Many people misses out that YouTube is the number two search engine used by people to search for products or services. Youtube has essentially taken over many other search engines to become one of the top search engines of choice.
While you may have a great website with great content, its full search engine marketing (SEM) potential may not be realised if you miss out on the enormous amount of viewers and searchers that are surfing on Youtube.
The trick here is to have some videos of your company, products or services, create a channel as a repository to store these videos and to advertise them according to your digital marketing budget and goals.
Following are the three ad formats in your Adwords System which you can utilise to broadcast your ads on Youtube:
1. In–Search video ad
Here, advertisers are allowed to present a video ad at the search results of Youtube. When a viewer searches in Youtube, they would likely find an ad that is part of the search result, usually at the top. The ads are usually relevant to the viewer’s search, as keywords on advertiser’s video help to suggest the ad to viewers during the search process.
Fig.1 In-Search Video ad is seen with the search results
Advertisers are charged each time viewers click on the video to watch.
2. In–Display video ad
In-display video ad has got two sites on the Youtube page’s interface. It appears on the overlay of the video and besides the video on youtube.
Fig 2. In-display video ads appearing when the video is playing
Advertiser is charged when viewer click on ad to watch ad video.
3. In–Stream video ad
In this format, the ad is broadcasted before the video is shown. Viewer has the option to skip the ad after 5 seconds the ad is broadcasted.
Fig 3. In-stream video ad running before viewer’s selected video is shown.
Do note that for ads that are 30 seconds or longer, advertiser is charged when the viewer reaches the 30 seconds of the video. For ads that are shorter than 30 seconds, advertisers are charged when the video completes.
In doing SEM on Youtube, it essentially connects you to a huge community of users who are already actively interacting with other users and the videos on Youtube. Youtube is also seen by many as a social media platform where people can upload videos for free, add one another and subscribe to channels. The feature of allowing people to leave comments on the Youtube videos produces third party testimonials or content, which is highly valuable to other potential customers which serve as a word-of-mouth recommendation.
With its integration across desktop, tablets and mobile, it provides a seamless experience for users to search and view content anytime on their available gadget.
Therefore, if you do have a website that is polished and running, there has never been a better time to engage viewers to your business with videos and Youtube advertising.
