Knowing how to run YouTube ads can help you take full advantage of this invaluable paid media channel.Recent innovations in YouTube ads, including YouTube Shorts and enhanced targeting, have revolutionized this channel, helping you establish a strong connection with your audiences with the right approach.
In this blog, Ignite Visibility’s Director of Paid Media, Scott McCutchan, will provide some key insights into how YouTube advertisement works, its importance, and how to get the most from your ads on YouTube.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why Running Ads on YouTube is Essential
- Where Do YouTube Ads Run?
- How Much Do YouTube Ads Cost?
- 7 Types of YouTube Ads
- Should You Run Ads on YouTube?
- How to Build Your Own Ad Campaigns
- Metrics to Measure YouTube Campaign Success
- YouTube Ads FAQs
My Expert Opinion on YouTube Ads
I find ads on YouTube to be an effective and efficient way of reaching target users, and expect more advertisers to adopt video advertising in the future considering YouTube’s ever-growing popularity.
There are plenty of tools and recommendations to help advertisers run effective campaigns on YouTube. However, it is important to understand when it is best to advertise on YouTube.
- When you are looking to scale and diversify your media mix, especially after learning what creatives perform well on Performance Max and META.
- When you want to connect with a broader range of user segments, potentially allowing for more reach than even Performance Max campaigns.
Ultimately, it’s critical to know how to run YouTube ads if you want to broaden your reach and supplement other paid media campaigns.
Why Running Ads on YouTube is Essential
As the second-most visited website in the world, YouTube has grown into a massive visual search engine, bringing in roughly 94.6 billion total visits every month. On average, there are over 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute.
Here are some other compelling reasons to run a YouTube advertisement campaign for your business:
Consider the Reach and Usage of YouTube Ads
When you consider how many people watch YouTube through other apps, such as WhatsApp, its reach is even higher than its registered users.
In fact, when you break down the data even further, YouTube users spend an average of 28 hours and five minutes on the platform each month, which is more than any other social media platform. Facebook comes in second place with 19.6 hours per month.
Advertisers don’t compete with the messaging, news updates, and posts from friends and family that they do on social channels, making it similar to TV–but with more control over who sees your ads.
After all, when users watch YouTube ads to completion, they are twice as likely to make a purchase based on what they saw on YouTube.
The Flexibility of Ads on YouTube
Not to mention, unlike Search and Shopping Ads, which follow a more structured formula, YouTube Ads give brands the flexibility to advertise in a way that best suits their business.
You’ll have the option to capture leads, feature products, or share your brand’s story, insights, and more.
In the second quarter of 2024 alone, YouTube’s worldwide ad revenue amounted to over $8.66 billion dollars. This stat further illustrates how popular YouTube advertisement campaigns are among marketers, making it one of the most important channels to use for any business.
Where Do YouTube Ads Run?
YouTube ads can run in three main areas within videos, including:
- Pre-roll: These ads play before a video begins and may consist of skippable or non-skippable ads.
- Mid-roll: Mid-roll ads play throughout the video at various designated points, often acting as small commercial breaks.
- Post-roll: Some ads may also play at the end of the video.
In addition to these placements, ads on YouTube can work across platforms, including YouTube TV, along with desktop and mobile app versions of YouTube. Via YouTube TV, ads can also come in the form of commercial breaks during scheduled TV programs, which could supplement your YouTube ads.
How Much Do Ads on YouTube Cost?
The cost of a YouTube ad campaign will depend on the specific objective of your campaign. Additionally, it will depend on your YouTube advertisement budget and projected costs in the years ahead.
The two main focus areas of campaigns include awareness and conversion. An awareness-focused campaign has an average cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) of $5 to $20, while conversion-focused campaigns cost around $10 to $60 on average.
In 2024, the average cost of a YouTube campaign is around $0.010 to $0.030 per view, which translates to around $1,000 to $3,000 for every 100,000 viewers.
Ultimately, the price for YouTube ads will depend on several key factors, such as:
- Ad types
- Bids
- Bidding selection
- Audience targeting
7 Types of YouTube Ads
As mentioned, YouTube Ads come in a few different flavors, ranging from skippable in-stream ads to boosted posts that feature alongside organic content.
