YouTube advertising funnel

Have you thought about building funnels in YouTube before? Just like in other social media channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, it is possible to build funnels in YouTube. YouTube is a very suitable platform for advertising. This is due to the large reach of this platform and the very specific possibilities for targeting and remarketing. Logically, you advertise via YouTube with video ads. What the advantages of this are in each phase, we explain to you!

YouTube video advertising.

As we mentioned above, YouTube is a very suitable platform to reach a large audience. Different types of video ads can be deployed through this platform. These overarching types are ;

InStream ads;
In-feed ads;
Bumper ads

instream ads.

An Instream ad is immediately the most popular form of advertising. When your target audience watches a video, they see this ad before, during or after the video. There are different variations possible. For example, you can choose to give your audience the choice to skip the ad after five seconds. Another option is that they cannot skip the ad and thus must watch it off. This last option has another characteristic in which it differs from other types of advertising. This feature has everything to do with when you pay for an ad.

When do you pay for the ad?

In fact, that is only when at least 30 seconds of the video have been viewed. Does this mean you can only use videos longer than 30 seconds? Absolutely not. It does mean that if your video is shorter than 30 seconds, you only pay when the entire ad has been viewed! We also call this a Trueview. The advantage of this method of advertising is that visitors can skip the video, which saves you costs and ensures that only people who are really interested in your ad are watching it.

in-feed ads

On to the next one! In-feed ads. What does this mean? With this type of advertising, your ads are shown on the YouTube homepage when people are searching for videos. You can then show your ad in different places.

between YouTube videos related to the search;
as a search result on YouTube;
via the mobile website;
via the YouTube app.

In-feed ads appear as a thumbnail image with 1 or 2 lines of text, depending on where the ad is shown. When a visitor then clicks, they are taken to the YouTube page where they can then view the ad.

bumper ads.

Last but not least. Bumper ads. In this type of ad, the videos are short. Namely, 6 seconds or less. This gives you a chance to show individuals a short message that makes an impact. Above all, do not try to tell a story here, as it will not stick in the viewer's mind. The advantage of this method of advertising? A short video has minimal (negative) impact on the viewer's video experience, making them less likely to be "irritated" by your ad.

Disadvantage of this method of advertising? You cannot build remarketing lists within the platform. What you can do is increase interest in your brand and awareness of it among the target audience.

back to the YouTube funnel.

You now know what types of ads are possible within the YouTube platform. Now we go back to where it gets really interesting. The advertising funnel within YouTube. You may already know the different phases. Visibility, interest and then connection.

phase 1: visibility

In this phase you start showing your ads to the target audience. Which type of ad we use here is the Trueview ad. This means that you as an advertiser only pay per viewed video ad. As mentioned earlier, this ensures that you save costs and that you only reach people who are really interested in your ad. What is the beauty of this? We can build a target group. All viewers who have watched your video ad are "stored" in a list. We use these lists in phase 2!

phase 2: interest

In this phase we are going to use the lists. And not only the audience stored in the lists is useful here. With these lists you can create a similar target group within the platform. The target group in the lists as well as this similar target group can then be reached with a remarketing campaign. This remarketing campaign is an efficient way of advertising because all people in this target group have previously shown interest in your advertisement and therefore in your brand, product or service. Do they then click on this ad? Then we move to the next phase.

phase 3: connecting

Here is where you are going to connect prospects to your brand, product or service. After they click on the remarketing campaign, they are redirected to a landing page. A page where you can provide some more information. About why your offered product or service solves one or more needs or pains of the target audience, or why your brand is so unique. Is the content on this page interesting enough? Is there a strong lead magnet on the page? Then visitors will want to leave their personal data for this content. The visitor has then become a lead!

After visiting the landing page, are the visitors not yet ready to convert to lead? Then we can use a subsequent remarketing campaign in combination with Google RLSA on both the target group and the similar target group to try again to warm them up towards conversion. Google RLSA means that when a person who has visited your website, and is saved in your remarketing lists, will see your ad in Google when they search for a search term that you advertise on. An additional way to warm up your target audience towards conversion.

Ready for video advertising?

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