If you already have videos on your YouTube channel, you may be interested in setting up YouTube ads. These are set up via Google Adwords and are also known as TrueView video campaigns.
With YouTube having over 1 billion users, it offers a huge market of people potentially interested in your business and products. And 52% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the content with the best ROI*.
Here are the key steps to help you set up your YouTube ads in Google Adwords.
1. The Basics
- Videos must be uploaded to your YouTube channel
- All videos must be publicly viewable
- Videos must be of good quality – any of these reasons will see your video ads being disapproved: illegible text, poor sound quality, and /or blurry, unclear or unrecognisable visuals
- Your video must identify the product or company that it is promoting
- Videos must comply with standard Google Adwords advertising policies
2. Types of TrueView videos
In-Stream YouTube Ads – these videos run before, during or after other videos on YouTube or video partner sites and apps. They pop up but viewers can choose to skip the advert after 5 seconds if they wish by clicking at the bottom right of the screen.
Video Discover Ads – these ads are placed in search results, next to related videos, on the YouTube homepage and on partner sites and apps. Viewers see the video thumbnail and can click on it if interested.
3. How you’re charged for TrueView Ads
You only pay if a viewer watches at least 30 seconds of your video (or the whole video if it is less than 30 seconds long), or interacts with your video (eg. clicks to website.
4. Setting Up Your YouTube Videos Properly
Before venturing to Google Adwords, ensure your YouTube channel is set up correctly.
4.1 Verify your account
The first step is to verify your account. You can check if it is already verified here
or follow the steps to verify it.
4.2 Associate your website
In the creator studio, choose channel > advanced
In the “associated website” section add in the URL of the website, then click verify. This will take you to Search Console where you sign in to complete the verification step.
If this all sounds a little complicated, more details can be found on the Google support site here or you can contact us for assistance.
4.3 Link your videos to your website
In video manager you will see your videos displayed. Click on the edit option below a video and choose either end screen & annotations, or cards.
For end screens and annotations, you will have the option to add the elements as shown below, and a timer below the video will identify when the element will appear in the video.
For cards, you can choose to promote a channel or playlist, promote another channel, ask views to complete a poll, or link to an approved website. Again you can choose the time at which these elements are displayed.
5. How To Set Up YouTube Ads in Google Adwords
Now that your videos are all set up correctly, you can set up your YouTube ads campaign in Adwords.
5.1 Link your YouTube account to Adwords
Click the gear in the top right corner and click on Linked Accounts. Choose YouTube, add click +CHANNEL and paste in the YouTube account URL.
You will then need to authorise the request within your YouTube channel to complete the process.
5.2 Create a new campaign and choose the video option
5.3 Set up the fields to suit your objectives. Note you can choose standard ads, ads to encourage people to upload your mobile app, or shopping ads.
5.4 Choose delivery method. For the widest reach, choose all networks – YouTube Search, YouTube Videos and video partners on the display network.
Targeting is something you will need to experiment with. It should be simple to define the demographics that you wish to target ie. gender, age, household income. Then start off by targeting specific interests of viewers, which keeps things fairly broad.
You can check your Google Analytics account so see the top interests of your website visitors to give a good indication of the types of things liked by your target market.
Add the top interests for your website visitors to the Adwords video adgroup eg.
5.8 Monitor
Let the campaign settle in and review the statistics. As with every Adwords campaign, the system provides a whole host of data to examine which will enable you to modify the campaigns to increase impressions and view rate.
This is a screen shot of a newly set up YouTube Ads campaign – 694 views in 7 days at an Av Cost Per View of £0.07
This data is from a well established campaign for a 30 day period – 2710 views at an Av Cost Per View of £0.08
6. Conclusion
If you have great videos on YouTube, it’s well worth considering YouTube Ads to get your brand seen by thousands of people for a modest budget. And of course, these types of campaign can drive traffic to your website and result in more sales.
If you haven’t got great videos on YouTube, it’s time to branch out into video as part of your content marketing strategy – after all 78% of people watch videos online every week*. So don’t let your competitors get ahead of the game with great videos whilst you are left behind in the wings.
If you need help in setting up YouTube Ads please contact us.
If you need help in video creation, we offer a highly affordable service where we convert your images and footage into professional looking videos. Find out more today.
*https://fortunelords.com/youtube-statistics/
