Advertising on YouTube is still a bit of a distant prospect for many advertisers. Many people think that a large budget is needed to run successful campaigns. Or they prefer performance campaigns via Google Search. But video advertising can also be used on a small scale and YouTube campaigns are extremely suitable as a supplement to performance campaigns.
In this article I will explain all the possibilities within YouTube and share some best practices with you.
Overall strategy is the building block of a successful campaign
A successful YouTube campaign does not stand alone. It is usually part of the total marketing mix. It is important to have a clear customer journey before you start deploying a campaign.
Make sure there are no gaps between your different targeting audiences . To map this out better, Google's SEE/THINK/DO/CARE model is a useful tool. The different phases represent the different moments in the customer journey:
In the SEE phase you focus on people who do not yet know about your brand/product/service.
One step lower in the funnel you focus on orientation traffic ( THINK phase ).
One step lower you arrive at the DO phase , these are people who are about to make a request/purchase.
If all current campaigns are focused on the DO phase, it is wiser to focus on the exploratory traffic instead of the traffic with a latent need (SEE phase). This ensures a more natural transition in the consumer's search. Therefore, always map out the different targeting audiences of your campaigns before you start.
What target groups are there and when do you use which ones?
Before I explain the different target groups, it is good to know that there are different types, divided into:
1st party data audiences
2nd party data audiences
3rd party data audiences
You can write very interesting pieces about the differences of these target groups and the way of data collection. For now I will briefly explain the difference.
1st party data audiences are audiences that are built with your own data. For example from your own CRM system , social channels or website traffic. 2nd party data is actually the same as 1st party data, but it is someone else's data that is used by you. Companies often buy this data directly from another party. Finally, there is 3rd party data, this is aggregated data that is collected by data collection companies and sold to companies for commercial use.
For advertising on YouTube, 1st party data audiences and 2nd party data audiences are generally used. Google Ads audiences fall under the latter form. Below we explain all the audiences, starting with the audiences that are in the SEE phase. The division per phase below is an indication and can differ in each situation.
1. SEE phase
Demographic target groups are the most basic form of targeting options . They do not take into account differences in behavior or interests, but purely look at differences in demographics. Think of gender or age. What is often not used are the following options:
Parental status
Marital status
Education
Living situation (rental or purchase)
Job (company size or industry)
I usually don't use these options to reach those people, but rather to exclude irrelevant people. For example, I recently launched a campaign specifically for building insurance, where I excluded tenants (not applicable to tenants). This may be a very specific example, but think of all the things that don't apply to someone who doesn't own a house. For example, you simply have plumbers or electricians come by the housing association. It's a waste of money if you approach tenants with video messages as an electrician!
Next comes the target group that I personally am the least fan of. But for the sake of completeness, I will include it in the overview. This concerns the affinity target groups. These are target groups that are tailored to your interests and habits.
For example, a target group is 'News and politics'. That sounds very relevant and useful to use, but these are quite broad target groups. You fall into a certain target group quite quickly, which makes the target groups large. I personally only use this if I want to set up a full-funnel YouTube campaign. If not, I mainly use the other audiences.
If you still want to target in the SEE phase, but you find the demographics too broad? Then check if there is a target group in 'Life event' that is relevant to your business. Here are target groups of people who have just made a serious change in their daily life. Think of retiring or buying a house, but also smaller events such as a new pet or a home renovation are included!
2. THINK phase
Perhaps the most well-known of all Google Ads audiences are In-market audiences. These include people who are actively researching or planning on specific topics. There are hundreds of examples. Think of people who are interested in purchasing golf equipment or people who are interested in purchasing a baby, toddler or child car seat.
As the name suggests, these target groups are much more specific and therefore much smaller. This fax lists allows you to reach people who are already actively researching or orienting themselves towards certain products or services. It is therefore also a typical target group that is used if you want to reach people who are in the THINK phase.
A target group that can also perfectly connect to the THINK phase is the Custom-intent target group. Here you create a target group yourself using keywords. As soon as someone uses one of these words (in the Google search network) this person ends up in this list.
The big advantage of this target group is that you have a lot of influence yourself. I always create Custom-intent target groups based on search intent. For example, someone who searches for "buy iPhone 12 pro max case red" is much further in the search than someone who searches for "Phone case". By tweaking your keywords in this way, you can also create great Custom-intent target groups for the DO phase, for example.
The advantage is also that you yourself have influence on the size of the target group. If you want to reach more people, you simply enter more search terms. Note: using at least 50 different search terms is recommended. It is also good to keep in mind that Custom-intent only works this way if you use it for Google services (Gmail/YouTube). In the normal Google Display Network, a kind of In-market target group will be created.
You can see that via this link !