Keep in mind that most marketers tend to use either Skippable In-Stream and In-Feed ads, seeing as these work with all campaign types. However, you may also opt for Non-Skippable In-Stream, Bumper, Masthead, or Outstream ads if you want to build more brand awareness.
Here’s a look at your options and some key things to know about each one.
1. Skippable In-Stream Ads
Skippable In-Stream Ads are likely the first thing that comes to mind when you think “YouTube Ads.”
These ads reach users who are specifically interested in your product. You can target your ideal audience, but since you’re only charged for views, you won’t waste money when you don’t quite get it right.
What Is a Skippable YouTube Video Ad?
See, Skippable Ads allow users to skip after five seconds and only charge advertisers when someone watches an ad for at least 30 seconds. And if someone watches an ad to completion, you can bet they’re interested in what you have to say.
Where Do Skippable Ads Run?
Skippable YouTube video ads typically run as pre-roll ads before a video begins on YouTube, enabling users to skip the ad and begin the video after a certain amount of time.
Who Do Skippable Ads Reach?
These ads are viewable to users accessing YouTube or Google Video Partners (GVP) through their computer, mobile device, TV, or game console. You can also remarket to viewers of this ad, which is a great way to get even more exposure to people who have some knowledge of your product.
Skippable ads can run for an unlimited amount of time, but Google recommends running them for no longer than three minutes.
What Assets Do You Need for Skippable Ads?
There are a few assets required to run these ads, according to YouTube, including:
- Your video link (URL)
- The destination URL that matches your ad
- The display URL appearing in your ad
- A companion banner image that shows up beside your ad on desktops
Notable Features of Skippable Ads
After 5 seconds, users can skip these ads to continue viewing the video.
Best Practice for Skippable Ads
Because of people’s ability to skip them in 5 seconds, it’s important to grab users’ attention as quickly as possible to get the most from these ads. The right approach when you run a skippable YouTube ad campaign will keep viewers’ attention.
2. Non-Skippable In-Stream Ads
You can also use YouTube unskippable ads in 2024, which offer certain advantages when running new ads on YouTube.
What Are Non-Skippable YouTube Campaigns?
Non-skippable ads are longer in-stream ads with a 15 or 20-second limit.
These ads don’t come with a banner like their Skippable counterparts and are typically used to generate awareness and reach watchers with your entire message.
This format lets advertisers share the entire message in one go, unlike Skippable Ads.
Who Do Non-Skippable Ads Reach?
These ads have wide audience availability and are viewable on computers, mobile devices, TVs, and game consoles.
Where Do Non-Skippable Ads Run?
Non-skippable ads appear in YouTube videos along with GVP in-stream and GVP app videos, and they have a maximum length of 15 to 30 seconds, during which time users won’t be able to skip.
What Assets Do You Need to Run Ads on YouTube That Are Non-Skippable?
For non-skippable YouTube video advertising, you will need the following assets:
- Your YouTube ad’s video link (URL)
- The destination URL that works with your ad
- The display URL that appears in the ad
- A companion banner image that shows up alongside ads on desktops
Notable Features of Non-Skippable Ads
These ads are around 15 seconds or shorter in most cases, but they can run for as long as 60 seconds on YouTube TV. They’re ideal for brand awareness and extending your reach.
Best Practice for YouTube Unskippable Ads in 2024
Keep in mind that the extended length may impact campaign costs. CPM rates are higher than other ad formats, so you’ll want to make sure you target the right audience.
3. Bumper Ads
You can also run ads on YouTube with bumper ads to supplement skippable and non-skippable formats.
What Are Bumper Ads?
Bumper ads are Non-Skippable but super short–there’s a six-second limit, so you’ll need to get your message out fast.
Where Do Bumper Ads Run and Who Do They Reach?
Just like Skippable In-Stream Ads and Non-Skippable Ads, Bumper Ads are viewable to users accessing YouTube through their computer, mobile device, TV, or game console.
Bumper ads can appear in YouTube and GVP videos both in-stream and on an app.
