So you’re thinking of running video ads to promote your startup, service, or product.
But which platform would you use?
What if there was something that Google did where you could use Google’s knowledge to run a video ad?
Because we know how video ads work on Facebook and TikTok and Instagram and the other platforms.
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1. Your interests drive your video ads.
We know that they base that targeting based on your involvement on that platform.
What do you do on that platform or remarketing from your website? So you’ve gone to a website and you target somebody based on, “Hey, they’ve been to the website and now they’re on Facebook, let’s run an ad for them.”
2. Google knows a lot about users.
But you’re running video ads. What if you had the knowledge of Google? Now let’s think about what Google has for a second.
Google has a lot of sources of knowledge to target customers, don’t they? They know what people have searched on. They have general topics that they know people are talking about on Gmail. They have a browser called Chrome, which understands people’s behavior. They have something called Google Analytics, so they know a lot about behavior on websites. And they actually do have a video platform, don’t they? It’s called YouTube, right? Because Google or Alphabet, if you will, they actually own YouTube. And with all this activity, you’re usually logged into your YouTube account, aren’t you, when you’re doing that activity? So there is a profile.
3. YouTube Ads use Google data.
Now, Google and YouTube, which is the video platform that we’re talking about, they don’t actually allow you to target individually. I want to know what Jeff wants to buy. But you’re able to target people generally through the YouTube Ads platform, which is a subset of the Google Ads platform.
And think about all the ways that Google knows what you’re doing, for good or bad, in this case for good, because you’re using this information to target your customers and give them the service that they desire at just the right time, using YouTube Ads.
4. Ways to target YouTube Ads.
But let’s just talk about what ways you can target using YouTube Ads for just a second here. Certainly you can target people based on their experience on YouTube, but let’s put that aside for the moment and talk about the ways you could target them based on their Google interests. Okay? One of the things you can do is target them based on the words they’re searching for, but over on Google.
a. YouTube search terms.
And yet you’re targeting them on YouTube, so they may not be on YouTube for a day or two, although 90% of people are on YouTube every week, and almost all of those people are watching ads.
b. Google search terms.
But let’s say they’re over on Google searching for something. They’re emailing somebody about something. They’re browsing for something on Chrome. Well, we can target based on that information. So one of the things we can do is target based on a keyword somebody is searching for on Google. That’s very helpful to know. And frankly, people pay more attention to ads when it’s something they’ve searched on because you’re providing them information at just the time they asked for it. So you give them this ad based on what they searched for.
c. Multiple niche campaigns.
We recommend narrowly targeting certain types of searches, and running multiple campaigns based on different types of searches. For instance, if you’re targeting people that like apples and bananas, target one group of people who like apples and one group of people who like bananas, not apples and bananas together, not people who like fruit.
5. B2B YouTube Ads targeting.
a. Niche website visits.
Okay? You can also target based on websites that people have visited. Now, why is this helpful? Well, it’s particularly helpful if you are a small niche like a B2B or somebody whose customers are very narrow. Alright? You may feel for B2B for instance, you might target just some industry websites or industry journals or blogs that the consumer would not use, but the business would use. So you can target them based on just those websites. That’s also very interesting. You can also target someone, are they in market for something? Is it an interest that they’re interested in? And we can exclude certain interests too. We can exclude certain words, certain interests.
b. What videos do ads show up on?
Certain websites and we can continually fine tune this based on what information the campaign is giving us. A very important feature of YouTube Ads called where ads show. They bury this a little bit because they don’t want you picking through it, but you need to pick through it because it tells you how good your campaign is. If you see your ads showing up on the type of content that is not conducive to you making a sale, a lead, or a conversion, you need to fine tune your ad.
c. Google’s exclusive video platform.
So the YouTube Ads platform is the only video platform that uses Google’s information to target customers. No other video platform gives you that option. So in answer to the initial question, what if Google had a video ads platform?
They do. It’s called YouTube Ads, and you can target your customers based on a ton of things that Google knows about your customer.
6. Who am I?
Oh, and if we haven’t met, my name is Dane Golden of VidAction, the YouTube Ads do it yourself resource.
Check out my newsletter in the link below, and I’ll see you in the next video.