If you have an online business or want to start one, learning about YouTube ads is one of the best things you can do. Whether you’re a dropshipper who wants to reach more people, an online boutique who wants to get more people interested and boost sales, or you’re just planning your penetration strategy, using YouTube ads as a way to promote will help you a lot.
Let’s be honest! Online services like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and others are some of the most popular ways to make your business stand out and get your potential customers more interested in it. In fact, these platforms are perfect homes for the millions of ads that are made every day. YouTube is just the same.
As part of the Google Ads platform, YouTube Ads uses almost the same interface, so if you’ve used Google Ads to promote your business before, you’ll feel right at home with YouTube Ads.
It goes without saying that it’s much better for new users than Facebook. It’s true that many businesses are using Facebook to get the results they want. But Facebook has become a bit too strict because of how often it changes its rules in response to problems that have come up over the years.
So, many marketers changed their strategy and started putting most of their ads on YouTube to avoid this constant chaos. In this article, we’ll talk about YouTube ads, how they really work, and how to use them in the best way to get results.
So, if you want to know more about this and similar things, you’ve come to the right place.
Onward!
Why you should choose YouTube ads
When deciding where to put your advertising campaigns, the first question that comes to mind is pretty simple: Why? Why are YouTube ads better than ads on any other platform? Well, there are a lot of reasons why YouTube is becoming the main place where marketing campaigns are launched.
Cost-effective PPC possibilities
PPC advertising is one of the most common ways to get the word out about your business. In fact, the basic rule of pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns is that you only get paid when someone clicks on your ad.
Of course, you are the only one who decides how much you pay, so you don’t have to worry about losing money. Even with all of this, PPC will always be one of the most cost-effective strategies because it won’t waste your money in ways you didn’t agree to. Anyhow, YouTube also uses the pay-per-click (PPC) model, which makes it a pretty good platform for marketers.
Making it easy to target
Let’s face it, bad targeting wastes a lot of money. In fact, you can spend thousands of dollars on campaigns, but if you’re not good at targeting, you won’t get any results at all, and it will be like your money is going down the drain.
Now, YouTube has you covered and lets you choose exactly who you want to reach with your videos. In fact, the many options this platform gives you let you get very specific.
You can choose your target audience in a number of ways, such as by age, location, gender, or topics of interest. You can also re-engage with customers who were interested in your products or services in the past.
You can also use a setting called “similar audience” to find people who are like the people who are most interested in your products and services. You can also narrow this target to include only people who are interested in the products you’re selling.
There are a lot of ways to target, so you can find one that fits your needs, whether you want to reach a specific group of people or a large group of people. The only way to figure out what will work best for your business is to try out different kinds of targeting campaigns and see what happens.
Simple numbers to read
In the YouTube Ads platform, it’s easy and straightforward to get the analytics for your marketing campaigns. It’s very important to always look at the results of your campaign and see what the most important parts of each video ad you’ve run on the platform were. You can also check your Google Ads account at any time to see details like costs, views, and budgets.
Videos > Everything else
Yes. Videos will always be at the top of the list of the best ways to get a message across. People will always care more about videos than other things because the connection feels more natural. Even though pictures and plain text can make you feel something, this feeling will never be as strong as it is when you watch a video.
People want to know who is behind a company so they can better understand what they are trying to do with the products or services they sell.
For example, if you run a dropshipping store that sells luxury clothing, you should choose a video that shows your products, price ranges, special discounts, and shipping rates in an animated way through some kind of catchy performance that will make your potential client stay a little longer and see what your ad is about.
You can choose from different types of ads on YouTube, but we’ll talk more about that later in this article.
Huge user database at your fingertips
The huge number of users is the best thing about advertising on YouTube. The most recent numbers show that there are 2 billion active YouTube users at this time. In fact, this number gives your business a wide range of options, even if you decide to use a targeting strategy to narrow down your audience. In either case, you can reach a huge number of users and put your products or services in front of them to make your campaign successful.
Due to the large number of users, you’ll also see quick results from any campaigns you run. This is because more people will interact with your ads, which means you will definitely get more traffic, clicks, and eventually sales.