What Assets Do You Need to Run Bumper Ads?
If you want to learn how to run a YouTube ad with bumpers, you’ll need the following key assets:
- A video that runs 6 seconds or less
- A thumbnail image with a 1280 x 720 px or 1280 x 640 px resolution
- A short description running up to two lines with 35 characters each
- A destination URL to a corresponding landing page
Best Practices for Running Bumper Ads
I recommend approaching Bumper Ads one idea at a time with awareness and brand affinity in mind. You only have six seconds to get your idea across, so your best bet is to highlight a benefit or a feeling someone might get from using your product or service.
With Bumper Ads (and Non-Skippable In-Streams, too) you’ll want to pay close attention to ad frequency. If you’re hitting someone in a tiny audience 10, 20, or 30 times in a month, your attempt to connect with new users will probably backfire.
4. In-Feed Video Ads
If you want to discover how to run a YouTube ad outside of videos, you can also use in-feed ads to supplement in-stream ads.
What Are In-Feed Video Ads?
In-feed ads run outside of videos in users’ feeds, helping you further expand your reach when users aren’t actively watching videos.
Where Do In-Feed Video Ads Run
In-Feed Video Ads show up on the YouTube Home feed, Watch feed, and Search feed.
Who Sees In-Feed Video Ads?
With in-feed ads, YouTube shows your content to viewers who are actively engaged in looking for a product or service like yours. These people will be intentionally trying to watch an In-Feed Ad, compared to in-stream ads and bumper ads, which force users to watch the ad. Discovery ads should feel like the type of video content brands post on their YouTube channel.
Assets Required to Run In-Feed Video Ads
If you want to run new ads on YouTube using in-feed ads, you’ll need these assets:
- A public or unlisted video to feature in your ads
- A thumbnail serving as a preview
- A concise headline of up to 100 characters
- A description of up to 2 lines with 35 characters per line
Notable Features of In-Feed Video Ads
This type of ad is shown on the YouTube home feed and during YouTube searches. One of the benefits of these ads is that they have no maximum length.
Best Practices for In-Feed Video Ads
This format is best reserved for content that tells a story. Think reviews, walk-throughs, tutorials—anything that answers questions, informs, or entertains. These are the topics you’d cover in a long-form blog post, whereas other ad formats should function more like your web copy.
The challenge is getting users to click, as again, there’s no forced viewing going on here.
5. Outstream Ads
You may also reach people outside of YouTube using outstream ads as part of your YouTube ad campaigns.
What Are Outstream Ads?
Think of outstream ads as a friend to your YouTube ads. They don’t appear on YouTube itself but they do appear on Google Video Partners’ sites. Brands use this type of ad to raise awareness and remind previous viewers of their content about their brand while those viewers are browsing other sites.
These ads have no maximum length so you can make them as long or as short as you would like. The views are reported in Google Ads and you can use the data obtained from them to remarket your content to previous viewers.
Where Do Outstream Ads Run?
Outstream ads only appear on mobile devices on Google Video Partner websites. They can appear in banners on mobile websites, or they may show up in apps in the form of banners, in-feed ads, interstitials, native, fullscreen, or portrait ads.
Who Sees Outstream Ads?
When you launch ads on YouTube, users may see connected ads on other websites and apps that keep them aware of your brand in the hope of bringing them back to you. Over time, users may click on those outside ads if they don’t engage with in-feed or in-stream YouTube video ads.
What Assets Do You Need for Outstream Ads in a YouTube Campaign?
To supplement your YouTube video advertising campaign with outstream ads, you will require these assets:
- A logo of 200 x 200 px, with a 200 KB max file size in JPG, PNG, or GIF format
- A thumbnail preview image
- A description with a 15 character limit
- Corresponding URL to a connected landing page
- A video of 15 seconds to 6 minutes long
- Captions for your video
Notable Features of Outstream Ads
Outstream ads come in various formats for apps and can also engage people on mobile websites, working together with YouTube advertisements to maximize your brand’s reach.
