Blog: Advertising on YouTube | OrbitWeb

YouTube can do a lot for businesses that utilize it correctly and consistently. Let’s talk about YouTube in numbers: 2 + billion people use YouTube, which amounts to almost one-third of the internet! That’s not all. YouTube has about 1 billion hours of content being watched per day! 

With such a large audience spending time on YouTube, it’s not surprising that it’s a preferred place to advertise for many businesses.

Discover the five reasons your business can benefit from YouTube advertising.

1. YouTube’s Tremendous Reach

As stated before, almost one-third of all people on the internet watch content through YouTube. According to Forbes, YouTube’s user-friendliness, combined with the soaring popularity of video content, has made it the second largest search engine behind Google. With 3 billion searches per month, YouTube’s search volume is more significant than Bing, Yahoo, AOL, and Ask.com combined. 

YouTube reaches more people aged 18-49 than any broadcast or cable TV network—and that’s on mobile alone. This makes YouTube a great platform to communicate your business or brand’s message to the broadest possible range of customers.

2. YouTube, Influence, and Purchasing Behaviour

Studies have shown that YouTube content has a significant impact on customer purchases. YouTube has become an excellent alternative to WoM (word of mouth). In addition,  studies also show that today’s consumers rely heavily on information generated by other users to make online purchasing decisions. 

Let’s take a look at this YouTube Insights report. You can connect with your customers on their passions and interests – 66% of beauty product buyers say YouTube influenced their purchases, and 62% of smartphone purchasers indicate that YouTube influenced their buying decisions. 

3. Advanced Targeting Options and Audience Creation

You don’t want to waste your time advertising to people who aren’t interested in your product or brand. YouTube’s advanced targeting options allow you to target your audience correctly. 

There are many targeting options to choose from and an advanced audience that you can create. Options include: 

• Demographics – age, gender, parental status, and household income
• Keywords – words or phrases an audience is interested in or searching for
• Placements – specific channels, videos, apps, and websites where ads are served
• In-Market/Affinity/Intent Audiences – users with specific interest, intent, and behaviours
• Topics – videos, channels, and websites related to specific topics
• Devices – computers, smartphones, mobile devices, and TV screen devices

The above target options layered with audiences work best. Let’s take a look at the types of audiences:

• Affinity audiences: Raise brand awareness and drive consideration with your video ads by reaching people who already have a strong interest in relevant topics.
• Custom affinity audiences: With custom affinity audiences, you can create audiences that are more tailored to your brands compared to our broad, TV-like affinity audiences. For example, rather than reaching “Sports Fans,” a running shoe company may want to reach “Avid Marathon Runners” instead.
• Life events: Reach potential customers on YouTube and Gmail when purchase behaviour shifts and brand preferences change during life milestones like moving, graduating from college, or getting married.
• In-market audiences: Select from these audiences to find customers who are researching products and actively considering buying a service or product like those you offer.
• Custom intent audiences: Built with performance advertisers in mind, custom intent audiences allow you to reach viewers as they’re making a purchase decision based on the keywords they’ve recently searched on Google.com.

By targeting affinity audiences, you can ensure your ads reach people who have already demonstrated an interest in relevant topics. With custom affinity audiences, you can target even more specifically—for example, instead of targeting car enthusiasts, you could narrow your range to people interested in classic Mustang cars. 

You can also target in-market audiences—people actively researching products and services like those you offer. 

Even better, YouTube also allows you to focus your ads on specific channels or videos. This means you can place your ads on popular videos that are relevant to your target audience, helping you make sure that your brand gets noticed. 

4. YouTube’s Easy to Use Metrics

You want to make sure to evaluate your advertising strategy. Ensuring that your ad dollars are being used most efficiently is key. Google offers information about views, cost, and budget details through Adwords, while the Analytics tab of your YouTube account provides more in-depth information about your viewers.

5. YouTube’s Cost-Effectiveness

YouTube ad formats run on a cost-per-view (CPV) or cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) bidding system. On average, a video ad costs about $0.10 to $0.30 per view or $1 – $5 per thousand impressions, depending on your targeting, ad format, and overall goal. If you aren’t really familiar with ad costs, this is a cost-effective way to get your ads in front of a wide demographic. 

Conclusion 

With an incredible reach, influence on purchasing behaviour, advanced targeting options, comprehensive metrics, and cost-effectiveness, it’s not hard to see why YouTube advertising is popular. 

Ready to take the plunge but don’t know where to start? Contact us! We can help you get started!