Different kinds of YouTube ads
So, you’re ready to run ads on YouTube and spread the word about your dropshipping store. But there’s one more thing you need to know before you can go outside. YouTube has a number of video formats that you can use to engage customers in different ways on YouTube or any of its partner sites.
Commercials that you can skip
You can use skippable in-stream ads to promote your content before, after, or during a video on YouTube and other Google-partnered sites. As the name suggests, anyone who watches these ads for more than 5 seconds can skip them.
This ad format gives you more flexibility in how you get paid. If your video ad is shorter than 30 seconds, you only get charged if someone watches the whole thing.
Also, YouTube will charge you if the person watching your video ad does anything with it. The skippable format is used when you want to show a video of your products and bring more attention to your brand.
Non-skippable In-stream Ads
Barely identical to the skippable ads, you can use these ads to promote your dropshipping business but ensure that the potential clients will watch your entire video and get the full message without having the possibility of skipping it. Because of this, the videos can only be 15 seconds long, and they can come before, after, or in the middle of other videos.
But you should really be careful with these ones because you might sometimes get the opposite effect from the people you want to reach. People might be annoyed that they have to watch your ad, and you’ll end up with customers who don’t like you. So, carefully consider your video content. Find something that will get people’s attention and encourage them to check out your products and website.
In-feed ads for videos
The in-feed video ads can be used for placing your products, or your brand alongside video content that your target audience will probably see on YouTube. Most of these ads show up in the search results, in the “watch next” section, and in the YouTube app’s home feed.
The ads consist of a thumbnail, a headline, and two lines of text. Your possible customer will have to click on the ad in order to see it. However, if the client is on the YouTube ad, this ad will play without sound and with subtitles on. This obviously won’t count as an impression, so YouTube won’t charge you. Only people who click on your ad will be counted as impressions, and you’ll only be charged for those.
Bumper Ads
You can use bumper ads to show off the products you sell through your dropshipping business. In fact, you can use these ads to reach a wider target audience than usual, and offer them a short, but sweet introduction to your overall business story.
A memorable skit is a great way to market your brand or a specific product. Bumper ads only last for a maximum of 6 seconds (they can be shorter though if you manage to show everything in a slightly tight time window) and they can play before the start of other videos after the video finishes or in the middle of the video.
There is no way to skip the bumper ads, so you can be sure that your whole message will be shown. This is great because you can’t annoy your potential clients or even the wider audience (if you choose to cover a wider audience segment). Instead, you can only make people curious.
The more curious audience, the more impressions.
Outstream Ads
These kinds of ads are all about how the user feels when using their phone. This means that they’re appearing only on the mobile site or tablet site or the mobile app of YouTube. This makes it easy for people to learn about your clothes while they’re scrolling through YouTube to find their video.
In fact, once the ads show up on the user’s screen, they are set up to automatically play, but without sound. Of course, there is the “unmute” option if the user is interested in hearing more from you and your brand.
The prices are a little different here than in the other ads. You have to pay if your ad is called “viewable,” which means that it took up 50% of the user’s screen and played for two seconds without stopping.
Also, the out-stream ads are pretty flexible. They can be banners, in-feeds, and interstitials, but they can also be full-screen ads or portrait ads. Therefore, these ads are mainly used as a brand awareness instrument, but also you can use them if you want to improve your reach.
Ads on Mastheads
If you want to reach a large number of people in a short amount of time, you might want to use masthead ads. But these ads are a delicate part of the service YouTube offers, and their availability depends on a reservation made by a Google sales rep.
This format can work for computer screens, mobile devices, and TV screens. On a desktop, these ads play at the top of the home feed for 30 seconds and without sound.
They can be widescreen ads or have a ratio of 16:9. On the right side, there is a panel with information about your channel’s assets. Once the autoplay is done, the ad comes back to show the video’s thumbnail. If someone clicks on the ad, they will be taken to the page where they can watch the whole video ad on YouTube.
If the video ad is at the top of the home feed on a mobile device, the whole thing plays without sound. It consists of a thumbnail, headline that can be customised, descriptions, and an external CTA (call to action) (call to action).
