How to Place Ads on YouTube with Google AdWords: Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I showed how to launch YouTube promoted videos through Google AdWords.  When you promote one of your videos, you are paying YouTube to funnel more traffic to the video... but the traffic still stays on YouTube.  (Of course, you can include a call-to-action link in your video that goes to your website, but that is more a feature of the video than a specific advertising strategy.)

You probably want to do more than just get people to watch one of your videos in an environment controlled by YouTube.  You want to get people to come to your website where they can take a desired action and you can make money.

There are multiple ways you can get your ads to show on YouTube searches, inside and alongside other people's videos.  With the right targeting, this can be a very profitable way to take advantage of YouTube's enormous amount of traffic.

Text Ads in YouTube Search Results

YouTube is a Google search partner.  If your AdWords campaign is opted into the Google search partners network (in the campaign settings), your ads will also be displayed on YouTube for relevant searches.  The problem is that Google currently provides no way to segment or optimize keywords/bids/ads for a specific search partner. 

Be aware that YouTube promoted videos get preference on their search result pages.  As more people use promoted videos, there won't be much room left for traditional text ads.

Ads on YouTube Content (Video) Pages

Ads on the YouTube content (video) pages can be one of three types: text, video, or image. In part one, I showed how to get your promoted YouTube video to show up on content pages.  In the section below, I'll explain how to target YouTube video pages with ads of various formats that take users directly to your website.

In order to use any of the ad formats described below on YouTube, you'll need to have the proper campaign settings in Google AdWords.

Step 1: Target managed placements

In the campaign settings, target "Relevant pages only on the placements and audiences I manage" in the Content network.

Step 2: Set YouTube as your only managed placement in your campaign ad groups

In the "Networks" tab in your ad group, add "youtube.com" as a managed placement.  You have a few options at this point.  You probably don't want to simply target all of YouTube with your ads -- instead you want to target only the YouTube visitors that would be interested in what you have to offer.

There are two methods available for targeting the specific segment of YouTube visitors most likely to be interested in your offer:

• Only target specific videos
  Instead of adding "youtube.com" as a managed placement, you can use the YouTube Video Targeting Tool to get the placement URLs for specific YouTube categories, channels, or videos.  Keep in mind that only a subset of YouTube videos are available for direct targeting.
  
• Refine your generic "youtube.com" placement with keywords
  If you'd rather target all videos related to a list of relevant keywords, then go ahead and add "youtube.com" as a managed placement, but refine your ad group targeting by adding keywords to the ad group as well.  Your ads will then only show on YouTube video pages relevant to your keyword list.  This is the simplest option and will usually give you more traffic than targeting specific videos.
  

Once the above campaign & ad group settings and placements are completed, the ad formats included in your ad groups will determine the eligible ad blocks on YouTube.  Below are the possibilities...

Ads Beside the Video

Image ads size 300x250 are eligible for display to the right of the video on YouTube.  This is a great placement that can yield high CTR for relevant ads.

Ads Inside the Video Itself

There are four ad formats available for getting your ad to show up in someone else's video:

1. Text Ads
   Any text ads you add normally to your YouTube campaign will be eligible for display in the bottom section of YouTube partner videos.  These show up for a few seconds during the video and then at the end.
2. Image Ads (InVideo Static Image)
   Image ads have a much higher CTR than text ads, so you should use this format whenever possible.  YouTube accepts in-video static images advertising size 480x70 that show up on the bottom of the video (like the text ad).  This isn't a standard image size within AdWords, so you'll need to add it through the Display Ad Builder tool.
   
   In the "Audio and Video" category, choose the "InVideo Static Image" format.
   
   
   
3. In-Stream Video Ad
   As above, the in-stream video ad is a Display Ad Builder format found in the same category.  It can either be 15 or 30 seconds in length and plays either before, during, or after the main video.  (The system chooses at what point in the main video your video ad will play.)

Note that in-video image and video ads both allow a companion banner size 300x250 that can accompany your in-video ad.  When eligible, this ad will let you do a near-takeover of the video page with an in-video ad and a complimentary image ad at the same time.  The companion banner upload is found in the display ad builder settings for your ad.

Your bid and quality score will need to be high enough to win both auctions for the companion banner to display.  If the companion banner doesn't make the cut, your primary in-video ad will still be eligible for display.

As you can see, there are a lot of options available for targeting YouTube with your ads.

How to Place Ads on YouTube with Google AdWords: Part 1

In search volume alone, YouTube is the #2 search engine behind Google itself.  Yet even with its gigantic size, it is easy for YouTube to get passed up by online advertisers.  Many advertisers ignore the opportunity due to the convoluted process required to explicitly target YouTube with ads.  This means there is less competition for ad space on YouTube and great rewards for those who can crack the code.

In this post I hope to clear up the confusion and tell you exactly how to get your ads showing on YouTube. YouTube is both a search engine when searching for videos and a content site when watching videos.  While there are a few high-dollar ad buys available directly through YouTube, most of the ad inventory can be purchased through Google AdWords on a CPC or CPM basis.  Generally speaking, YouTube as a search engine is reached through a search targeted AdWords campaign.  YouTube as a content site is reached through a content or placement targeted AdWords campaign.

