Video content is the future

In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about content marketing and its great importance in promoting brands, products or services. Many people equate the term primarily with text material, but the reality is that video and audio files are increasingly important – especially YouTube videos and podcasts. This is how more and more people most readily absorb information. Hence, the optimal environment for advertising is also changing. Today, more and more companies are taking advantage of paid content on YouTube – including small and local businesses. Reason? It is simply a very effective promotion channel. What’s more, YouTube, thanks to its advertising policy, makes it possible to publish even without a large budget.

Advantages of advertising on YouTube

The portal has enormous power, it is used by over 90% of Internet users. Advertising via YouTube is more and more often described as more effective than television advertising, especially as it allows you to target the message only to specific recipients. What are the main advantages of promotion on the site?

– Broad coverage – the already mentioned over 90% of Internet users who may find your ad! The website has overtaken Facebook when it comes to the popularity of social media and is increasingly serving as a search engine for users. Thanks to this, the advertisement can have a really wide range of impact. It is also an ideal place to reach young people in the 18-34 age group, who most willingly spend their time using YouTube.
– The ability to precisely define the target – this is something that makes many methods of Internet advertising much more effective than spots published on TV or e.g. billboards on the streets. You can precisely select the viewer profile to which your video will end up. YouTube provides criteria such as age, place of residence or interests. Also, your ad may only appear on videos from certain creators or in a specific category. It also supports remarketing activities – the spot can reach people who have previously visited the advertiser’s channel or website.
– Effect control – in the case of many types of advertising, it is impossible to check how many people actually reached. By acting on YouTube, you can get detailed analytical reports showing how many people watched your ad and how many of them interacted with your business through it. This is extremely valuable information that helps to refine the promotional message and check the return on investment in marketing. Affordable prices – despite many advantages, publishing a spot on YouTube is still much cheaper than on TV. In addition, in this case, you only pay for the actual impressions of the ad, and not for the mere placement of the ad before or during the video. This makes it possible to get much better promotion results.
– Possibility to share – a creative, surprising, funny, touching and interesting advertising film can work for you for a long time, even after the end of the paid promotion. It can be shared just like any other YouTube content. This in turn allows you to reach even more people. That’s why it’s worth creating ads that engage the viewer!

Types of YouTube Ads

YouTube allows advertisers to use several methods of displaying their content. The selected type of promotion affects its visibility as well as the price. It is worth knowing all the possibilities to choose the right one for the character and goals of a given campaign. There are:

– display ads – standard banners, on YouTube displayed under the video or on its right side; do not interfere with video playback, which increases the chance of clicking;
– advertising overlays – displayed on the watched movie, have a graphic or text form; they take up about 20% of the area of ​​the window in which the film is displayed and can be turned off at any time
– TrueView In-Stream – a negligible advertisement displayed before, during or after the video; attractive due to the pricing model – if a viewer skips the ad, there is no fee for the impression;
– In-stream advertising without the possibility of skipping – lasting from 15 to 30 seconds, usually less perceived by Internet users;
– ads in cutscenes (Bumper Ads) – cannot be skipped, lasts about 6 seconds; usually shown before the movie, sometimes also during and after the movie;
– mid-movie ads – may or may not be negligible; are published only in films longer than 15 minutes;
– sponsored cards – shown in the movie viewing window; they most often present film-related products, allowing the viewer to expand the card.

What to choose? Much depends on the type of content presented, but also on your budget. In the case of using longer, negligible spots, it is necessary to ensure that their first few seconds encourage the recipient and present a specific message. Interesting advertising will certainly help you get much better results, so it is worth taking care of its careful planning and implementation.

How much does advertising on Youtube cost?

Many advertising formats have different billing models. The most commonly used is Cost Per View (CPV) – you pay for each ad impression in full (or at least 30 seconds, if longer). In image campaigns, Cost Per Mile (for every thousand views) is also sometimes used – primarily in relation to non-negligible TrueView and Bumper Ads videos. In the case of ads that are primarily aimed at encouraging the viewer to interact, the CPI (Cost per Interaction) model is used – fees for each click resulting in a redirect. Importantly, YouTube allows you to adjust the billing model to the advertiser’s needs. Therefore, with specific types of paid promotion, it is possible to use the selected scheme. As you can see, however, the answer to the question of how much does advertising on Youtube cost is not obvious and unambiguous.

