With consumers gradually becoming more open to video advertising online, more businesses are turning to the most popular video sharing website, YouTube. Advertising on YouTube is a perfect tool for targeting niche markets at a relatively low cost, the Econsultancy blog said.
The rapid growth in video viewing has made many marketers turn to Pay-Per-Click (PPC). There is nothing too complicated about it, as creating the video is actually the most difficult part and even this does not have to be made by a professional or to be very expensive. The most important thing is to select the best format and the targeting technique, which can make even the simplest things like instruction videos and customer testimonials successful.
There are four different types of format that marketers can choose from: in-search, in slate, in display and in stream, with each of them suitable for different purposes. In-search videos are similar to Google AdWords in the way that they work. As with AdWords, relevance is the most important thing, so this format works best for niche targeting and “How to…” videos.
The second type, in slate videos are long ones, at least 30-minutes long, such as TV programmes. In-slate advertising allows users to choose to watch one video ad before the programme begins or see a number of ads during the programme.
In-display ads appear next to the video users are viewing and are selected according to the content of the video. However, as in-display ads are the most common type of ads, they have to be unique and stand out from the rest, so that users decide to click on it. This type of advert can appear on various sites, not just YouTube.
Finally, in stream ads appear as a pre-roll to popular videos, but marketers cannot choose what videos their ads will appear with. This means that many users will see the ad, but it may not necessarily be relevant to them. Similar to other video formats, an ad counts as viewed only if users watch it for at least 30 seconds, otherwise marketers do not pay for it.