As of 2016, YouTube has 1.3 billion users that watch 4.95 billion videos a day. Regardless of whether or not you’re looking to use the internet as a tool to grow your business or just a casual YouTube user, those statistics are absolutely mind-blowing.

But even more mind-blowing is the fact that only 9% of small business in the United States actually use YouTube for their marketing purposes.

That is a huge oversight. YouTube reaches more people in a wide demographic than any network on cable TV. Viewers watched over 1 billion minutes of the top YouTube ads in 2014.

If you’re a small business owner looking to advertise, you don’t want to miss out on using YouTube as prime advertising real estate. But, if those statistics weren’t enough to convince you, read on to learn more about just how powerful YouTube advertising really is.

As anyone with experience in creating video ads will tell you, making engaging video content is much harder than you might expect. It’s nothing at all like writing text or putting together an image for an ad. But all of the benefits of using the YouTube advertisement opportunities makes all of that effort absolutely worth it.

How? It gives marketers an affordable alternative to traditional advertising on television.

For years, TV ads have been at the top of the media advertising game. But for an average 30-second spot on a program that is televised nationally, the cost can go over $100,000. So for anyone who is running a small to medium business, those advertisement slots are more than a little out of reach.

YouTube came along and changed all that.

YouTube is our new TV. Television engagement has been rapidly declining, but YouTube engagement is skyrocketing.

Every day, people all around the world watch over 1 billion hours of YouTube. That’s equal to 100,000 years, which is more than human history, all in one single day.

YouTube has a huge reach and incredible viewership, but that’s not all it offers. It also comes with the benefit of being much more accessible than conventional advertising methods. Instead of paying thousands of dollars for a thirty second TV ad, you pay only pennies per view.

Add that to the fact that you only have to pay if the viewer actually watches the ad for more than 30 seconds, and you have a recipe for success at an affordable price.

People who watch YouTube ads the entire way through are 23 times more likely to visit or subscribe to a brand or channel. These people are sharing videos and watching more videos involving these companies every day. And even when your viewer isn’t watching all the way to the end, they’re still ten times more likely to do those things anyway.

YouTube advertising works. Here’s how.

Google offers a few different advertising options on YouTube. You can choose TrueVuew in-stream ads, TrueView video discovery ads, and bumper ads.

TrueView In-Stream Ads

When you think about YouTube advertising, you probably think about TrueView in-stream ads. These ads are the ones that pop up right before the video you selected starts to play.

Most of the time, viewers have to watch the ad for at least 5 seconds before they get to make a choice. They are allowed to either skip the ad and continue to their video or keep watching the ad to the end.

If you set them up in your YouTube video, you can create cards or screens at the ends of videos that will encourage viewers to do something like click through to your website. You can also set up a clickable call-to-action also known as a CTA that YouTube will display during the first seconds of your video.

These CTA spaces give your audience a way to take action after viewing your ad. While they aren’t as eye-catching as a card or end screen, they still look more professional than a typical YouTube card does.

Regardless, it’s a good idea to set up cards and end screens on your YouTube video.

You can also create non-skippable video ads that play before videos. These ads can be run before or in the middle of videos. These ad videos have to be 15-20 seconds in length.

The best part about TrueView in-stream ads is the copious amounts of information that AdWords gives you about your video. You can see how many people watch your video the whole way through, how quickly they click away, what your click-through rates are, and so much more.

That’s a heck of a lot more than television offers.

TrueView Video Discover Ads

You might know these ads by their old name. YouTube used to call this advertisement option In-Display Ads. These aren’t as well known as in-stream ads, but they’re still common. If you’ve ever used the search function on YouTube, you’ve seen a video discover ad at the top of your search results.

Just like on Google, YouTube places ads before the results you were looking for.

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Video discover ads are great for when you’re trying to promote a video that’s longer than 15-60 seconds.

No matter how interested people are in your video content, they aren’t going to wait for a long in-stream video to finish before they click away and get to what they were actually trying to watch before you interrupted them.

But, if they click on your ad after they saw it in the search results, they want to see your video and they are much more likely to stick around until the end of a longer ad.

