Home Mavericks How to Maximize ROI from YouTube Ads?
The success of digital advertisement campaigns is evaluated by the percentage of return it brings back to the merchant. The online stores and corporate concerns are allocating hefty budgets, but unable to get the required return on investment (ROI).
The reason is the viewer-friendly ad format that is designed to permit users in skipping or viewing an ad. Such an advertising technique can be useful for brand awareness and maximizing fan following, but not conversions. These ads do have an appeal to watch, but lack an invitation to take action. The absence of a call to action makes it a nightmare for marketers to generate leads and sales.
Another major reason of the poor ROI of YouTube ads is treating it like a conventional media tool. Most of the corporations ignore the mega difference between social and electronic media. Thus, they create an attractive video and make it go live parallel on multiple platforms such as local TV Channels and YouTube.
In order to make the most out of this amazing and widely used video sharing network, you must understand its nature, scope, and common user behavior towards watching videos. For your assistance, you have compiled some of the valuable tips that may help you better evaluate the platform and mold your advertising campaigns for higher ROI. These are discussed below.
The quality and quantity (i.e. Length) both of a video has an equal significance when it comes to advertising on a video sharing network. Creative and appealing video content has the power to compel the users in viewing the ad for long. So, producing ultimate quality videos is important that is followed by displaying them at the right moment.
The YouTube advertisement has multiple formats that are classified with respect to the user intent. It is suggested to sit in-stream ad format for short videos (i.e. Around 30 seconds).
The users watching their favorite movies, talk shows, or serials would like to watch a quick advertisement without skipping it. On the other hand, for comprehensive videos, the home page of your channel is the right place for engaging users and communicating a message.
You can try producing video content of varying length and test the effectiveness of each for your specific business needs. Your YouTube channel may either succeed with the conventional practices or the one crafted by your creative team.
Most of the brands commit a common mistake like showing YouTube ads at the time without specifying the moment when viewers are more likely to watch the ads. This is one of the major misunderstandings in advertising on the YouTube that is quite different and difficult than the conventional television ads.
The conventional advertising on television requires marketers to spend lavishly on producing an ad and showing it all the day on multiple local and global channels according to the audience base. This does not work with YouTube.
People open it on their smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices to relief the all-day-long stress. So, they won't tolerate any corporate concern to peep into their personal time with an ad they are not interested even to watch, forget about the conversions. Stop annoying your target customers by scheduling the ad to display when are fresh and in need.
For example, a suitable time to target parents for a family tour is the evening they spend with kids. One can start promoting appealing offers in the evening after the midweek. Like, most of the parents start planning their weekend right from the Wednesday and tend to finalize it by Thursday or Friday. The inappropriate time would by sponsoring ads on the early morning of the Mondays when they have already enjoyed previous weekend and not interested to plan another one so soon.
You can find valuable data for creating an ad campaign with the targeting tools available on YouTube. These tools can help you know the age, gender, and young children of the viewers, plus the day and time of the week they usually browse videos.
Before you create an ad, you need to understand different ad formats available under YouTube's TrueView advertising. You can select among 4 different types that include in-stream ads, in-slate ads, in-search ads, and in-display ads. Two of them you may need the most are discussed below.
In-stream ads appear on the video with a freedom for the users either to skip the ad or watch it in full. The sponsors for these ads are only charged if the user selects to watch the video either full or the first 30 seconds of it. These ads are beneficial for both short as well as long videos.
In-search ads display in the search results when a user tries to find content with a keyword similar to your advertising campaign. The viewers find your videos in the search results. They can click to watch the content. Hence, the sponsor is charged accordingly.
Being an advertiser, you can save the budget on YouTube by selecting TrueView ad format as most of the users are comfortable skipping or watching the ad.
YouTube advertisement can be done for an endless number of purposes. The celebrities may be looking for exposure, whereas businesses are chasing a higher return on investment. But, they confuse the conversion rate with the click-through rate.
Increasing the click-through rate may increase the number of watch hours but not necessarily bring you the expected conversions. For businesses, the actual return on investment is the increase of conversion rate. It is the percentage of viewers who subscribe, buy, or take action after watching your video content.
To increase the conversion rate, you need to enable auto-playing the videos on the home page of your YouTube channel rather than the watch page. This is a win-win situation because it ensures the delivery of a call to action to your targeted users and builds the authority of your business as well. The users watching a video on the watch page may not bother to know the sponsor or producer of the content, or they may forget it altogether. But, bringing them to the channel page gives them the opportunity to subscribe for updates.
Uploading videos will not help if the entire channel is not optimized for the ease and comfort of the viewers. The home page of a YouTube channel has the potential to engage the users and take action that's why marketers can better utilize it for maximizing return on investment. One can make benefit of the free space with branding, social media exposure, exhibiting relevant videos, and promotional banners.
The common behavior of a YouTube audience is different than the viewers of television. People are concerned with finding entertainment and useful stuff with a consensus on what different or special a channel it. Be creative in adding lucrative content to create a spellbinding experience right on the home page.
YouTube does incorporate a clickable banner on the home page of banners that can either be used for diverting viewers to other valuable videos or to your online store. Most of the marketers ignore the importance the use of such banners and don't bother to spend time in refining it for better conversions.
Optimizing your YouTube channel may not directly influence your advertising campaign, but it creates an overall bewitching experience of increase click-through rate and conversions. The addition of a clickable banner may not benefit marketers if they have a different goal. But, it is a useful option for merchants seeking conversions from YouTube without spending on ads.
The potential buyers usually do not take action for the first time you promote a video ad. Some may ignore, but others would like to keep an eye on your business and the way you promote stuff. They tend to build trust.
Hence, they often take action after viewing an ad more than 7-8 times. Accountants and cost accumulation experts may include re-marketing as an expense, but the marketing gurus call it an investment like spending money to make more.
YouTube is a sensation that has engulfed people of all ages and stages to continue viewing entertaining, educational, and amusing content without major distraction and hindrance. They accept a few ads but showing an ad in excess will promote a negative impact on your business rather than a positive notion. Valuable tips for maximizing return on investment are shared in this post, whereas advertising on YouTube is a continuous learning experience. You shall try and test different strategies, and evaluate what works best for your business.
Asad is an internet marketing expert having more than 8 years of experience. Currently he is working for GO-Gulf Saudi Arabia – a custom web design company. His expertise includes online traffic generation, targeting relevant audience and conversion optimization. You can reach him on LinkedIn.
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