7 Reasons to use YouTube Advertising

YouTube is more than the best place to find videos of hilarious laughing babies. It is fast becoming an advertising powerhouse – there are many options available to cater to all forms and sizes of businesses.

More than half of all U.S. internet users visit YouTube every month – 58 percent to be exact – and this audience demands your attention.

Let’s begin by exploring the different advertising options.

4 kinds of YouTube advertising

In 2006, Google bought YouTube. Since 2006, Google has smartly developed its ability to cater to the needs of all sizes of business by introducing several advertising formats.

1. Homepage Redzone

This option is out of the reach for all but the largest businesses – it involves purchasing ads to appear on YouTube’s homepage. They need to be heavily branded, well produced and very creative. A more common use of this type of advertising is with global firms or to aid with the launch of new movies.

2. TrueView In-Stream

When you try to watch a YouTube video and it begins by showing a commercial – that’s TrueView In-Stream. It’s very affordable and a type of YouTube advertising that is growing in popularity, likely because of relatively minor cost.

3. TrueView In-Search

Much like AdWords campaigns that generate sponsored search results on Google’s search engine results pages, TrueView In-Search ads appear when you search for videos on YouTube.com. You select a thumbnail from the video and the video will either direct people to your brand’s YouTube channel or to the video itself – YouTube recommends the former.

4. The Google Display Network

This is a text overlay ad that will place your text-based ad on videos that play on YouTube. It’s a way to take advantage of YouTube’s network without having to get involved in video production.

Given the diversity of options available to you, is it worth your while? Should you really take the time to produce a video to air on YouTube as an ad? The answer is a resounding, “Yes!”

7 reasons YouTube advertising is essential

1. YouTube has amazing reach

YouTube reaches more than half of all internet users each and every month (58 percent to be exact). According to Nielsen, that number has increased by 50 per cent since 2010. That’s a huge audience and one you shouldn’t be willing to pass up.

2. You can target the right demographic

You’re marketing plan should tell you the demographics of your target market.

With YouTube advertising you can target your ad based on demographics and psychographics (what viewers think, believe and enjoy):

Target by personal demographics, geography and language
Target based on interests, topics or to people who have visited your site in the past
Target certain keywords based on search habits

3. Cost effective

Search Engine Watch claims that the average cost of a TrueView In-Stream video is only four cents. Of course some will be more expensive that others, but it is still very cost competitive – it is extremely cost competitive when compared to traditional video marketing on television.

4. Better than TV ads

YouTube is more effective than television advertising for 15 second ad spots and equally as effective for the more traditional 30 second ad spot. However, considering both YouTube and traditional video ads are equally effective in terms of recall, YouTube becomes the clear winner because of its low cost.

5. Combine for maximum impact

If you have the budget for both YouTube ads and television ads, an Ipsos study commissioned by YouTube says you are lucky.

According to the study:

People who watched both YouTube and TV ads showed a 2X increase in brand recall than the people who only saw TV ads.

6. Word of mouth

Small businesses can generate powerful word of mouth buzz by using YouTube advertising. Small businesses, especially local small businesses, aren’t expected to produce video ads. If you can produce your ad, you can get it on YouTube and marketing it to a certain geography. Then you can spread word about the ad through your social networks and the local media – it might just become a story in and of itself.

7. Easy to share

While not all forms of YouTube advertising are shareable, one option is – TrueValue In-Search. This form of YouTube Advertising sends people to your YouTube channel or to a particular video. Once they get to your desired destination, they are one click away from sharing your video and only a few clicks away from embedding your video on their site.

One of the essential elements of great content is that it’s easy to share. The value of content marketing comes from it spreading throughout your followers’ social networks. This type of YouTube advertising makes sharing amazingly simple.

Conclusion

YouTube is a medium that is growing at an amazing pace and its growth will continue. The company has outlined aggressive growth strategies that will mean its viewership will continue to increase. This means you cannot afford to ignore YouTube advertising.

There are many ways to get involved in advertising on YouTube, this article outlined four different ways. Regardless of what method you choose, this post showed seven clear benefits of jumping in.