The ad plays automatically on TV for its full length and is at the top of the TV YouTube app. People can use the TV’s remote to interact with the ad, and they can click on it to go to a page where the video will play in full screen. TV ads can’t have CTAs added to them like mobile ads can.
Still not sure?
If you’re still deciding whether or not to advertise on YouTube, there are a few things you should know before you even start.
YouTube is considered the second most visited web page after Google. This information shows you very clearly that, besides Google, YouTube is the best website for video content in the world. So, it is a very good idea to put ads on a platform like YouTube.
You should also know that YouTube made $28.8 billion in 2022, which is another important fact. When compared to 2022 and 2021, when YouTube made $19.8 billion and $15.2 billion, respectively, this is a big jump. The trend is definitely going up, and it won’t stop any time soon.
According to 78.8 percent of marketers around the world, YouTube is the most effective video platform.
But what’s most interesting is that if you’re a dropshipper whose main niche is luxury fashion and you want your shop and product inventory to be seen by a much larger audience, YouTube will definitely be the easiest way to do that. Studies show that 70% of shoppers want to know more about a company’s products when they find them while searching for videos on YouTube.
Last but not least, we should mention that YouTube is slowly taking over from live TV. Recent research shows that 6 out of 10 people would rather watch videos online than watch live TV and the shows that are on it. People seem to spend a lot more time watching videos on their phones or computers, and this seems to be cutting into the time they spend watching TV.
How to create engaging videos?
Good Start
The first thing you should keep in mind is that the beginning of the video is the key to your customers’ hearts. In other words, you need to incite a reaction, stop them for what they are doing and direct their full attention to the video ad.
You need to use key elements like graphics and effects, bright colours, and funny fonts to get the response you want. If you’re offering a certain promotion of particular fashion products, or you have exclusive luxury products, then this should be the primary hook.
Thumbnails
The thumbnails are the first thing that a potential customer will see, and they can be the deciding factor in whether or not they will be interested in your fashion store.
That is why a well-designed thumbnail will have greater success and will definitely help you get more consumers on board. You can try making original graphics that will be used as thumbnails with free software that you can find online.
A picture of a model wearing the dress you’re selling that looks appealing would also be a good idea.
Emotional message
Even though it sounds like a cliche, video ads that make people feel something tend to do better. This is because the ads always seem to work better when they are more personal.
Lastly, did you know that people often buy things without thinking about it and based on how they feel? So, always add something personal and emotional that will grab the attention of the larger audience.
Captions
Strange places are where people scroll through their phones. That’s why it’s more than important that your video ads always have captions. People who look at YouTube often can’t play a video with the sound on but are interested in what it says.
If the video doesn’t have captions, it would be impossible to understand, and people would lose interest right away. But if you add captions, this is pretty easy to get around. In fact, sometimes people want to see the captions even if they can’t hear the sound.
Because of this, the safest thing to do is to always include captions, which won’t cost you much but will help you gain new customers and trust.
Trying to reach your audience
Before you even start making videos, you’ll need to know who you’re making them for. This little piece of information will be the point of your video and will definitely help you make it.
So, if you’re a dropshipper who sells high-end fashion items, you should try to reach people who fit this description. Fashion enthusiasts, people who are searching for these items, people that have already visited your store (remarketing), etc.
This is important because you’ll need to start running your ads and then narrow them down based on how they do in the first campaign.
Conclusion
Some people might think that running a dropshipping business is easy, but it’s not. Yes, there aren’t many risks and costs to running it because you don’t have any inventory of your own, but that just means you should focus on the other parts of a successful business, especially marketing.
There are now many online platforms that will do the job for you for a fee, but it can be hard to choose the right one for your business. So, in this article, we wanted to tell you more about the YouTube ads platform and show you what its most important features are.
As we’ve already said, the online video industry is always changing and making a lot of money every year.
Even though Facebook and Instagram make it easier for even beginners to run ad campaigns and charge less, YouTube is a platform that will help your content reach a large number of people and give you more conversions. With this in mind, we hope that this article will help you get the results you want from your campaign.
