Why YouTube is a must in your Advertising Mix - Audience Insights and Ad Formats

To understand why YouTube forms such a crucial part of various advertising campaigns, it is essential to know why the platform has succeeded in building such a strong community of active monthly users. Traditionally, the human mind is known to retain information better when served in the form of audio and video. We tend to relate better to videos than just stills/audio clips and this helps in creating a better recall.

YouTube has a user base of over 2 billion monthly logged-in users and this audience has a high intent of consuming video-based formats. We all tend to turn to YouTube during our leisure time to consume videos that interest us. 

YouTube is no longer a platform for creators to just upload videos of dogs skateboarding but has now become a library of informational and recreational content in the video format. The quality and consistency of videos on the platform are only scaling up owing to the ever-growing community of creators on the platform and rewards for high-quality relatable content.

Audiences on YouTube

YouTube provides audience solutions for all stages in the marketing funnel, ie, awareness, consideration, and conversion. Their measurement solutions encompass metrics such as brand lift, ad recall, unique reach, consideration lift, and many more. These help advertisers understand the impact of their messaging and ad formats and provide actionable insights to better optimize their campaigns.

Additionally, detailed demographic targeting, affinity and custom affinity audiences, in-market audiences,  targeting based on life events, custom intent, make it easier for advertisers to better utilize their budget and reach their intended customers.

Fun Fact: 85% that use Google.com are also on YouTube!

Video Ad Formats

The different ad formats on YouTube allow marketers to reach users with their desired marketing objective. YouTube allows users to use different ad formats to target users in different stages of the funnel.

Ad formats that boost awareness are bumper ads, TrueView for Reach, non-skippable 15/20 in-stream ads, out-stream video ads, and video masthead ads. 

Ad formats that boost consideration are TrueView Discovery ads and TrueView instream ads.

Conversion driving ad formats are the TrueView for Action ads.

Fun Fact: TrueView ads are skippable in-stream ad formats that allow users to engage with the video. These may appear before, during, or at the end of the video and provide the use an option to skip the ad after 5 seconds.

Marketing Objective	Format/Bidding Approach
Awareness	TrueView for reach (CPM)
Consideration	TrueView in-stream  (CPV and Maximize lift) TrueView discovery (CPV)
Action	TrueView for action (tCPA and Maximize conversions)

What happened to non-skippable 30-second ads?

YouTube found that non-skippable 30-second ads are those that viewers liked the least. When viewers are forced to watch longer ads, they tend to get annoyed and that can be damaging for brands. Longer ads can still work, but advertisers have to earn a viewer’s attention. So, in an effort to shift our focus to more user-friendly formats, YouTube decided to sunset standard reserve non-skippable 30-second ads in 2017.

All the above pointers have made YouTube a hub for targeted advertising and a medium to reach their intended audiences through engaging ad formats. Alongside, data analysis and a better understanding of data through tools such as Google Analytics and YouTube Analytics have given marketers deeper insights into the why's of what worked and what didn't!

Owing to extensive flexibility on audience targeting and availability of a variety of ad formats, YouTube is a must-have in your next marketing campaign!