YouTube Ads Increase Sales

I’ve been doing YouTube advertising for one of my clients for six months, and it’s increased our business by an estimated 10%. While I had done Google and Facebook pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, I was new to video. Viewers are now spending up to six hours/day watching video, so the time is right. 

Be prepared for a learning curve 

The YouTube ads creation tool is the same as that for Google ads. But there are significant differences and some subtle nuances. I did a lot of reading as I was working on this. It’s also helpful to watch videos that explain processes. 

We created a series of explainer videos

Our videos were about 60 seconds or less. I wrote the scripts, and this is key—keep them crisp and focused on a single topic. A quick how-to that explains a process or, in our case, the benefit of using a product/service. 

Professional-looking videos can get expensive, but I turned to Fiverr—a website that hosts contractors offering a wide range of services. I found a graphic designer from Pakistan who created our videos for between $100-200/each. The quality of these is excellent. We’ve developed a good working relationship, and it helped that he’s creative and clearly takes a lot of pride in his work. Turnaround time is generally a week or so. 

I also made a few of my own little videos using Promo.com

I love this little application. Easy to use, you can produce a polished video with music and three-five frames in a couple of hours. Keep your message simple and focused. 

Keywords are critical to the success of our ads

This is where it starts. Keywords are fundamental to a successful campaign. I use Google’s Keyword Planner. You want to use words and phrases for which there is a significant amount of search, but relatively little competition. Identify how much you want to spend per day and per view. 

Your keywords/phrases need to be grouped into adgroups.

Ad groups  organize your ads by a common theme—the types of products/services you’re advertising. An ad group contains one or more ads that share similar targets. Set a bid, or price, to be used when an ad group's keywords trigger an ad to appear. 

Identify your target audience

Really think about age, gender, education and interests. Think about where your audience is hanging out. These will be the websites where you place your ads. You can also create custom audiences based on these values. 

Measuring success: Make sure you’re tracking your website traffic with Google Analytics

I created a landing page to sign up for our newsletter, monitored Google Analytics and watched our numbers increase for our range of services. We were clearly driving traffic to our website. By synching your Google Ads account with Google Analytics you can see the effectiveness of your campaign from a single sign-in that streamlines your effort.

Interested in YouTube/Google advertising? Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing specialists.