Best Practices for Outstream Ads
To get the most from these ads, ensure their visuals and branding are aligned with your YouTube ads. Doing so will increase recognition and lend your brand some credibility, encouraging people to convert outside of YouTube.
6. Masthead Ads
Want to grab people’s attention right when people load up YouTube? Masthead ads can help.
What Are Masthead Ads?
Masthead ads are the big ads you see at the top of your YouTube home screen. While these ads will give you fantastic exposure, they are usually limited to big brands and off-limits to smaller businesses and brands.
Where Do Masthead Ads Run?
People will see these ads when first going into YouTube, right at the top of the home screen for maximum visibility.
YouTube users with ads visible will see these ads when visiting their home pages, typically when loading the YouTube website on their desktops or mobile devices.
What Assets Do You Need for Masthead Ads?
To run these ads, you will need:
- A public video with a 16:9 aspect ratio and an autoplay of 30 seconds or less
- Your channel’s name and icon
- Headline text of up to 26 characters
- Description text
- A call-to-action
- A thumbnail
- A corresponding destination URL
Notable Features of Masthead Ads
These ads use responsive formatting to serve the most relevant ads to users based on their feeds and interests. As such, there’s more flexibility when incorporating assets into these ads to provide users with the best ad experience.
Expert Insights into Masthead Ads
You can only set up a masthead ad through a YouTube sales representative. This probably means that the price point is pretty high.
However, you can buy two different types of Masthead ads through a Google Representative, including Cost-Per-Thousand Impression (CPM) and Cost-Per-Hour (CPH) ads.
7. YouTube Shorts Ads
Another type of YouTube campaign you might want to run involves Shorts ads.
What Are YouTube Shorts Ads?
These are ads that play in users’ YouTube Shorts feeds between each video.
At this time, users can swipe these ads as soon as they run, so they should be as engaging as possible to grab users’ attention from the start.
Where Do YouTube Shorts Ads Run?
These ads are designed for the vertical format of Shorts videos, making it crucial to format them vertically before publishing them, and they can run for up to 60 seconds.
Who Do YouTube Shorts Ads Reach?
Shorts ads are great if you want to capture users who favor short-form content and might not engage as much with traditional YouTube ads, further increasing your reach and engagement.
What Assets Do You Need for YouTube Shorts Ads?
You’ll need the following assets to run these ads:
- A video with a 9:16 aspect ratio that runs between 10 and 60 seconds
- A short title with a maximum of 100 characters
- A description of up to 5,000 characters
- HEX codes including your brand logo, images, colors, and text
Notable Features of YouTube Shorts Ads
You can run these ads using images or videos. They appear both in users’ Shorts feeds and between Shorts videos.
Best Practices for YouTube Shorts Ads
When launching new ads on YouTube for Shorts, it’s important that your ads feel organic and naturally fit in users’ feeds or between Shorts. In other words, come across more as a creator than a brand.
Also, include a clear CTA that leads viewers to the next step to maximize conversions.
So, Should You Actually Run YouTube Ads?
In general, YouTube is one of the best opportunities for brands of all sizes and industries. But whether it is right for you depends on understanding the platform and having a strategy in place that you can build upon.
Here are a few things to think about before it makes sense to start running ads on the platform.
Do You Have a YouTube Channel? Does it Have Content?
To be successful on YouTube’s ad platform, you’ll want to have an established channel in place. The reason is, A: you’ll need a channel for hosting your videos (I’ll walk you through setting one up, here) and B: if your ad is effective, viewers will likely check out your channel for more content.
If someone clicks through and there’s nothing there–well, it’s a missed opportunity. You’ll undermine the goodwill you’ve created in your ad and will likely miss out on the chance to grow an audience on the platform.
With that in mind, I recommend taking some time to create a library of high-quality organic content before investing in an ad strategy. If you’re new to the YouTube game, check out these 17 tools for video optimization.
Understand the Costs Involved
Unfortunately, a lot of brands burn through a ton of money because they fail to set up their ads the right way.
So, what is the price for YouTube ads? On average, YouTube video ad campaigns run between $10-$50 per day, while an ad would cost between $0.10-0.30 per view or action, depending on your video quality, targeting, and marketing goals.
