Best Tips on Profitable YouTube Advertising & Promotion

Video should become a critical piece of the marketing puzzle because of how much video 

content your audience is consuming.

But, with many other companies knowing this, it’s becoming harder and harder to stand 

out amongst your competition. This is why advertising spend does need to be allocated to 

services like YouTube in order to gain visibility from your target audience.

Although similar to paid search spend, the world of YouTube advertising can seem a bit 

overwhelming and complicated to navigate at first. Below are six tips to help you spend 

your YouTube ad budget in a smart way to actually gain attention from the people that 

matter the most, your future customers.

1. Choose Your YouTube Ad Format Wisely

The first complicated fact about YouTube advertising is that there are many different ad 

formats available. From bumper ads to sponsored cards to display ads to skippable or non-

skippable video ads (take note that non-skippable ads are being killed in 2018).

Where should you start? Well, you should first start by reading about each individual 

format on the YouTube help page here, and then considering what your main goal is.

For example, if you’re looking to raise brand awareness with an engaging video ad, then it 

would make more sense to run a TrueView in-stream or discovery ad. On the other hand, if 

you’re looking to be more targeted and gain leads to your website that are genuinely 

interested in your offerings, it might make sense to use sponsored cards.

Make sure to follow the specs outlined by Google to ensure the dimensions and quality 

match up. It can be worthwhile to invest in market research to understand the ad format 

that will help you reach your business goals.

2. Segment In-Stream and Discovery Ads into Different Campaigns

Similar to how you should be separating your Google AdWords campaigns into search vs.

display network, you should be doing the same with your video ads. Why? In-stream ads 

and discovery ads (previously known as in-display ads) are very distinct from one another,

What’s the difference? In-stream ads play before, during, or after other videos. Discovery 

ads appear next to related YouTube videos, as part of YouTube search results, or alongside 

other content across the Display Network.

Example of a YouTube discovery ad

Because of these differences you should have a different budget and strategy which is 

easier to control on the campaign level.

3. Take Advantage of YouTube Targeting Options

Just as you should when advertising on Facebook, Twitter, or Google, you need to pay close 

attention to the audience that is consuming your messages. Why waste money on 

unqualified and irrelevant eyes that are unlikely to be interested in your offerings?

Via SEMRush

 YouTube allows great flexibility to take control over who sees your ads. Starting with 

demographic targeting, you can then layer on affinity audiences (to target people 

interested in a certain topic), custom affinity audiences, and in-market audiences.

For example, if you’re selling golf lessons in a certain location it would make sense to 

advertise in that region to the demographic of your typical customers who are already 

interested in golf.

4. Set Up Video Remarketing

Remarketing is by far the most effective targeting method in my opinion, because you have 

the security of knowing this audience has already expressed interest in your company by 

visiting your website.

If you’re unfamiliar with remarketing, it’s a way to follow your website visitors with 

advertisements in other places (think social networks, websites via the display network, 

and YouTube of course). It might sound creepy, but it’s effective, and has likely even 

worked on you before. For example, the time that new pair of shoes kept showing up on 

your Facebook feed so you finally purchased them. Yup, that was remarketing!

“To put it simply, it works,” says Anja Kicken from Veeroll. “People that have already visited 

your website are simply much more likely in whatever you have to offer than people 

who’ve never heard of you.”

The great thing about remarketing is it’s relatively easy to set up, and once configured 

there isn’t much you need to do aside from tracking the effectiveness.

5. Create Compelling, Human Content that Feels Native

With so much video content on the internet, and the option to skip over and x-out of most 

YouTube advertisements, it’s important to focus on producing high-quality video content. 

Think of quality as something that does not feel like your typical advertisement, as in it’s 

not an annoyance or disturbance.

Whether it be a compelling story that pulls at the heartstrings or a joke/prank that has 

your audience on the floor laughing. Including people and making a relatable experience 

that feels natural and native is what you should aim for.

6. Drive Action by Adding Interactive Elements to Your Ads

Did you know that you can link up your shopping cart with a TrueView video ad? You can 

also add calls-to-action, cards to showcase products, or even auto-end screens encouraging 

the viewer to download your app.

Conclusion:

Whether your business model is B2B or B2C, you have some goal in mind that has led you 

to advertise, so why not capitalize on these features to drive action? Having a great ad is 

one thing, but actually getting tangible results and new business from that ad is another, so 

explore these actionable features to reach your video ad goals faster.