Understanding YouTube Ads and How They Can Help to Grow Your Business

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As the second largest search engine in existence today, after Google, YouTube has 1.9 billion active users on a monthly basis, out of which, 50 million are content creators uploading 576000 hours of video content to YouTube on a daily basis. In such a competitive environment of content, it’s crucial to set yourself apart from the rest, and making use of YouTube ads can help you do just that. The right type of YouTube ads can increase the number of YouTube subscribers you have while adding to the number of YouTube views your account receives, promoting the growth of your business.

Ads are an investment, and to ensure you reap the maximum benefits from that investment; it’s essential to understand the different types of YouTube ads and what they’re most suited for. With this understanding, you can increase the number of your real YouTube subscribers and monetize your channel. Here’s your guide to the different types of YouTube ads and how to utilize them to promote business growth.

To begin with, YouTube ad formats may be video ads or non-video ads.

Video ad formats on YouTube

People come to YouTube looking for video content so it’s only natural that video ad formats are the most effective when it comes to reaching your target audience and promoting the growth of your brand on YouTube. Video ads may be any of 3 types: TrueView ads, Non-skippable video ads, and Bumper ads.

TrueView Ads

Skippable YouTube ads appearing before the selected video plays are called TrueView ads. They’re an excellent opportunity to reach out to your audience, and you can use them in versatile ways to advertise your products and services through demos, testimonials, how-toto videos, and more. To be effective, they need to contain a call to action, and if done right, they can boost the number of YouTube views and YouTube subscribers on your channel.

Another great benefit with TrueView ads is that they’re reasonable, requiring you to pay only if the ad has played for 30 seconds or longer, or encouraged viewers to take action. In this manner, you won’t even be wasting money on those who are completely uninterested. They also allow you to reach a wider audience by taking into consideration, Google search history results.

TrueView ads can be of 2 types: in-streamam or discovery ads.

In – Stream ads

In – Stream ads can not only play during YouTube videos but also on apps, games, and other locations in the display network of Google. Although ads of 30 seconds are generally preferred, in-streamam ads may be 3 minutes long and do not have a word limit, with clicks going directly to your website or digital store. A display ad in the top right hand corner can provide a direct link to your website.

Discovery ads

Discovery ads are presented as recommended / related videos on the homepage or search page and have no video length limit. There’s a 25 character limit on the ad headline, while the body copy can have two lines with a maximum of 35 words each.

TrueView for Reach

TrueView for Reach was introduced in 2018, through which you will have to pay per 1000 YouTube views, helping you to reach a wider audience more quickly with ads of length between 6 and 30 seconds.

Non – skippable ads

Non – skippable ads may be of 2 types:

• Pre – roll ads that appear before a video starts to play.
• Mid – roll ads that appear in the middle of videos of 10 minutes or longer.

With non-skippable ads, you’ll want to build-up your product / service and make it super focused so that your target audience is drawn in and convinced of its value. It’s also important to ensure your message is strong, both visually and audibly, so that even if viewers look away from the screen as the ad is playing, they can’t escape listening to the message. In this way, non – skippable ads can be an important tool to make a specific audience more aware of your brand. Increased brand awareness, in turn, can result in business growth with more YouTube subscribers and YouTube views. You also get to plan your ad expenditure better since non-skippable ads have to be paid for on a cost-per-mille basis.

Bumper ads

Bumper ads are the less lengthy versions of non – skippable ads that last for up to 6 seconds usually, come up at end of YouTube videos, and are required to be paid for on a cost-per-mille basis. Bumper ads can also be used to present longer content of earlier and target mobile users due to their brevity, resulting in a growth in the number of your YouTube views and YouTube subscribers.

Non – video YouTube ad formats

Overlay ads, sponsored cards, and display ads are perfect choices when you want to achieve more interaction on your video ads or don’t want to produce video ads of your own as yet.

Overlay ads

Banner type of advertisements on YouTube that are seen at the bottom of a video in the form of either visual banners or simple text ads are called overlay ads and are helpful for reach maximisation, thereby promoting business growth and potential for an increase in the number of YouTube subscribers and YouTube views you manage to get.

Display ads

Display ads, manageable within AdWords, are shown on top of the list of video suggestions and can help you reach out to a wider audience through use of the Display Network.

Sponsored cards

Sponsored cards can be arranged to be shown within the YouTube player as tiny call to action pop-ups, through which, you can make your videos interactive. Sponsored cards are extremely effective because they only expand when clicked by interested viewers, helping you to drive viewer action to your brand.

Ad specifications required on YouTube

In order to be able to make effective YouTube ads that boost your YouTube followers, YouTube views, and promote business growth, you need to be aware of YouTube’s specifications for ads and ensure you meet the specifications to achieve the results you want.

For video ads, video codec requirements are H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4; audio codec requirements are AAC, MP3; at 30 FPS, with maximum 1 GB file size, and resolution of 640×360 (19:9 aspect ratio) or 480×360 (4:3 aspect ratio). 4 auto-generated thumbnail previews are available for TrueView ads that appear in search results of YouTube as well as in the Display Network.

Overlay ads will require 1 image to appear over the video’s lower 20%, with animation loop requirement of less than 10 seconds if you choose an animated image. Overlay ad type must be PNG, JPG, GIF (static or animated), with maximum 150 KB ad image size; and 480 px by 70 px ad dimensions.

For display ads, PNG, JPG, GIF image type is necessary, with maximum 150 KB image size, and 300 px by 250 px ad dimensions. Included animation loops must be under 30 seconds and the clickable ad area needs to have an evident highlighting border if it’s got a black or white background.

For sponsored cards, ad dimensions are variable with 1:1 aspect ratio; image types may be PNG, JPG, or GIF (animated), with maximum image size requirement of 2MB.

It’s not enough to just know about the different types of ads and how they can promote business growth. You need a plan for what you’re trying to achieve and it all starts with having the right audience in mind. You must be clear about the demographic group you’re trying to reach out to and what their interest is to be able to tap into their needs and compel them to engage with your brand. Targeting people based on their search terms is also likely to result in more engagement.

No matter what else you do, your ad is just not going to draw people in if it’s not engaging, so make sure you’re making a good impression and try to develop content that viewers already resonate with at some level. It’s also extremely important to find the right balance in the timing of your ads. Shorter doesn’t always mean better. You don’t want to bore your viewers with content such that they’re frustrated by your ad, but at the same time, you don’t want your ad to be so short that you’re unable to communicate the message effectively to your audience.

Optimizing your videos for search, including a visually appealing thumbnail, and a clear call to action are sure to produce better results. Calls to action can also help in the generation of leads apart from driving conversions, all of which will increase the number of YouTube subscribers you have and the number of YouTube views you receive, driving the growth of your business.