While the platform is considered an affordable advertising strategy (bidding is less competitive than on search), it’s easy to blow your entire budget by failing to build campaigns on a solid foundation.
Cost per acquisition is higher than other channels. More expensive on YouTube than Google or Facebook—often three times more. But keep in mind that YouTube has a larger audience than Google so, even if your ad spend is more, your ad may reach more people.
You Should Always Have a Business Goal In Mind
Aside from considering the cost of advertising, your audience, and your existing mix of video content, you also need to think about what you hope to accomplish by running these ads.
As I mentioned above, YouTube can be expensive if you’re using the platform to generate leads. The best way to think about YouTube is as an awareness channel.
The reason is, users don’t typically hang out on YouTube because they want to watch ads. They’re looking at music videos, tutorials, watching movie trailers, or learning how to do something.
With that being said, here are some goals to strive for when serving ads:
- Boost Awareness: Use YouTube as a way to reach people who fit your customer profile, but may not know it yet. Target audiences based on existing customer interests and demographics.
- Brand Consideration: Use videos to reach people researching products in your category. In this case, you’ll want to target users based on keywords and search histories, getting in front of people who want to learn more about possible solutions. Here, you’ll really need to make the case for your product–features, benefits, and what you offer that no one else does.
- Grow Your Audience: Target lookalike audiences based on your best customers.
- Increase Brand Loyalty: Invite your customers to talk about your product in your videos and show prospects that you provide the best products and services in the business.
With that being said, here are some goals to strive for when serving ads:
That’s why you’ll want to consider where you want to run the ad to best support your goals. When you set up your campaign, Google will ask you to choose from the following ad networks.
- YouTube Search: YouTube Search shows your ads in the search results alongside organic content. This option is available exclusively to advertisers using the In-Feed format.
- YouTube Videos: YouTube Videos show video ads on the YouTube homepage, watch and channel pages. YouTube supports any of the ad formats mentioned above.
- Google Display Network (GDN): Try advertising on the display network if you’d like to take your video strategy outside of the YouTube platform. GDN supports In-Stream, In-Feed, and Bumper Ads, and promotes your website across a range of partner websites.
How to Advertise on YouTube
Now that you know more about the different types of ads on YouTube and whether you should advertise on YouTube, here’s a complete guide on how to run YouTube ads based on your ad types, goals, audiences, and targeted platforms.
Create A New Campaign
If you want to learn how to create YouTube ads, take these steps in our complete YouTube advertising how-to guide:
1. Upload Your Video
The first step you’ll take is to create a new YouTube campaign by uploading your video straight to YouTube.
2. Set Up Your Ads on YouTube With Google Ads
Next, within your Google Ads account, you’ll set up a new campaign. From the Overview section of your Ads dashboard, select the + to start a new campaign. For YouTube ads specifically, select Awareness and consideration for your campaign objective, and then Video for your campaign type.
Below, you’ll see a window come up with different campaign subtypes for YouTube ads. Pick between videos, reach, ad sequence, and audio.
3. Name Your Campaign
The next step is selecting your campaign name. Be specific and use a memorable name for your campaign to help you keep track of it.
4. Choose Your Bid Strategy
After that, you’ll select a bid strategy for your ad campaign, which will take into account your total spend.
Where Do You Want Your Ad to Appear?
To continue our YouTube advertising how-to guide, let’s get into ad placement.
1. Select Your YouTube Advertisement Networks
To start with, choose the networks you want to advertise on based on your preferences. Specifically, you can select YouTube or Google TV, depending on what kind of reach you want.
Additionally, you can opt to have ads appear in Google Video Partner platforms, including in-stream and app videos.
2. Choose Your Ad Location
Now, select a specific location for your ads.
Want to target global users? Choose all countries and territories. Going national or regional? Maybe you’ll want to include only U.S. and/or Canadian audiences.
You can also get more specific with locations if you want to target local users, which is ideal for many location-specific brick-and-mortar businesses.
And then, select languages based on your audience’s preferences.
