Ultimate Guide On How To Advertise On Youtube

Since video marketing is a digital marketing strategy, it is only right to learn about youtube and how to maximize the platform for effective marketing.

YouTube is a search engine so you will need to optimize your content for the YouTube algorithm, just like you do for Google SEO.

Let’s say you’ve created your YouTube channel and you’re ready to start advertising, the next thing is to optimize your profile

YouTube marketing involves creating promotional videos, working with influencers, and advertising on the youtube platform.

Getting Started with advertising on Youtube-Creating a Youtube Channel

First step: Create a Google Account

Second Step: Log in to Youtube and create your business channel using your Google Account

Note: Make sure your youtube channel is created with your brand’s email account to avoid future complications.

Also, using the official email account for your business will allow multiple people in your company to manage and update your youtube pages and you can even create multiple youtube channels with the account.

Step 3: Optimize your profile

This is where you:

Add your “about” information.
Use a suitable image – Your brand’s logo or any image that qualifies your brand.
Add your social media and website links.

Step 4: Start creating and posting video contents

The kind of content you create on youtube should come from a place of researching your audience. This is to be sure you’re creating the kind of things your audience likes to see.

How to advertise on Youtube- Post the kind of videos your audience will love

Learn about your audience:

Take your time to learn the kind of thing they like watching on youtube

Check what you’ve been doing:

Maximize the analytics to get valuable insights into your audience’s demographics and interests.

Social listening:

Helps you check for mentions of your brand. You need it to know what people are saying about your brand.

Check out your competitors.

A competitor analysis involved checking the following:

Subscriber count
Average views per video
Frequency of posting
Overall video quality
What people are saying in the comments
What they post about

Do a check and balance. Don’t copy, just compare and find the gap. Learn from your findings.

Research on the YouTube algorithm.

Check on the best kind of thumbnail that works, the best way to post videos, how to add links, Editing methods, text pop-ups, other effects, etc.

Optimize your videos to be seen.

This is by doing keyword research to find out what your audience is searching for. After creating a video, add these keywords at the right places while posting.

Add a keyword to your video: One main keyword and other related keywords
Add the main keyword in the video title
The main keyword plus others (1 to 2) in the video description
The main keyword within the first 3 sentences
Use video tags, it does well for SEO

Use timestamps

This is to break your video into chapters, giving your viewers the choice of skimming through.

Use a detailed video description.

While writing your description, go straight to the point and be sure to include the following:

Your website link
Links to other social media accounts
Links to your products or services mentioned in the video
A call to action

Use a beautiful thumbnail

This is very important for views. Let it not be a screenshot from your video. Use your photo and your brand’s element.

Youtube recommends your thumbnail to be in the 16:9 format with a minimum size of 1280×720 pixels

Upload and schedule your videos.

You can schedule with Hootsuite. Consider timing, the same way you do for your social media.

Optimize your channel to attract followers.

Make sure your channel and profile reflect your branding and maintain a consistent branding element throughout your videos.

Group your videos into playlists organized by topics

This will make your videos easy to be found.

Create a channel trailer

This is a commercial representing what your channel is all about. This is important to introduce what you’re about before you start creating content.

In your video:

Ask people to subscribe to your channel, like, comment and share
Have a clear call to action
Engage with your audience. Mention how your audience suggestions influenced your video
Use a custom end screen to direct viewers to your other content to keep them glued to your page
Add closed captioning
You can translate your caption

How to advertise on Youtube – Best tips for Youtube advertising

You don’t only use videos for advertising, you can use banners, text, images, etc. and you can make it skippable or unskippable.

Youtube runs through the Google ads platform and being successful at it requires a strategy of its own.

Before youtube ads:

Make sure you understand your audience.
Make sure your channel is well optimized.
Upload at least 5 to 10 videos so your new audience will have something to view.

Types of YouTube ads

Skippable in-stream ads.
Non-skippable in-stream ads (including bumper ads).
Video discovery ads (formerly known as in-display ads).
Non-video ads (i.e., overlays and banners).

Note that display ads can also be shown on YouTube. They are not videos, they’re just text and a thumbnail, and they show up across Google’s Display network.

Best tips on how to advertise on youtube

How to advertise on Youtube: Choose the best ad format for your goal

There are many different ad formats available for Youtube advertising. From bumper ads to sponsored cards to display ads to skippable or non-skippable video ads.

What’s your goal for advertising on YouTube?

That should guide you in choosing the right format for you.

If your goal is for Brand awareness, then Trueview in-stream ads will be more suitable so that people will see it better while they’re watching a video.

And if it’s for getting leads to your website, display ads are the best.

How to advertise on Youtube: Each ad format should have a different campaign.

If you’re using multiple formats for your campaigns it’s best to have a different budget and strategy for each format so it will be easier to monitor and manage.

Since each format performs differently, you should approach them differently.

How to advertise on youtube: Target the right people

Target people who are already interested in your product. Take advantage of the Youtube targeting algorithm for this.

How to advertise on youtube: Don’t joke with retargeting

Once someone shows interest in your product, target them. This is because they’ve already indicated an interest in your brand either by liking any of your videos, visiting your page, etc.

They are your warm audience and they would be more likely to buy than people who haven’t engaged with your brand at all.

How to advertise on Youtube: Put a strong call to action

Also, make use of interactive content in your video.

E.g call to action cards, auto-end screens, etc.

The main goal for your ads is to convert and you can’t do this without a strong call to action.

How to advertise on Youtube: Create quality content

In creating your videos for YouTube ads, don’t forget that content is the ultimate.

It determines if viewers will click your call to action or watch till the end.

Invest in creating good content, you can hire the best digital marketing agency to do it for you.

How to set up your Youtube ads

From your Google ads account, select “New campaign”
Choose your campaign goals based on your marketing objectives.

It could be:

Sales.
Leads.
Website traffic.
Product/brand consideration.
Brand awareness and reach etc.

Select your campaign type

Your campaign type could be search results, text, shopping, etc. Then select the video(since you want to advertise on Youtube) and select the type you want.

Side note: Name a campaign in a way to easily locate and manage it.

Define your campaign parameters

This is where you select your big strategy and budget.

For Bid strategy, it could be for Conversions, Clicks, or Impressions.

Then enter your budget and the dates your ads will be run.

Select where your ads will show up

Your ads could either run on:

Discovery only(Youtube search results
All of youtube(search results, channel pages, videos, and homepage)
YouTube display network(non-YouTube affiliate website)

Select your language and location

Select how sensitive you want your ads to be.

I.e how much profanity, violence, or sexually suggestive videos you’re willing to run your ads in

Target your audience by demographics and interests. Don’t forget to remarket to your warm audience.
Launch your campaign. Enter the link to your campaign video and click on the create button

How to advertise on Youtube: YouTube ad specs

YouTube has specs to use for the different types of ads.

It is always best to consider them while creating your videos for ads so you don’t run into complications later.

YouTube ad specs (for Discovery ads)

File format: AVI, ASF, Quicktime, Windows Media, MP4 or MPEG
Video Codec: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4
Audio Codec: AAC-LC or MP3
Aspect ratio: 16:9 or 4:3 is recommended, but YouTube will automatically adapt the file depending on the aspect ratio and device
Frame rate: 30 FPS
Maximum file size: 1 GB for Discovery ads
YouTube video ad length guidelines – Minimum length