As we spend more time at home, viewer attention is shifting even more to online entertainment options. People are streaming on TV screens and using their mobile devices to watch their favorite shows more than ever, and that is opening additional opportunities for YouTube advertisers.
YouTube has the highest reach and viewing hours among ad-supported streaming services and represents a quarter of all streaming watch time across (subscription and ad-supported platforms) in the US (Comscore). Ads on the YouTube platform are a highly effective medium to increase brand awareness and drive traffic. However, it is critical when employing YouTube Ads that a maintenance strategy is in place—as new changes to the platform can both provide new opportunities and require modifying ads to maintain and increase ROI. In fact, several new changes, available now, are designed to make advertising more effective and reach more users.
Here are a few of the new YouTube features you can leverage.
1. Bumper Ads: Bumper Ads are 6-second video advertisements that are unstoppable and play before the anticipated content. While short, these ads have been shown to be very effective. Since the user can’t skip through, they watch the entire placement, which can raise brand awareness and pique interest. A great advantage of the Bumper Ad is that they are fast and inexpensive to create and these short messages often get quickly to the point and appeal to the audience.
2. Instant Review. The Instant Review features allow advertisers the ability to reserve ad space up to 120 days in advance, gaining preapproval and guaranteed ad placements. You can schedule ads and reserve enough placements ahead of time. There is no minimum ad spend.
3. Brand Lift Measurement Tool. The Brand Lift Measurement Tool is free to all YouTube advertisers. The Brand Lift Measurement Tool is designed to help the advertiser – to measure the effectiveness of their in-stream and bumper ads. In addition to tracking conversions, ad lift and brand awareness are tracked. Since there is no way to measure this at the moment, advertisers will create an “advertised object” (grouping of multiple campaigns that have a commonality – product, service or brand message). Google will generate a list of survey questions that will be shown to people who have seen your ad. Best of all, surveys are now optimized for the big screen and can be answered effortlessly with a TV remote, so people can easily respond or skip the survey.
4. Vertical Video Ads. Vertical video ads are mobile-friendly and the best way to reach mobile users of YouTube. These ads take up the full screen and should be part of your ad campaign in order to connect with the high percentage of viewers watching from their phones.
5. Mastheads on TV Screens. Mastheads ads are a new YouTube ad feature that will autoplay after a few seconds. These are similar to TV ads but with a much lower cost of entry. While these can be scrolled past, there is no skip option. These mastheads help advertisers drive awareness with large audiences in one fell swoop.
There is no doubt that entertainment viewing behaviors are evolving and becoming dependent on streaming venues such as YouTube. Smart advertisers are evolving too. By keeping up with new features and functionality available on YouTube, and consistently managing your account, you will elevate your brand and drive traffic to your business. As always, DirectiveGroup is here to help build your business with everything from strategy to execution.