Pro Tip: If the goal is to increase reach and build a reputation, you may want to target by language and go broad. But, if you’re promoting a local business, keep things close to home, otherwise, you’re just spending your marketing dollars.
3. Maximize Engagement With Related Videos
Finally, connect your ads with related videos to ensure more people interact with your ad, going beyond simple views.
Set Up Targeting
Next up in this guide on how to run ads on YouTube, let’s get into targeting.
1. Analyze Your Audience
First, identify and assess your audience to help target your ads. In the process, consider the following:
- Demographics: Filters such as age, gender, parental status, or household income of the audience you want to reach.
- Placements: You can choose to place your ad on unique channels, videos, or apps within websites.
- Topics: This allows you to target your videos so you can reach a range of videos, channels, and websites related to a selected topic.
- In-Market Audiences: These are used to find audiences that already seeking and researching products or services like the one you offer.
- Video Remarketing: This allows you to reach audiences who have already interacted with your videos.
- Affinity Audiences: These allow you to target customers who have expressed interest in products or services similar to the ones you sell.
- Custom Affinity Audiences: With custom affinity audiences, you can create audiences that are more tailored to your brands using more specific keywords. You can create custom affinity audiences based on users making specific searches (keyword targeting), users visiting certain websites, or with select interests or purchases intent.
- Keywords: You can show your video ads based on words or phrases related to a YouTube video, YouTube channel, or type of website that your audience is interested in.
- Interests: You can choose from available audience categories to reach people interested in certain topics, even when they may be visiting pages about other topics.
2. Choose Your Campaign Demographics
Based on your target audiences, choose all relevant demographics for your ads to reach. Although YouTube recommends targeting all demographics, choose the attributes that truly connect with audiences.
I definitely advise using ChatGPT to help generate personas when deciding on audience demographics. This platform can be great if you don’t have first-party data readily available to draft audience personas for each segment, or if you simply want to automate the process a bit.
For example, I entered a prompt on ChatGPT asking for five different personas that fit the overall trait of “golf enthusiast.” In return, ChatGPT gave me five specific demographics with various characteristics broken down, including Retiree Rick, the Golf Enthusiast who fits an older demographic and enjoys video content such as tutorials.
If you have first-party data available and want to add a specific audience segment, you can also do so via Ads. These segments could include YouTube and GA4 users, along with those pulled from customer lists, apps, or other third-party sources.
Create Your Video Ad Assets
You can now select videos on YouTube to include in your campaigns, including any videos you recently uploaded or newly filmed videos.
Google gives you the ability to include up to 30 ads in your campaigns, but sometimes moderation is best. Generally, it’s best to start smaller and scale up as your campaigns grow, including more of your top-performing ads after initial test runs.
Once you’ve created your video ad assets, simply upload them to your YouTube channel and incorporate them into your campaigns.
Improve Your Campaigns With AI
Today’s developments in artificial intelligence (AI) make it easier to measure and optimize your YouTube video advertising and other ad campaigns.
For example, you can use AI-powered solutions like Google Performance Max campaigns, which can help you manage all of your Google Ads, including YouTube ads, in a single platform. Performance Max, or PMax, uses Google’s machine learning tech to better understand how ads are performing and continually and automatically optimize campaigns to reach more customers who are likely to convert.
Metrics to Measure Your YouTube Campaign Success
With a clear idea of how to run YouTube ads, the following are some metrics to track to effectively measure your campaigns’ results.
AI-powered analytics and cross-device tracking can help you measure each of these to gauge your campaigns’ success.
Views
Views measure the specific number of views your ads get from YouTube users, but they don’t track the number of people who actually watch your ad to completion.
When measuring awareness, keep track of how many views your ads receive. If you’re seeing a lower number of views than your goal, you may want to tweak your ad’s targeting for more relevance or expanded reach. Additionally, consider your video completion rate to see how many people are actually invested in your ad in your awareness campaigns.
Impressions
Impressions track the number of times ads appear in front of YouTube users but don’t necessarily view them.
If your goal is to boost awareness, you’ll also want to track the number of impressions your ads have, especially against the CPM and your available budget. More impressions equals more reach.
