Small Businesses Have A Place on YouTube
People spend an insane amount of time on YouTube. We’re talking multiple hours a day. It’s a major social media site where billions of users log in on a daily basis and millions of videos are shared. Still, smaller businesses often overlook Youtube as a means of advertising. Done well, YouTube ads can help grow your business like crazy. But, they can also be intimidating if you don’t understand how to use them.
Let’s explore the main types of Youtube ads, which one you should use for your business, and how you should be using them.
Main Types of YouTube Ads & Which One’s Right for You
Like most things in the marketing world, which type of ad you should use depends on what you want to accomplish. We’ll do our best here to lay them out in simple terms so you can make a good decision!
Basically, there are three main types of YouTube ads: TrueView in-stream ads, TrueView video discovery ads, and bumper ads. One more type of ad is outstream ads, which we’ll cover briefly.
TrueView in-stream ads
These ads appear before other videos and let you choose how much you want to pay for a view and how long you want your video ad to be. They can also appear on other websites in the form of display ads (think Facebook video ads).
TrueView in-stream ads can be longer than 30 seconds, but they give viewers the option to skip your ad after 5 seconds. You’re only charged if a viewer watches for longer than 30 seconds, or for the duration of the entire ad (if it’s less than 30 seconds long).
TrueView video discovery ads
These ads consist of a video and short description and appear in a somewhat more organic way. Your ad could show up in three places: next to other related YouTube videos, in search results, or on the YouTube mobile homepage. The only way a person will watch this type of ad is if they click on it and choose to watch it. Because of that, you’re charged for each view.
For some in-depth info on how to set up TrueView in-stream or video discovery ads, check out this article from Google.
Bumper ads
These are pretty typical ads. They’re always 6 seconds or less and play before, during, or after other videos. Users also can’t skip these ads. So, no matter who sees them, they’ll see the whole thing.
Bumper ads are great for spreading brand awareness and increasing the reach of your business. Plus, you only pay each time your ad is shown 1,000 times.
Outstream ads
This is a smaller sector of ads that only show up on mobile devices like phones and tablets. For more info on these guys, read this article!
Which Type of YouTube Ad Should You be Running?
While all three types of ads are great, they do all serve different purposes. Google offers suggestions for which type of ad is best depending on your goals, so we suggest checking out this post.
How You Should be Using YouTube to Grow Your Business
Remember how we said billions of people log into YouTube every day? We aren’t actually exaggerating. That makes YouTube one of the best ways to bring awareness to your brand and company.
YouTube ads can also be just as targeted as any other ad. This means you’re reaching only the people who will find your company interesting and relevant. If you own a clothing company, you can show ads to people watching videos about fashion and style.
There’s a video for everything on YouTube, all you have to do is find the right ones that interest people in your target demographic.
Get Started!
Ready to jump into YouTube ads? Excellent! Even if you’re not, we definitely suggest learning more about this massive market. Check out this post that offers detailed steps explaining how to set up your basic ads.
If you’re really ready to get into it, this post explains how to use YouTube for remarketing. Another awesome way you can get more sales through YouTube!
Let us know your thoughts and questions about YouTube ads in the comments!
