Pay-per-click is big business for so many companies. These days, it’s not enough to have a solid organic search engine presence. You need to use as many platforms as possible to build your brand and attract the clients and customers you want.
One area I’ve been exploring more lately has been YouTube Ads. I’d already been using Facebook Ads and posting video content there, and the leads would be pretty decent. I’d have people message the company account wanting to buy products and services, but converting those leads into sales was always much more complicated.
Here’s why YouTube ads might be the way to go if you want to save money on brand awareness and get your company out to as many people as possible.
YouTube Has Been a Cornerstone of Internet Marketing Since 2005!
Even when I was just a little kid watching Camp Lazlo and Juniper Lee reruns on Cartoon Network, YouTube was already establishing itself as a revolutionary platform for people to express themselves however they wanted. I didn’t think YouTube would explode like it did back then. Back in 2005, I wrote about my favorite TV shows on platforms like TV.com and Movietome. I have many funny stories about the fanfiction I’d write and episode ideas I had. This is when I thought I would be a big-time artist or writer in the field one day, but life throws curveballs at you, so you go with the flow and adapt.
YouTube Has Become So Much More Since!
Over a decade later, YouTube has become a significant juggernaut in digital marketing. The amount of money your business can make by making video ads and using YouTube as a platform to reach people in your specified areas is nothing short of miraculous! In just a few hours, you can get hundreds of impressions and have many people click on your ad. It’s not true that everyone uses AdBlock now or has YouTube Premium. There are still people out there who watch YouTube for free and watch ads. You overlook a missed market of people who might convert if you spend much of your time only advertising on Google’s Search Network or even the Display Network.
I always say! Once you have one marketing channel down, like SEO, you move on to the next one and try to get that one right. Then, you keep building on your strategy, like baking a cake and adding the sprinkles and frosting on top as you go. All these channels affect each other, and relying on just one for long-term business growth is a mistake.
Diversify Your Digital Marketing Strategies
The great value investor Warren Graham once said:
“The essence of investment management is the management of risks, not the management of returns.”
Source: Alliance Bernstein
Digital marketing is the same to me. There are many strategies and platforms, but you pick the ones that will bring you long-term success. You want to avoid placing your eggs in one basket.
Don’t be one of these businesses or people panicking about the latest Core Update from Google with SEO. You want to ensure that even if your site does experience a drop in traffic for a while, you’re still advertising on other platforms and getting the leads you need to survive.
This is what I’ve been saying for a while. Bing is a major platform that more people need to start looking into, ensuring your site is on Bing Webmaster Tools. I need to post about this soon and explain in detail why!
So Why YouTube Ads? What’s So Special About Them?
Easy! YouTube ads, from my experience so far, has been very cost-effective. You need to ensure your video is at least 10 seconds long and will be eligible to run on their platform.
Also, if you love location targeting, you will love YouTube ads. It’s so easy to bulk import your location targeting from your Search and Display Network ads. YouTube ads run from the same account where you log in to manage other kinds of Google Ads. It’s lovely that Google has made it easy to access everything from the same account. There’s no having to go on Facebook, log onto their Ads Manager, and then get lost by how vast everything is.
Despite my reservations about many of the recommendations they sent me, Google did the best job of making their product simple and easy to use. Occasionally, there’s something really good worth applying, like adding a customer match list or creating a new audience segment, like in this screenshot:
Anyway, I’m pleased with my early results from YouTube ads. The interaction rates have been incredibly high, and since also changing our automated bidding strategy from Maximize Clicks to Maximize Conversions, I’ve saved even more money and not have as much irrelevant traffic. Maximize Clicks is a good strategy for the first month or so of having the account up and running to gather data, but then you want to start thinking more about increasing your conversions and driving more sales. At that point, it makes perfect sense to experiment with other strategies. I used to do Manual CPC only for years, but I think Google has improved with their automated strategies, so I’ve adapted them into my workflow.
Here’s a screenshot of what I’ve seen:
Conclusion
YouTube Ads are an excellent investment if you know how to use them properly. In a world where video content is blowing up with platforms like TikTok taking center stage, you must do all you can to stay ahead of your competition to get the desired results. YouTube is a great starting point; the best part is you don’t need to make the fanciest video content either.
You can easily make simple animated ads telling people about your discounts and special offers and keep it simple. Then, you use sites like Canva to help you make the ads and ensure they fit Google’s dimensions. Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope you learned something today. I sure did!
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