Clicks
Clicks measure the number of times people actually click through your ads, taking them to a connected landing page.
Want to achieve more conversions? Keep track of click-through rates (CTRs), which measure the percentage of viewers who actually click through your ads and visit your website. In addition to this metric, you’ll want to track conversion rates (CVRs) and cost per acquisition (CPA) in your conversion campaigns to see just how many people become satisfied customers through your ads.
Cost Per View
Tracking the CPV of your campaigns will help you gauge the cost-effectiveness (or costliness) of your campaigns, especially when running awareness campaigns with the goal of attracting views.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What are YouTube ads?
YouTube Ads are ads that run on YouTube. These video ads play during various times on the platform, either as your audience is watching a video or before they watch a video.
2. Are there different types of YouTube ads?
There are seven types of YouTube ads:
- Skippable In-Stream Ads
- Non-Skippable Ads
- Bumper Ads
- In-Feed Video Ads
- Non-Video Ads
- Masthead Ads
- YouTube Shorts Ads
3. Are YouTube ads expensive?
An awareness-focused campaign has an average cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) of $5 to $20, while conversion-focused campaigns cost around $10 to $60 on average. However, the price for YouTube ads will vary depending on certain factors, such as ad type and audience targeting.
4. How should I narrow down my target audience when it comes to YouTube ads?
The most difficult part of the YouTube Ads process is targeting.
To make the most of your YouTube Ads, I suggest that you generate personas when deciding on audience demographics or use your first-party data.
5. Are YouTube Ads hard to set up?
They can be. Take the time to research the strategy behind setting them up and follow the step-by-step instructions detailed in the article.
6. Why should I advertise on YouTube?
With billions of monthly users, YouTube is the second-most visited website, second only to Google. With YouTube’s help, you can reach billions of potential customers across all demographics. In fact, YouTube claims that its ads will give you a potential reach of over 2.5 billion users – that’s over 30% of the total world population!
7. Will my YouTube ads reach consumers worldwide?
Yes! YouTube is popular in almost every country. There are many countries, including the United States, Brazil, Russia, Germany, the UK, South Korea, and Spain, where between 70-93% of their adult population use the app. That’s a huge reach for your brand!
8. What if I’m reaching the wrong audience?
If you find that your campaigns are underperforming, you may want to work on targeting different audience segments or platforms. Find out where your audiences are and the kinds of topics they’re watching, and adjust your campaigns accordingly.
Plenty of audience research and the development of in-depth personas for each segment can help you determine how best to reach your audience when you advertise on YouTube.
9. How can I improve my audience engagement rates?
Keep your videos on the shorter side to minimize skips for skippable ads. You could also ensure your videos are immediately engaging and highly relevant to the videos on which they appear. You may also want to adjust your audience targeting elements.
10. Can you use existing YouTube videos for ads?
You might wonder how to use existing YouTube videos as pre-roll ads or other ad formats on YouTube. Thankfully, YouTube makes it easy to do so. If your videos aren’t short enough, you can edit them to be of sufficient length to fit within an ad, effectively repurposing content for use in ad campaigns.
11. Are YouTube ad campaigns good for B2B industries?
Use Google YouTube ads for B2B campaigns to connect with prospective business customers. Like other ad campaigns, the key here is to target B2B-themed videos in your industry that those business customers are likely to view, along with ads on platforms like LinkedIn.
12. Is there a YouTube ad library?
In helping you learn how to run YouTube ads, you can access YouTube’s ad library to view and save all of your competitors’ ads on the platform, which could help inform your own campaigns.
Want to Reach Your Target Audience With YouTube Ad Campaigns?
To succeed with your YouTube ad campaigns and learn more about how to run YouTube ads or other paid media campaigns, reach out to Ignite Visibility.
With our help, you can:
- Create high-quality ad assets for video advertising
- Target the right platforms, including YouTube and GVP platforms
- Select the most appropriate ad types to drive awareness and conversions
- Continually track and optimize your campaigns for better performance
- Make the most of your available ad budget for maximum ROI
Get in touch with us today to get started on your next campaign. 
