Did you know that people watch more than a billion hours of video on YouTube every single day? And did you know that YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine, after Google Search? With over 2 billion people using YouTube every month, the platform offers great advertising opportunities for your brand.
If you are one of those users who spend time on Youtube, you must be familiar with the skippable videos ads that pop up when you are watching a video, but this is not the only type of video ad format on the platform, there are many possibilities on Youtube Ads that you can use in your advantage to broadcast your message to the right audience. From boosting brand awareness to driving e-commerce conversions – whatever the objective is, there is always a YouTube ad format that can help you achieve your goal.
In this post, we will explore what YouTube Ads are, the most popular YouTube Ad formats and when to use what format. Let’s dive into the opportunities and learn how to make the most out of your YouTube Ads.
What are Youtube Ads?
YouTube Ads are advertisements that can be displayed before, during, alongside or after a video that users are watching on the YouTube platform. Although YouTube is a video-oriented platform, there is also an option to reach your audience with image and text ads. This brings it down to 2 options:
- Video Ads: These are the pre-roll ads that play before the actual video to select to watch.
- Non-Video ads: These are image-based ads that can be displayed on the right side of the screen while the video is being played.
Both formats, video and non-video ads can be helpful marketing tools. In order to choose which format you should use, you need to know a few things: Your audience, the main goal for the specific advertising campaign, and which format aligns best with what you want to showcase in your ad.
Different YouTube Ad Formats
Now it’s time to explore how video and non-video ads on YouTube work, when to use them and what options they offer.
YouTube In-Stream Ads
These are ads that are played before, during, or after videos on YouTube. Additionally, these ads can be played in the Google video partner network, which are high-quality websites and mobile apps. You can manually choose if you want to show your video ads to viewers beyond Youtube.
The In-Stream ads have two options
- Non-Skippable In-stream ads: Viewers don’t have the option to skip the ad, the duration of these ads is 15 seconds or shorter. This format is more suitable for when the objective is to give more information on your product or service because it allows you to broadcast your message for 15 seconds, without being skipped.
- Skippable In-stream ads: After 5 seconds, the viewers have the option to skip the ad or decide to keep watching the ad. This format is more suitable for those campaigns that have a certain type of conversion goal, Think lead generation, app downloads, or a sale. Make sure you convey your core message in the first 5 seconds. The rest of the video can be used to elaborate and give more in depth information since the user has to choose to keep watching the ad if they are interested.
In-feed Youtube Ads
This type of ad can identify what your audience is watching, and strategically place your ad in their own feeds, in this way, they will see the ad almost without notice due to the similarity with the rest of the content.
In-feed Youtube Ads appear on a viewer’s recommended and home pages,This ad format is suitable to build brand awareness and brand consideration by showing your ads to users that are looking for related content.
Youtube Bumper Ads
A bumper ad is a short video ad format of 6 seconds that allows you to reach more customers and increase brand awareness by using a short, memorable message. Bumper ads are visible before, during or after the main video. The format does not count any video views since these are counted from 10 seconds, so it is perfect for a lot of reach.
Usually, bumper ads work well in conjunction with other longer video ads to reinforce the core message. Next to that, we see that bumper ads work well on mobile devices since the format is short, which suits the fast pace on mobile phones.
YouTube Display ads
This format consists of an image that is placed across the top part of your screen while you’re watching a video on Youtube or under the recommendation column. These images often include text and links that allow viewers to click through and take an action such as visiting a specific website or signing up for a newsletter.
Youtube Masthead Ads
Youtube Masthead is a digital billboard placed on Youtube’s home feed on all devices. It is the perfect format for when you want to drive massive reach and be visible in a premium and prominent place on YouTube.
These benefits come at a cost and brands need to have the budget to do it. Placement costs are dependent on the country and the way you like to bid. For example, you can use Cost-Per-Impression, which provides a reserved and fixed volume of impressions that are delivered over the course of your campaign. Or you can use direct buy-in with Cost-Per-Hour, which provides 100% share in the eligible impressions of YouTube’s Masthead during the hours you reserved. Generally, these budgets start from €30k per hour.
YouTube Advertising at Hide and Seek
Hopefully this blog has provided you a good understanding and overview of the different Youtube ad formats, how they function, and what business objectives that they can help you achieve.
As an Online Marketing Agency, we here at Hide and Seek would be really happy to help you explore YouTube Advertising further and create a strategy that fits your brand. If you’d like to get in touch, you can visit our contact page. Another option is filling out our contactform below!
Hide and Seek is an online advertising agency. We are knowledgeable, personal, strategic and different.