YouTube Promoted Video Ads

When you do a search on YouTube, two types of ads can show up: sponsored text ads and promoted video ads.  The sponsored text ads are brought in through YouTube's search partnership with Google.  If your campaign is opted into the search partner network it is automatically eligible to display on YouTube search results.  You can't explicitly target your text ads on the YouTube search results page -- it happens behind the scenes.

You can, however, explicitly target the YouTube search results page with a promoted video.  A promoted video is a YouTube video you pay to get people to watch. You'd probably only want to do this if there is some call to action in the video itself that will encourage viewers to visit your actual website after watching your video.

If there is a promoted video eligible for display on a YouTube search result page (i.e. if you are bidding on that query), it will always rank higher than sponsored text ads.  This is because YouTube wants to keep people on their own site.  The sponsored text ads link to external sites while the sponsored video ads link to a specific video on YouTube.

So here's how to post your promoted video ad...

1. Create a Google AdWords campaign opted into both Google Search and Google Search Partners in the campaign settings.  If you want your promoted video ad displayed on relevant video watch pages across YouTube, you must also opt into Google's content network.  You may wish to create a separate campaign for this purpose so you can use different keyword lists for YouTube search vs. YouTube content targeting.
   
   
2. Create your ad groups as you would normally, but skew the keywords toward searches that would be popular on YouTube.  You can use the YouTube keyword suggestion tool for ideas.
3. The ads themselves are what makes this a YouTube promoted video campaign.  Don't include any standard text or image ads, otherwise the network settings above will kick in and you'll indeed be targeting Google search + partners.  Include only ads of a specific format: a Display Ad Builder ad using the "YouTube Promoted Videos Template." This is found in the "Audio and Video" category of Display Ad Builder.  Once you choose this format, you'll be able to select the YouTube video you wish to promote.
   

What about getting people to your own website?  You're paying Google/YouTube to get someone to visit another page on YouTube's site.  That can't be your end goal.  Of course your video will probably mention your website and you'll probably have a link to your site in the video description -- but YouTube gives you another call to action link you need to use:  a Call-to-Action Overlay.

A call-to-action overlay resembles a sponsored text ad at the bottom of your video.  It shows up at the bottom of your video for a brief period of time during the video and then at the end of the video.  The difference from a sponsored text ad is that it doesn't say "sponsored ad," it is free for you to use, and it links to your own website.

Before posting your promoted video campaign, perform the following steps to activate your call-to-action overlay:

1. Sign in to your YouTube account
2. Click Account at the top of your dashboard.
3. Click Edit next to the video you will be promoting.
4. Fill in all required fields under Call-to-Action Overlay.
5. Click save changes when you're done making all changes to your video.

Here's some more helpful tips from Google on how to optimize your promoted video campaigns.

5 Step Google Initial Quality Score Checklist

You don't get a second chance to make a good first impression. The moment you upload your new campaigns & ad groups, even if paused, Google gives you an initial quality score. If it's below average you'll be paying more per click until Google has enough data for your actual performance to determine your quality score.

If you don't come out of the gate with your best foot forward, you'll pay a premium on your first 100+ clicks. Worse, you may be tempted to give up on a keyword prematurely based on astronomical bid prices. Pay attention to the checklist below when launching new campaigns, ad groups or keywords into your AdWords account.

The good news is that all these suggestions won't just help your initial quality score, but should actually increase the long-term quality of your AdWords campaigns.

Here's how to get the best possible initial quality scores in Google:

1. Use AdWords Editor instead of the web interface when creating new campaigns

You can't "undo" a first impression, so you'll want to create and optimize your new campaign in an offline editor. This will allow you to reorganize keywords and ad groups before Google can give you an initial quality score.

2. Don't launch campaigns as paused until the landing page is ready

It can be tempting to one-up your web developer by launching built-out campaigns as paused while waiting for the landing page to be completed. Don't do it. Have patience... create a backup, write new ads, go on a long lunch, but don't launch your campaigns into Google until everything is optimized.

3. Create as many ad groups as necessary to use all high-traffic keywords in your ads

Your quality score matters the most for keywords that get the most traffic. A big part of quality score is whether your ads are relevant to the keywords. In the beginning, the relevancy question is simply, "Are the keywords in the ads?" You may need to make additional ad groups for high traffic keywords to make sure those keywords are included in your ads.

4. Make sure your landing page is relevant for your keywords

Here's the quick test: put your landing page URL into Google's keyword tool. Do your keywords come up in the keyword ideas list? If not, edit your content so they show up. Ideally you'd have a unique landing page for every ad group. At the very least, you'll probably want a landing page for each campaign.

5. Make sure your landing page has good navigation and generally isn't "spammy."

This is the least straightforward. Google doesn't like spammy pages and will give you perpetually poor quality scores if your site looks spammy. They don't let on to their secret algorithms to gauge the spammyness of a site, but if your site functions more like a snake oil infomercial than Wikipedia, you may have some work cut out for you.