Bumper Ads

Bumper ads are short non-skippable ads that are mostly used to build and reinforce brand awareness. These ads are pretty much the opposite of video discovery ads.

They aren’t commonly used, due to the way that YouTube works. When you pay per view, it makes sense that you would want to run a longer ad that has a higher chance of generating clicks and new business.

But bumper ads can still be a great way to build people’s familiarity with your business or to reinforce a campaign. This is a great way to reinforce the message of your other videos without repeatedly bombarding your viewers with the same content over and over again.

Bumper ads work best for this approach because they’re so short and don’t allow for messaging or true advertising. If you don’t want to frustrate your audience or force them to stay in one place for too long, this is a great way to go.

If you’re hoping to use these ads as a way to get people to head to your website, you’ll need to make sure that your webpage is set up to handle the incoming traffic. It will have to be user-friendly across multiple platforms and make it clear what users need to do next. This is especially important if they want to take action based on the information in the ad that brought them there in the first place.

There are a bunch of different ways you can target your videos to reach the people you want them to reach, as well. This is something that TV advertisements just can’t do.

When you target your audience, you define who you want your video ads to reach. Using traditional keywords is one way, but you can include a variety of methods.

Demographic Groups

When you use demographic groups, you can select the age, gender, parental status, or household income of the group of people you’d like to reach. YouTube has an incredibly wide scope of viewership all along every demographic, so narrowing down who you want your ad to reach is a great way to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck.

Interests

You can pick from a bunch of different categories to reach people who are interested in some topics, even when they are visiting pages about other topics.

You can reach affinity audiences to raise brand awareness and drive people to consider your ads when you reach those who already have an interest in topics relevant to your brand.

You can even customize those affinity audiences and create one that is more tailored to your brand. This goes beyond the scope of normal broad, TV-like affinity audiences. Instead of just trying to reach “moms” you could aim for “moms with boys under three.”

You can reach potential customers on YouTube and Gmail when their purchasing behavior and brand preference changes during major life events. YouTube targeting lets you focus on people who are moving, graduating from college, having a baby, or getting married.

There are also in-market audiences you can select from to find people that are researching products and trying to make informed decisions about buying a product similar to the one you offer.

YouTube even creates custom lists for you automatically when you link your Google account to your AdWords account.

One of the best ways YouTube has changed their advertising effectiveness is by making sure that they appear on more than just your desktop. Now, their ad placements are 100% mobile-friendly.

This is the perfect way for your advertisements to reach your base customer no matter where they are. And when most people who watch YouTube do so from their phones, your viewership rates will skyrocket.

Thanks to the recent updates in Google’s search algorithm, early testing shows us that the new format has an increased CTR of over 11%. And the people that do click end up clicking on at least one other video from your brand within 24 hours of the first viewing.

That might not sound so important, but when you think about it from a brand perspective, it changes things. When someone who hasn’t ever heard of you watches two of your videos in under 24 hours, you move to the top of the mind for that viewer and you know they’re interested in what you’re offering them.

These same people are 500% more likely to click on your CTA. That will direct them even closer and help you hit your marketing goals. It takes someone who was a stranger just a day ago and turns them into a customer.

These ad formats are great for content other than saleable merchandise. Even if you’re just trying to promote something, these ads change the game. One of our clients reported seeing a 20% increase in subscriptions and over 600,000 more views on their page.

With this kind of benefit at the fraction of the cost of traditional TV marketing, there’s no reason why YouTube shouldn’t be at the forefront of your business’ marketing plan.

If the statistics alone weren’t enough to show you why you should use YouTube advertising for your business, then the rest of it should be. YouTube is clearly the best way to advertise your business online. It’s easy to use, it’s easy to target your customer, and it works.

The days of playing second fiddle to big companies who can afford to advertise in prime time slots on national TV are over. Now you can take control of your marketing for a fraction of the price and reach more people than ever.

YouTube gives you a chance to take your engaging content and put it in front of people who will use your services. It’s an irreplaceable tool, one that you should use now before the price goes up as the years go on.

For more information about how Billy Gene can build your business with marketing, contact us today.

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