How to correctly place YouTube TrueView video ads

Today, I will focus on one of the ad types - YouTube TrueView Discovery ads, which display your videos with related content, allowing more people to see your videos in YouTube searches!

Why run YouTube TrueView ads?

YouTube TrueView discovery ads appear where people discover YouTube content, including on search results pages, related videos on the watch page, and on the YouTube homepage.

YouTube launched this ad type in June 2016, allowing users to discover branded content while searching and browsing videos on the platform.

Ueeshop reminds you that these ads also run on the Gmail social and promotions tabs and the Google Discover Feed, and you can’t opt ​​out of any network.

You can use YouTube TrueView ads in a few ways:

Help people discover your brand and new products

Promote your long-form content

Strengthen branding by retargeting website visitors

TrueView ads can offer great ROI because you only pay when someone clicks on your ad thumbnail, showing that the person clicking on your ad is interested in your brand. Use these ads as a tool to promote your YouTube channel, increase channel subscriptions and boost brand awareness.

Before running your first YouTube TrueView ad, complete these two setup tasks:

Install the site-wide tag in your account

Set up conversion tracking for your website. This will provide information about the visitors who clicked on your ad — whether they subscribed to your newsletter, clicked on your CTA button, etc.

Once you’re done, follow the steps below to run your YouTube TrueView campaign.

1. Set up a YouTube TrueView campaign

To manage your YouTube video ad campaigns, you need to sign up for a Google Ads account and link it to your YouTube channel. After logging into Google Ads, click “Campaign” in the left sidebar and click the + button. From the pop-up menu, select “New campaign”.

Next, you need to select an objective for your YouTube ad campaign. For this type of campaign, you can choose from the following marketing objectives:

Sales: Most marketers think that YouTube TrueView ads are only focused on brands, so choosing sales as an objective may seem like a bad fit.

Ueeshop suggests that you can crack brand awareness type campaigns by optimizing sales. In this way, the algorithm can better display ads to those who have a higher willingness to buy.

Lead generation: Get relevant potential customers to express interest in your products by signing up for your website, providing their contact information, or taking similar actions.

Website Traffic: Get targeted potential customers to visit your website.

No goal: Select this option if you don’t want a selected goal to guide your campaign, but be sure of what you want to achieve.

After selecting the relevant campaign objective, choose your campaign type. For YouTube TrueView ads, select the “Discovery” campaign type and click “Continue” to proceed to the next step.

Please note: The Discovery ad type is not yet available for all Google Ads accounts.

2. Select location targeting and bidding type

On the campaign details screen, start by naming your campaign and selecting the locations you want to target. If you’re not sure which locations to focus on, log into your Google Analytics account and find the areas with the highest conversion rates (a reasonable amount). Also, select the language your customers speak. If your language setting is also English, it will be set to English by default.

In the right sidebar, you'll see an estimate of your targeting reach. In the example below, when "New York" is selected, the targeting coverage is estimated to be 63 million people.

Note that for YouTube campaigns, you won’t see any options for ad rotation and frequency capping. Decide how to bid based on your campaign goals. Because you want to target an audience with relatively high purchasing intent, it makes sense to focus on conversions.

You'll also need to enter your target CPA (cost per action). This is an automated smart bidding strategy (based on machine learning) that tries to get as many conversions as possible at your target average CPA.

If you choose a brand-oriented goal, you may want to select other bidding strategies, such as Max CPV and Target CPM.

3. Set a daily budget and select your audience

The next step is to specify the daily budget you want to spend on your campaign. Ueeshop reminds everyone that if you are using this YouTube ad format for the first time, you need enough data to find a sweet spot for your budget.

Next, select your campaign start and end dates. If your audience is only online during certain times of the day, you can choose to run your YouTube ads only during those times by setting ad schedules.

After you’ve named your ad set, you’ll need to define your audience.

Here are the audiences you can choose from:

Affinity audiences: These audiences expand your campaign’s reach based on interests like “food and dining.”

