YouTube and Diversifying into Alternative Traffic Sources

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Have you left YouTube out of the digital marketing strategy of your company? If so, your brand is missing on a platform that streams over one billion hours of content to your potential customers every single day. When it comes to diversifying your audience, there is no medium that is as effective as video, and it’s a trend that shows no sign of slowing down. Cisco predicts that, by 2020, video will make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic. Marketers need to tap into this advertising space now before it becomes too congested.

Knowing how to get the most out of YouTube is a major challenge for marketers. It is a sophisticated platform. As a consequence, there is no one-size-fits-all advertising strategy on YouTube, and for those with less experience, navigating the platform can be a minefield. There are various ad formats, audience targeting choices and distinct methods to structure your video. Once you get to grips with the basics of advertising on YouTube, you can begin to reach out to an entirely new audience.

Demystifying YouTube’s ad formats

YouTube has to choose from three primary ad formats. Each comes with their own strengths and weaknesses, so knowing which is the best fit to achieve your campaign objectives is essential.

The most recognizable type of YouTube advertising isTrueView In-Stream advertising. These are the ones that perform mid-stream and, after five seconds, can often be skipped. Because consumers need to watch a tiny part of your video before they have the choice to skip, this is a nice chance to drive impressions of video. To encourage click-throughs as well as a branded banner to increase brand awareness after your video has been played, you can also add call-to-action (CTA) buttons over the top of your video. The downside to this format is that your advertisement could be seen as a nuisance and quickly skipped if your content does not engage within the first five seconds.

TrueView Discovery ads are similar to more traditional display ads. These will appear as’ suggested videos’ when a potential customer is searching for or engaging with related content. They may appear in search results, on a watch page, or even on a homepage that is great for brand discovery. However, users need to physically click on your advertisement to view your content. You’ve got one image and three lines of text to convince people to watch your video-you need to count them.

TrueView For Action is the final format, and possibly the best option for driving conversions. These are similar to TrueView In-Stream advertisements but with one major difference: you can overlay a small ad over your content and on the screen of the viewer. This ad features in the screen’s bottom left corner on the desktop and sits just below the video window on the mobile. This means that potential customers see the logo of your company, a headline, and a clear, customizable CTA, as well as your video content.

Telling the right story

Keeping viewers engaged is crucial when advertising on YouTube. To achieve this, choosing the right type of narrative is important to complement the message you want to convey and the product you are trying to sell.

An explanatory narrative is a good way to illustrate how a problem typically faced by your target audience can be solved by your product. You can illustrate the problem that makes your content related, and then show how the solution is your product. The video should end with a clear CTA, usually a link to where you can buy your product or find out more.

If you only want to focus on your product and its features, a narrative product display is a way to go. Make sure the product is visually attractive and the features highlighted are sufficiently interesting to make users click on your ad. The idea of a product exhibition is to show more about your product than you say. Try to get the images to speak on their own.

If your campaign’s goal is to announce a special offer, a promotional narrative would work well for you. It is important to open with the CTA in these videos to engage your audience immediately and discourage them from clicking on the dreaded’ skip’ button. As the user keeps watching, more information should be provided. Often, conversions can be generated with a compelling offer or CTA.

Tapping into a diverse audience

Whatever your target audience is, on YouTube you will find them. The website serves 88 countries and features 76 language videos. At some point, more than a third of internet users visited YouTube and its number of active monthly users is nearly two billion. No other platform attracts an audience as large and diverse as YouTube. While you may have some selected sites in mind to target your marketing efforts, they are likely to have a niche and restrictive user base compared to the various traffic that passes through YouTube on a daily basis.

YouTube has targeted technology that enables you to reach users through their interests and what they are looking for online. For the YouTube advertising veteran who knows exactly what the audience works for their product, this functionality can be helpful. If you’re still a novice, however, experimenting with changing your targeting criteria will often allow you to explore the full audience potential of YouTube. Not only will a single video remain relevant and useful for many months, driving down the cost of production, it can also reveal that a demographic that you have not previously considered is interested in your product or service.

It may seem like a daunting task to get started on YouTube. If you want to see your ad campaigns from a more diverse audience, you can not overlook the importance of using YouTube. It has always been a struggle to catch the attention of people who are likely to buy your product, but there are not many places that offer as many opportunities as YouTube.

 

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