is a good reason for businesses, not so much for customers and consumers.
One of the main issues with display advertising is that many consumers have ad blockers. The percentage of your target market using ad blockers will vary depending on their age and level of technological sophistication, but ad blockers are becoming ever more prevalent, nevertheless.
Advertising on YouTube allows you to target many consumers who would otherwise block your ads on their desktops or laptops. This is because many people view YouTube on phones or smart TVs that don’t have ad-blocking capabilities.
So, if you’re concerned about ad blockers preventing your target market from seeing your ads, YouTube is an excellent way to get around this. Much to my behest as a customer 😂.
Reason #5: YouTube, Brand Awareness, and Influencer Marketing
In one of the previous reasons above, I stated that YouTube has a massive platform with a massive user base. That means that your products and/or services can have more than just a good seat on a digital display table.
With sheer volume alone, YouTube has a great potential for developing awareness for your brands. But more importantly, YouTube can impact and influence how customers buy products and use services. Take a look at these statistics.
- 70% of people say that they bought a product after seeing it in a YouTube ad.
- 52% of the top 100 searches are branded searches. YouTube users are looking for that brand in order to find their content.
- In March of 2021, users spent an average of 29 minutes and 37 seconds per visit.
- 62% of users access YouTube daily, 92% access the site weekly and 98% access the site monthly.
- YouTube is the second most popular platform for influencer marketing (70%), right behind Instagram (89%).
YouTube affects buying decisions tremendously, and that’s a great opportunity for businesses to capitalize on, regardless if it’s just for brand awareness campaigns or as part of an end-to-end marketing strategy.
My take on YouTube Ads
As a business, it’s definitely imperative to get the reach you need to build movement and engagement in your funnel, but it’s also imperative to find a platform that will serve that goal. Among many channels, YouTube is one that will bring that reach and relevance to your business at a fraction of a cost compared to other methods.
But is it worth investing in? Definitely, with the assumption that you know the audience you’re trying to reach is using this channel. Otherwise, you’re just going to pay for a marketing initiative that won’t help you get to your destination.
If your audience is immersed in this channel, the next step is to create ads that are going to have an intellectual, emotional, financial or practical connection or influence to your audience.
Have fun!
0 Comments