So how much does advertising on YouTube cost? The good news is, as much as you choose to pay for it. The advertiser can set the budget himself. How much do you have to invest to make it pay off? Here the answer is much more difficult. It all depends on the type, model and target of the campaign. It is worth noting, however, that advertisers are often positively surprised by the relatively affordable costs of publishing on YouTube. It’s hard to look for specific numbers – even on the website itself – without providing specific data, but you can assume that a single ad impression costs about $ 0.01 – $ 0.3. Considering that most billing models are based on real impressions, that is, you don’t have to pay for missed spots, this is a very good result. It is also worth remembering that thanks to precise targeting, the ad can go exactly where you want, which further increases its effectiveness.

Effective advertising on YouTube – choose your target carefully!

The effectiveness of any ad depends on who it will be shown to. As an advertiser, you want it to reach your target group – people who should potentially be interested in a given product or service. Therefore, the return on investment in the promotion depends on precise targeting. In the case of YouTube, the whole machine works similarly to Google Ads campaigns. However, your ads can be targeted even more precisely. What criteria can be considered?

Demography
This is the basic criterion by which you can significantly narrow down the audience of your ad. There are specific age ranges to choose from, identical to those proposed by Google (18-24; 25-34; 35-44; 45-54; 55-64; 65+), as well as an interesting “unknown” category including both users under 18 life, as well as other people who have not been classified into any age category. It also appears when choosing the target gender (of course, next to women and men). In addition, you can decide on the parental status of your ad audience or your household income.

Geotargeting
Geotargeting is an important category, especially for local businesses. Thanks to the precision of Google Maps, you can only direct your promotional message to YouTube users located in a specific area or at a specific distance from a point designated on the map. You can also exclude specific locations from targeting, which creates a very wide range of precise messages.

User information (interests)
Thanks to the information collected by Google, it is possible to create a profile of the user’s interests. Thus, you can only target your ads to people who have visited websites on a specific topic or watched videos devoted to it. The frequency and intensity of interactions with a given topic are taken into account in order to obtain the most reliable data. There are many categories available to cover various areas of life. It is also possible to select a more specific, narrow group of recipients in which, for example, there has been a significant change recently (e.g. wedding, moving house, graduation, etc.). Google also divides into market audiences (people who are in the purchasing process and focused on searching for information about specific services and products) and non-standard recipients with similar intentions who actively search for information on the Internet using a search engine. This allows you to determine the most current interests of users.

YouTube video themes
YouTube videos are divided into thematic categories. This makes it easy for you to assign your ads to a specific topic. It is an easy way to reach users interested in specific issues, regardless of their age, gender or other behavior on the Internet.

Keywords
The ad can also be placed on videos whose titles or descriptions contain specific keywords.

Remarketing
Remarketing is a very popular and effective form of promotion consisting in displaying advertising content to users who have already expressed interest in the company’s offer (e.g. visited its website). Thanks to data integration with Google, remarketing is also possible for advertising on YouTube. It gives the opportunity to reach e.g. to people who watched a specific video or subscribed to a specific channel.

Extensive targeting options affect the effectiveness of YouTube ads, and thus also their profitability. A wide range of options allows you to reach every target group, regardless of the device on which the website is used. Ads are displayed on the YouTube website, in the mobile application, as well as in applications on game consoles and Smart TV.

Is YouTube advertising right for you?

Is it worth being interested in the advertising possibilities of the most popular streaming service? Of course! Among other things, thanks to precise targeting, it is a solution for both large and small companies, including local ones. Precise definition of the target group allows you to reach only people interested in a given topic, and at the same time reduce the costs of the campaign. If you want to reach a very wide audience, it is also worth betting on YouTube – after all, it is used by over 90% of Internet users!

Advertising on this site can be particularly beneficial for new brands that want to increase their recognition, as well as for completely new products. Presenting your business as a movie can also be a great idea when it comes to innovation, hard-to-understand mechanisms of action, or business models. In fact, anyone can benefit from the promotion on YouTube.