Brands advertise on YouTube because it's the world's second nigh pop website, drawing 2 billion logged-in visitors a month.

If you lot're deciding how to allocate your video ad budget, YouTube has the vast achieve and powerful targeting capabilities that brand it an undeniably valuable platform across the customer journeying.

But allow'south exist upfront: YouTube ads aren't the most intuitive office of your social media advertizement strategy. Remainder assured that taking a bit of actress time to acquire the fundamentals now is going to pay off in your ROI later.

In this article we'll take a look at your advertizement format options, run through how to gear up a video ad entrada, list upwards-to-date advert specs, and go out yous inspired with best practices from proven performers.

Bonus: Download the free 30-day plan to grow your YouTube post-obit fast , a daily workbook of challenges that will assistance you kickstart your Youtube aqueduct growth and rail your success. Get existent results after ane month.

Types of YouTube ads

To start, let'south have a look at the main types of ads on YouTube, both video and otherwise:

  1. Skippable in-stream ads
  2. Not-skippable in-stream ads (including bumper ads)
  3. Video discovery ads (formerly known equally in-display ads)
  4. Non-video ads (i.e., overlays and banners)

If you've already been spending time fine-tuning your YouTube marketing strategy, you're probably familiar with nigh of these formats, by virtue of having seen them in activity. But let'south walk through and have a gander at the details.

1. Skippable in-stream video ads

These ads play before or during a video (a.k.a. "pre-roll" or "mid-scroll"). Their defining feature is that viewers can cull to skip them later on the offset 5 seconds.

As an advertiser, you lot merely pay when viewers cull to go on watching by those outset v seconds. Your advertising must be at least 12 seconds long (though somewhere under 3 minutes is recommended).

You pay when a person has watched the kickoff thirty seconds, or the whole affair, or if they interact with your advertizing by clicking: whichever comes get-go.

Sidebar: You'll run across the term "TrueView" pop up a lot. TrueView is YouTube'southward pet name for the payment type where you only pay for an advertisement impression when a user chooses to watch information technology. (The other type of TrueView video advertizing is the discovery advertisement type, and we'll give more than details on that beneath.)

For example, accept a look at how B2B company Monday.com uses skippable in-stream ads for pb generation. On the right, in that location's a 5-second countdown to when a viewer can skip the advertizement. On the left, you tin can run into evidently how long the advertisement is (0:33 seconds, in this case.)

Meanwhile, their sign-upward CTA shows up in both a companion banner in the superlative right of the display, and a video overlay in the bottom left. (Notation that even if a viewer skips the video, the companion banner remains.)

Monday.com YouTube ads

Also, B2C online teaching brand MasterClass uses skippable in-stream pre-gyre ads to promote their memberships. However, theirs run long: this one is most 2 minutes.

MasterClass YouTube ad

2. Non-skippable in-stream video ads

Because 76% of people report that they automatically skip ads, some advertisers choose to run pre-gyre or mid-roll ads that don't have a skip push at all.

When should you do this? When you're aiming for a wide elevator in brand awareness, and yous're confident that your creative is strong plenty to hold your audience's attention for the full 15 seconds.*

Note that with non-skippable ads, advertisers pay per impression, at CPM (i.e., per 1,000 views).

*Or up to 20 seconds if you're in India, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore or EMEA in general.

Bumper ads

At 6 seconds long, bumper ads are a snappy subspecies of non-skippable in-stream ad. They're identical in that you pay for impressions, they show upwards equally pre-, mid- or post-roll, and they're by and large best used for accomplish and awareness campaigns.

three. Discovery ads

Whereas in-stream ads function something like a traditional Tv commercial, discovery ads are more akin to the ads yous meet on Google's search results page. (This makes sense when we remember that YouTube is equally much a search engine every bit a social platform.)

Discovery ads evidence upwards alongside organic search results. So if your video looks more relevant than the organic results, people can choose to watch it, instead.

Discovery ads include 3 lines of text forth with a thumbnail. When interested people click on the ad, they're sent through to your video folio or YouTube channel.

TrueView discovery YouTube ads

Source: ThinkwithGoogle

Sidebar: Discovery ads are as well a type of TrueView advertisement, because people must actively cull to watch them.

For case, Home Depot Canada has a series of 30-second discovery ads that surface when users type in relevant search terms:

Home Depot discovery ad

iv. Non-video ads

For advertisers without a budget for video, YouTube offers not-video ads.

  • Display ads: announced on the correct-mitt sidebar, and include an image and text, aslope a CTA with a link to your website.
  • In-video overlay ads: appear floating on tiptop of video content from monetized YouTube channels.

In an platonic world, both of these advert types announced in conjunction with related content. Of form, that's non e'er the example.

