Level Up in Your Digital Marketing with This Popular Platform

Digital advertising may be one of the most significant pain points for businesses. There are multiple platforms, pricing structures, targeting strategies, and data analytics to sift through to truly understand, create, and execute a successful digital marketing plan.

If that sounds like a lot, it’s because it can be. With the amount of competition in most industries today, it takes a decent amount of time and money to market a brand effectively online. But there’s some good news too: a strong online strategy is a lot less costly than marketing ineffectively or not marketing online at all. And, with the right partner, you don’t have to deal with any of the time-consuming campaign setup and maintenance.

Don’t let the complexity of digital marketing overwhelm you or your calendar. Long-term, the benefits of a well-executed digital plan are well worth today’s investment:

• Increased brand awareness. By ranking higher in search results and improving your visibility online, more people know who you are, what you do or sell, and why they should care or buy.
  
• A shot at attracting more customers. More people know who you are… Maybe they visit your website or engage with you on social media. Through remarketing (also called retargeting) campaigns, you can engage those leads and turn them into real customers.
  
• Continued success. Brand awareness, leads, and conversions are cyclical. When previous leads and conversions become online advocates for your brand, it further increases brand awareness, which garners leads, which… you get the point. It’s a continuous funnel you can always use to reach new heights.
  

YouTube: Where brands go to be seen.

We probably don’t need to tell you that YouTube is an unbelievably popular internet destination. It boasts more than two billion monthly users (that’s with a B!), and that’s only users with a Google account who log in to view content. YouTube even beats out Facebook and Instagram for market share, with 74% of U.S. adults using the video streaming service. As the world’s second most-visited website and second most-used social media platform, it’s essentially a treasure trove of potential customers.

YouTube provides an enormous range of options for ad type, targeting, and budget. With the right information, you can precisely target the exact monthly user(s) you want to reach and feel reasonably confident that your ads will find them.

However, like most digital marketing platforms, YouTube can be overwhelming for anyone unfamiliar with the business side. If that’s you, you’re not alone! Here’s a quick rundown of the different types of ads you can place on YouTube that may help:

• Skippable video ads allow viewers to skip after watching for five seconds.
  
• Non-skippable video ads are 15-20 seconds long and must be watched before a viewer continues to the content.
  
• Bumper ads are short (six seconds or less), non-skippable ads. Any of these video ads can be scheduled to run before, during, or after a video.
  
• Video ad sequencing allows you to program multiple video ads that fit together to tell a story. As users interact with the ads, you can choose what ads in the sequence they see.
  
• Overlay ads pop up in the lower fifth of the video player. Unlike video ads, which can be placed on any device where YouTube is available, these image or text-based ads are only available on desktop.
  
• Display ads from the Google Display Network can be placed on YouTube. These ads appear in the feed of recommended videos that are displayed near the video player. These ads must be purchased and scheduled through Google Ad Manager.
  
• Search ads can be placed within the search results on YouTube. These ads are purchased and placed through Google AdWords.
  
• Remarketing/retargeting ads can be powerful advertising tools. These ads are shown to potential customers who have interacted with your business in some way.
  

Find your future followers and customers!

On YouTube, targeting is available with a great deal of granularity. Demographics, interests, consumer behaviors, customer match (uploadable data), customer intent (based on search history), and lookalike audiences are all optional features through YouTube targeting.

In addition, the cost to advertise on the platform can be nominal, depending on your goals. YouTube advertising costs vary based on how often users view or engage with your ads. Google recommends a minimum of $10 per day for local campaigns so, the wider your target audience becomes, the more you may need to spend.

Okay, take a breath. That’s a lot of information to process. Overall, YouTube advertising can be a powerful part of your overall digital marketing and advertising strategy. And, when done well, it doesn’t have to break the bank or take hours out of your day.

It takes skill, knowledge, and experience to optimize YouTube advertising for maximum results. Partnering with an experienced marketing agency like Asen is one way to dial in your digital marketing strategy and make sure you’re getting the most out of your advertising budget on YouTube or any of the digital platforms available today. Ready to start the conversation? Let’s chat!