Remarketing: If you want to target people who have already watched your YouTube videos, create a video remarketing list. You can choose from actions performed by YouTube users, as shown in the image below. You can also remarket to people who have visited your website.

In-market audiences: These audiences are actively researching or comparing products.

Demographics: You can choose from a variety of demographic parameters including age, parental status, household income, gender, etc. The Unknown category represents people whose age is unknown. This category is included because YouTube does not require users to log in to the platform to browse and watch videos.

4. Create and optimize YouTube TrueView ads

Once you’ve identified your audience and set up your YouTube campaign, it’s time to create your ad. Click the + button and select Discovery Ad. Then click the Create Campaign button.

To create YouTube TrueView ads, Ueeshop recommends that you prepare the following materials:

(1) Final URL

After entering the location of your landing page, users who click on your ad will be directed to the location of the target page. Depending on your campaign, you can drive people to your website or to videos on your YouTube channel.

(2) Images and logos

You can upload up to 15 high-quality images for one creative. Ueeshop recommends using an aspect ratio of 1.91:1 for landscape images with a resolution of 1200 x 628. You can also use square images with a resolution of 1200 x 1200.

The minimum resolution for landscape images is 600 x 314, and the minimum resolution for square images is 300 x 300. Additionally, the image file size should not exceed 5MB, and supported image formats are JPG, PNG, and static GIF.

For logos, upload a square image with a recommended resolution of 1200 x 1200, but can be as low as 128 x 128. Any standard non-GIF format will work for the logo, and the maximum image size allowed is 1MB.

Please note that poor cropping and incorrect image positioning will result in your ad being disapproved. Additionally, don’t try to mimic hyperlinks or clickable elements in your visuals, as these ads will be rejected.

It’s best to avoid using CTA buttons in visuals.

(2) Company name

Enter the name of the business where you run YouTube TrueView ads, using 25 characters or less.

(3) Title copy

Write a compelling headline of 40 characters or less. If this length is exceeded, the title may be truncated on some devices. You can write up to five headlines for one creative, so make the most of them. However, Ueeshop points out that you should not use clickbait titles like “You won’t believe this” or your ad may be rejected.

(4) Two lines of description

You can add two lines of copy and up to 90 characters to describe your video. Likewise, you can write up to five descriptions for one creative. Try to provide more context to users reading your headlines to nudge them into taking action.

(5) CTA text

Select the appropriate CTA text from the drop-down menu.

How to Promote YouTube TrueView Ads?

Make sure you upload the video you want to promote (under 1GB) to YouTube and set the video privacy setting to public. If you don’t want the ad to be accessible on your channel, you can keep it private and still use the video URL in the ad.

Ueeshop recommends a video resolution of 640 x 360 (16:9 aspect ratio) or 480 x 360 (4:3 aspect ratio). If you don’t have a video to promote, YouTube lists some partners here (with global reach) that can help you create a video ad.

You can preview your YouTube ads on different properties and devices to make sure the text isn’t cut off and the images look OK.

Below is a sample ad with a headline and all other assets added. Notice how any combination of the headline, description, and image will all drive your audience to click on your ad.

Make sure your YouTube ad image, title, and description work together to drive viewers to your campaign goals. Once you find your ad is ready, click "Create Campaign" and let your campaign run.

Then wait patiently for the conversion. To understand the performance of your campaign, consider looking at the number of clicks it takes to generate a sale from a non-branded Google Ads campaign. You can even use Facebook to get estimates.

If your typical conversion rate hovers around 2%, you may need to look at around 100 clicks to determine effective targeting and ads. Ueeshop recommends waiting for about 40 conversions to collect enough data. From there, you can make changes to your campaign and start optimizing it.

More than 1.9 billion logged-in users visit YouTube each month to be entertained, inspired, and learn new skills. According to official Google statistics, more than 90% of people say they discover new brands and products through YouTube.

More than 50% of shoppers say online videos help them decide which brands or products they should buy. Running YouTube TrueView campaigns can be a good option for your business because they allow you to reach users with no plans or expectations when launching a new brand.

Author: Ueeshop

Source: Ueeshop