Maximum User Engagement
YouTube’s unique combination of video access, sharing, and community creates an opportunity for audience engagement that is unmatched.
Sight, sound, and motion elicit an emotional and physical involvement with content among users that is not available in other forms of media. There are two broad areas of participation for marketers:
- Aid discovery and engagement with your video assets by promoting your videos (Promoted Videos) and building them a curated home on YouTube (Channels).
- Capitalize on the millions of great partner videos already on YouTube by targeting your display ads to relevant videos.
Video creators can also learn an enormous amount about their video assets’ viewership through a sophisticated set of measurement tools. Audience demographics, levels of engagement, and performance compared to similar videos are just a few examples of the data that’s available. Video creators can then use this data to drive larger and deeper viewership among a target audience.
When combined, these features and tools create a level of engagement between the YouTube audience and YouTube content that is superior to the engagement offered by traditional media.
Reaching Your Audience
With more than 400 million unique visitors per month worldwide, YouTube can offer access to both current and potential customers, bringing efficient media targeting capabilities to you and your advertisers.
YouTube offers many of the traditional content targeting options that you’re already familiar with:
- Keyword targeting
- Contextual targeting
Because of the rich user data we have available, you can use audience targeting such as:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Language preference
For more sophisticated advertisers, we also offer interest-based advertising, which targets users based on their previous web behavior. There are two types of interest-based advertising:
- Interest Category Marketing enables the marketer to target a user wherever they are on YouTube, based on the user’s browsing history or video viewing on YouTube. This is a unique targeting capability based on the established deep engagement between video content and video consumer.
- Remarketing allows the marketer to only target ads to users who have visited the marketer’s website.
YouTube supports a wide range of ad formats and targeting options. Advertisers don’t have to have video inventory to advertise on YouTube.
You can get started with as little as a simple text ad targeting the Google Display Network.
YouTube also enables advertisers to leverage their video assets through the following formats:
In-Stream ads: Video ads that can be up to 30 seconds long, and appear before a user watches a video on YouTube. Similar to display ads, users can click on an In-Stream ad or a click-to-play video ad in order to be taken to an advertiser’s website. Learn more about In-Stream ads.
Promoted Videos: Ads that enable owners of video content to promote their videos on YouTube and the Google Display Network through a dynamic, auction-based marketplace. Learn more about Promoted Videos.
For advertisers without video assets, we support the following display ads:
MPUs: (Mid-Page Units) 300×250 display ad, which appears to the right of a video.
InVideo ads: 480×70 display overlay ad, which shows while a video is being played.
YouTube Page Types
There are multiple ad placements on YouTube that are available either on a reservation basis, or through the AdWords auction. These placements can be used to build maximum reach or provide niche content targeting.
Here are a few examples of the YouTube page types where your ads may show:
YouTube Homepage: For advertisers who are interested in maximum brand exposure and reach, ad placements on the YouTube Homepage, such as the Homepage Masthead Unit, are a perfect fit. YouTube homepage ads are only available on a reservation basis. This means that a placement may be purchased in advance and advertisers can secure a one-day slot on the YouTube homepage, assuming that the date requested is available. Please contact a YouTube sales representative if you’re interested in advertising on the YouTube homepage.
Search & Browse Pages: Advertisers can target users looking for certain types of content by placing ads on YouTube’s search pages and targeting certain categories of searches (e.g. sport, celebrities, etc). Ads can also be placed on YouTube browse pages which highlight all the most popular videos on YouTube. The most common ad formats on these pages are promoted videos which use keywords.
Watch Pages: YouTube has a large number of content partners who provide the site with premium video content. These content providers can be traditional broadcasters, or YouTube users who create popular, ad friendly content. Advertisers can place ads against this content on watch pages and can target users while they’re watching video content, commenting on what they’re watching and sharing videos with friends.
Advertisers who have concerns about user-generated content should note that no ad placement is available against content that is not part of the YouTube Partner Programme and deemed suitable for advertising.
YouTube Contests and Brand Channels
YouTube Contests and Brand Channels provide two of the most engaging and interactive online advertising opportunities available. Both Contests and Brand Channels are available to advertisers in conjunction with significant media investments across YouTube.
Contests: If your brand does not have many video assets, contests are a great way of creating branded videos for the viewing community. Contests harness the creative power of the YouTube community to create videos for your brand for use on YouTube and elsewhere. Taking part in a contest is a deeply engaging experience. Contestants will spend hours (even days) to create a video submission, while users will spend hours viewing and voting on finalists.
YouTube offers a contest gadget with everything you need to run a successful contest, customizable and adaptable for all four phases of a typical contest: submission, viewing, voting, and results. A great way to drive submissions and votes is by using the contest gadget ad, which is a basic version of the contest formatted to run in 300×250 ad units. These gadget ads work across YouTube and Google Display Network. Marketers can also encourage users to vote while they are watching the videos using a contest overlay ad.
Brand Channels: For advertisers who have developed a video strategy, a YouTube Brand Channel allows you to house and curate your video content. Brand Channels offer advertisers unique ways to display their video content and help differentiate themselves from standard YouTube users.
Brand channels also become central to an advertiser’s social experience on YouTube and can be used to develop a social strategy through “friendships” and “subscriptions.” Brand Channels offer a unique engagement experience for both brands and users and can be paired with special, customized creative units such as video carousels and mosaics.
Both Contests and Brand Channels are available to advertisers with a media investment across YouTube. Minimum spend thresholds apply and vary by country and region.