For example, this osteopath'southward helpful shoulder exercise video probably falls generally under "health," and perhaps so do these ads for herbal remedies and MRIs. Of course, the chances of a viewer existence interested in all iii are slim. This is a great statement for being picky well-nigh your audience targeting—which nosotros'll cover in the next section.

YouTube video for how to cure shoulder pain with ad for MRI

How to advertise on YouTube

Here's where we become into the nitty gritty. Outset, your video advert volition live on YouTube, so start past uploading the video file to your YouTube channel. Make certain the video is public—or, if you lot don't want it popping upward in your channel, you can make information technology unlisted.

ane. Create your campaign

Sign in to your Google Ads business relationship and select New Campaign.

a) Choose your campaign goal, based on your brand's marketing objectives:

  • Sales
  • Leads
  • Website traffic
  • Product and brand consideration
  • Brand awareness and reach
  • Or: create a campaign without a goal's guidance

b) Select your entrada type. These include all forms of Google ads (including search results, text, shopping) and so make certain you select Video or, in some cases, Discovery campaigns in order to show your video to audiences on YouTube.

Google Ads campaign dashboard highlighting Display and Video

Notation: Display ads can also be surfaced on YouTube, simply call up that they aren't videos, they're just text and a thumbnail, and they likewise show up beyond Google's Display network.

c) Since you're most likely working with video, you'll desire to select your video campaign subtype:

video campaign subtype options

d) Don't forget to proper name your entrada in a way that allows you to easily locate, manage, and optimize it in the futurity.

2. Define your entrada parameters

a) Select your bid strategy (for the almost function, your campaign type will make up one's mind this: practice you desire conversions, clicks, or impressions?)

b) Enter your budget by twenty-four hours or equally the total amount y'all're willing to spend on the campaign. Also enter the dates your advertizing volition run.

c) Select where your ads will show upwards:

  • Discovery only (i.e., YouTube search results);
  • All of YouTube (i.e., search results, merely too channel pages, videos and the youTube homepage)
  • YouTube Brandish network (i.e., non-YouTube affiliate websites, etc.)

d) Select your audition'southward language, and location. You can choose to show ads worldwide, or target by country. Remember that only 15% of traffic to YouTube comes from the U.S., so it'southward adept to recollect broadly.

e) Choose how "sensitive" your make safety guidelines are. In other words: how much profanity, violence or sexually suggestive content are y'all willing to have your ads run alongside? More than sensitive brands will take their ads running in a smaller pool of videos, which may bulldoze upwards the price you pay.

content exclusions options for youtube ads

3. Target your audience

If you haven't created heir-apparent personas nevertheless, have the time to do so. The more than you lot know nearly your audience, the better you tin target them, and the college your ROI.

  • Demographics: This covers historic period, gender, parental status, and household income. But YouTube also offers more detailed life-phase data: you can target new homeowners, higher students, new parents, for instance.
  • Interests: Use topics and keywords to target people based on their past behaviour (i.e., search topics). This is how YouTube helps yous find people at crucial moments, like when they're researching their next electronics purchase, or trying to acquire how to build a website.
    • Pro Tip: Remember that whether a video is relevant to a user'southward interests is 3x more important to people than if it has a celebrity in it, and 1.6x more important than if it looks like it was expensive to produce.
  • Remarketing: Target audiences who accept already interacted with your other videos, your website or your app.

iv. Fix your campaign to alive

a) Enter the link to your advertisement, and hit the Create Campaign button to set your campaign running.

For more nitty-gritty particular, YouTube has their own guidelines for advertising creation here.

Pro Tip: This is also the place to go if you want to go ambitious and start experimenting with ad sequence campaigns, where yous can upload multiple types of ads that support each other and are arranged to surface to your audience in the right gild.

YouTube ad specs

Skippable and non-skippable in-stream video ads on YouTube must first be uploaded as regular YouTube videos. So, for the about office your video ad's technical specs (file size, ad dimensions, ad paradigm sizes, et cetera) volition exist the same as for any YouTube video. Once it'southward uploaded to your channel, y'all're ready to go.

