YouTube Display Ads: How to Choose Ad Placements and Increase Conversions?

Regarding the definition of Google Display Network, the Google Ads website describes it as: "A combination of more than 2 million websites, videos, and apps where ads can be displayed." That is to say, in the Google Display Network, your ads can not only appear on websites, but also in apps and videos (YouTube videos).

So, how do you place display ads on YouTube?

YouTube Display Ad Targeting

When you create a new ad group and select your targeting, look for the “Content” option. Here you can reduce the amount of space your ads appear in. In addition to placements, you can also limit the scope of your ads by keywords and topics.

Once you select “Placements”, you will be able to choose the appropriate YouTube ad placement in the following ways.

The first option is "YouTube Channels". You can then search for a specific channel or get related YouTube channel recommendations based on the keywords you enter in the search bar.

Similar to the first method, you can also select YouTube ad placements through "YouTube Videos". Then, using the same search function, you can either find a specific video by title or use keywords to find any videos related to the keyword you entered.

The third option is to enter a specific video ID. To find the video ID, you need to go to the watch page of the video where you want to run display ads. Then, in the URL bar, copy the part of the URL after “/watch?v=”. This is the video ID, for example:

Then, paste the video ID into the placement search feature to try to find the video as the placement you want to target for your ad group. We say "try to find" because not every video will be eligible to show ads. If you search for a specific video by channel, video, or video ID and don’t see the expected ad placement results, it likely means that those YouTube ad placements are not suitable for ads in the Display Network. In this case, you need to search for an alternative video to run your ad.

YouTube display ads are not precisely placed

We understand that ad placement targeting (whether you’re running video campaigns through the Google Display Network or in Google Ads) may not always be as precise as you think.

As shown in the picture, Google states: "Your ads can appear on any YouTube or Display Network ad placement that matches your targeting. We recommend that you add specific ad placements to narrow your targeting. If the website you are targeting has an app with the same name, your ads can also appear on it.

This means that if you add other elements to your ad group targeting (e.g. topics, keywords, audiences, etc.) and you are not eligible to appear on the YouTube placement you chose (perhaps due to high competition), your display ads may appear on many other alternative placements that you might not have expected. But to a certain extent, this problem can be solved during the monitoring process.

YouTube Display Ad Formats

There are two main display ad formats you’ll want to secure before launching a new ad group. The first is regular display advertising. According to Google, the ads will "appear to the right of the video and above a list of recommended videos. For larger players, this ad may appear below the player." The ads will be in either 300×250 or 300×60 sizes. The second type is an overlay ad, which can be seen in the example below.

(Source: www.business2community.com)

Overlay ads appear directly on top of your video while it plays. Viewers also have the option of clicking the "x" in the top right corner of the ad to remove it from their screen. Google said the ads will appear below 20% of the video. These ads need to meet the specifications of 468×60 or 728×90 and can be image ads or text ads.

Monitor Your YouTube Display Ads

Whether you’re leveraging audience targeting to reach YouTube users or manually selecting specific YouTube ad placements, it’s important to monitor your ad placements. The Placements report provided by Google Ads will enable you to identify placements that you may need to exclude from your campaigns, and you may also find new placements that are worth trying.

You’ll want to look at the “Where Ads Shown?” section in your Google Ads placement report. These are not the placements you targeted, but the actual placements where your ads appeared. Even if your ad group targeting only includes managed ad placements, you still need to pay attention to the placement report to find new ad placements that may appear.

Measuring the value of your YouTube display ads

You may be wondering, “How do display ads convert compared to search ads?”

Ads in the Google Display Network do convert. But you need to be clear that there are differences in user intent between the Search Network and the Display Network. The Search Network lets you know exactly what users are looking for, so you can easily tailor your text ads to match users' search queries.

And through Display Network, you are actually "interfering" with the user's experience, trying to make your brand leave an impression or even a deep impression in their minds. For example, a user is watching a specific video on YouTube, and your display ads on YouTube are trying to get users to click on your ad and go to your website through enticing creatives.

In the example above, a filter is used so the full total is not shown. But for the date range I used, total spend on display ads on YouTube placements was $36,000, and total conversions from display ads were 203. This gives a CPA (cost per acquisition) of $180 for this ad. However, when we add the “post-view conversion” criterion, we can see that 654 viewers saw the display ad on these YouTube ad spots, did not interact with it at the time, but later converted.

The more clearly you can see how many people are seeing your ads and ultimately converting from those ads, and which YouTube ad placements are helping to drive those conversions, the better you can optimize your ads to have more display advertising success on YouTube.

summary

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world after Google. Therefore, there must be target customers on YouTube that you need to reach. You can test a few ad placements on YouTube and work on gaining the attention of audiences who are interested in a specific YouTube channel or video. At the same time, pay close attention to the ad placement reports provided by Google Ads, from which you will get more valuable information besides conversion rate. When you look at the big picture, you’ll be better able to approach YouTube display ad optimization.

Author: YouTube Marketing

Source: YouTube Marketing