The exception here is Discovery ads, which must suit to the following:

YouTube ad specs (for Discovery ads)

  • File format: AVI, ASF, Quicktime, Windows Media, MP4 or MPEG
  • Video Codec: H.264, MPEG-ii or MPEG-4
  • Audio Codec: AAC-LC or MP3
  • Aspect ratio: 16:9 or four:iii is recommended, just YouTube will automatically suit the file depending on the aspect ratio and device
  • Frame rate: 30 FPS
  • Maximum file size: 1 GB for Discovery ads

YouTube video ad length guidelines

Minimum length

  • Skippable ads: 12 seconds

Maximum length

  • Skippable ads: 3 minutes
    • Skippable ads on YouTube Kids: 60 seconds
  • Non-skippable ads: 15 seconds
    • Non-skippable ads in EMEA, Mexico, Republic of india, Malaysia and Singapore: 20 seconds
  • Bumper ads: six seconds

YouTube advertising best practices

YouTube's ad engine is powerful and capable of endless optimization tweaks, simply at the end of the day, your advertizing'south success will depend on how it connects with people. That means your creative choices matter. Here are our best tips for effective video ads on YouTube.

Bonus: Download the gratuitous thirty-twenty-four hours program to abound your YouTube following fast , a daily workbook of challenges that will help you kickstart your Youtube channel growth and rails your success. Get real results after one month.

Become the free guide right at present!

Hook people immediately

What's a hook? Peradventure it's a familiar face up. A strong mood or emotion. Tight framing of key products or faces (unfamiliar ones, too). Perhaps a surprising or unusual genre choice like sense of humor or suspense. Or a catchy song, if you tin can secure the rights.

For instance, this leaderboard-topping Vrbo advertizement starts off powerfully considering of its opening shot of outright misery. Paired with a dissonant title ("Sunny beaches, sandy beaches," etc.), audiences have a niggling fleck of tension to continue them interested. Why is the sunny beach video about a sorry moisture man?

youtube ad by VRBO, sad man in rain

Source: VRBO

If you watch the video you'll quickly realize the opening shot has little to do with the balance of the ad: it's a bit of a allurement and switch, but it's jaunty plenty that it works.

Make early, but brand meaningfully

According to YouTube, top-of-funnel sensation ads perform all-time when branding appears in the start v seconds and throughout the ad. Meanwhile, ads aimed for audiences further down the funnel, (eg., consideration-phase viewers) might desire to brand later to allow viewers to engage with the ad's story, and drive higher watch times.

For a refreshing example of how a brand can fully embody its positioning, take a look at Mint Mobile's new #stayathome-inflected advert. In information technology, bulk possessor and famously handsome man Ryan Reynolds alludes to the expensive studio-shot video Mint Mobile had started to set. Instead, he screenshares a Powerpoint with a bar graph and some "next steps."

YouTube ad by MintMobile, Ryan Reynolds sharing his desktop on Zoom

Mint Mobile youtube ad

Source: Mint Mobile

The takeaway here? Branding is more than just making certain your logo shows upwards in the beginning v seconds, per YouTube'southward recommendations. A truly keen video advertising personifies your brand in a way where literally every detail supports that character, tone and vision.

Connect with story + emotion

In 2018, Wells Fargo ran a brand awareness campaign on YouTube that directly acknowledged their recent history of spectacular customer abuse scandals. According to the bank's VP of marketing, the campaign—meant to re-plant trust with regular people—was seen as risky and polarizing for internal stakeholders.

No matter your personal stance of retail banking, in this one-infinitesimal long cornerstone advertising, the combination of loftier-terminate costume-drama Western visuals and uplifting shots of people "doing the right affair" in offices is undeniably emotionally constructive. Add in some famous guitar riffs and y'all have some pretty stirring stuff.

YouTube ad by Wells Fargp featuring man riding a horse

Source: Wells Fargo

The takeaway: anyone can "tell a story." If you want to tell a really effective one, go for the throat and tell the story that takes a risk.

Pro Tip: And if you have the resources for multi-ad sequencing (i.e., multiple videos of differing lengths that target your audience in a given order), in that location are several kinds of narrative arc yous might desire to consider.

Show people what to do side by side

As we've mentioned, your YouTube advertising needs a goal in order for you to measure its success.

If your campaign goals are lower-funnel actions (e.g., clicks , sales, conversions, or traffic) then consider setting the advertising up as a TrueView for action campaign. This will give additional clickable elements to your advertising, so viewers tin can click before the end.

For instance, Monday.com—who certainly have me targeted, anyway—have CTA overlays and companion banners galore.

Youtube ad by Monday.com

YouTube ad overlays by Monday.com

Don't be afraid to employ templates

Not every brand has a century-old-bank or unicorn-startup budget to accident. Grocery delivery service Imperfect, for instance, creates quick, unproblematic, personable videos that are perfectly effective.

If yous know what your bulletin is, you don't need a Hollywood A-lister to deliver information technology. Our social video strategy toolkit has more suggestions to get you lot moving on making your masterpiece.

Imperfect YouTube ad

Source: Imperfect

Use Hootsuite to promote your YouTube channel and bulldoze engagement. Hands publish videos to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter—all from 1 dashboard. Try information technology free today.

Get Started