With more than 2 billion logged-in monthly users, YouTube comes out as the top platform for video content and the 2nd largest search engine in the world.
Both of these statistics make YouTube prime real estate for advertising. However, to get noticed among so many established businesses advertising their brands on this platform, you need to make sure you follow the best YouTube Ad guidelines and formats.
This YouTube Ad guide will, therefore, help ensure that the maximum amount of viewers notices your brand’s ad campaign. With YouTube ads, you can increase your brand awareness and gain new customers at an exponential rate.
More than half of all the internet users in the world spend 3.7 hours daily watching videos. Additionally, experts estimate that in 2022, 82% of all the consumer internet traffic will be focused on online videos (a 15x increase when compared to 2017).
The following are a few more impressive YouTube statistics that were compiled by curated posts:
One important distinction when talking about YouTube ads is the difference between running display ads on YouTube versus video ads on YouTube. Of course, when most people think of YouTube, they think of it as a video platform and many advertisers want to run video ads on the platform; however, there is also a tremendous amount of display ad inventory available consisting of display banners and overlays that appear on top of a video or are scattered throughout the YouTube pages.
For the purposes of this post, we are going to focus on video ads only. Since this platform is bursting with opportunities for marketers, each business needs to understand the different YouTube Ad video formats, what types of campaign objectives they’re best suited for,and how the video specs differ for each. In this article, we will cover the following key video ad types:
Unlike other platforms where you might upload images or videos in different sizes or aspect ratios for different ad types, all YouTube ads share the same basic specs since they have to be uploaded to YouTube in order to be used in an ad. You never upload a video into Google Ads to use it in a campaign; instead, you must link your Google Ads account to your YouTube account, and then provide a link to the uploaded YouTube video you want to use.
Here are the basic specs for all videos uploaded on YouTube:
Now that we’ve provided the basic specs of any video that will be uploaded to your YouTube channel, let’s explore the differences between the video ad types available on Google Ads platform.
Skippable in-stream ads are the most widely used video ad format offered by Google. It can be used with almost any campaign objective: Sales, Lead gen, Website traffic, Brand awareness, and Product and brand consideration.
In-stream refers to where the videos are shown. These ads can be shown before, during, or after other videos play on YouTube or Google video partner websites.
The skippable part refers to how advertisers are charged. You pay on a cost-per-view basis (CPV) but are only charged when viewers watch at least 30 seconds of the video, the entire video (if it runs less than 30 seconds) or if they interact with the video such as click a link or call-to-action button that delivers them to your business’s landing page.
The main decisions that need to be made related to your in-stream video ad, besides appropriate creative messaging, is the video length and any related creative assets that Google allows you to include:
Non-skippable in-stream ads are most suitable for campaigns that want to drive brand or product awareness and consideration by ensuring that viewers are reached with your entire video ad message.
Similar to skippable in-stream, these video ads can be shown before, during, or after other videos play on YouTube or Google video partner websites.
Non-skippable means that viewers have to watch the entire ad before they can view the video they are actually waiting for. In this type of an ad, instead of paying on a CPV basis, the advertiser pays on a CPM basis, so you are bidding on and paying for impressions and not views.
The main decisions that need to be made related to your in-stream video ad, besides appropriate creative messaging, is the video length and any related creative assets that Google allows you to include:
Bumper ads are the third of our four primary ad types that run in-stream. They are best suited for brand and product awareness or consideration campaigns since they can deliver a short, memorable ad message to a broad user base.
The most distinguishing factor about bumper ads is that its length is limited to no longer than 6 seconds and users cannot skip seeing the video. Similar to non-skippable in-stream ads, the advertiser pays on a CPM basis, so you are bidding on and paying for impressions and not views.
The main decisions that need to be made related to your bumper video ad is ensuring that you convey a clear brand message in just 6 seconds, along with any related creative assets that Google includes:
The video discovery ad is used to promote your videos by placing them within the YouTube search results and watch pages. Unlike in-stream ads, users cannot watch your video within the discovery ad unit itself. The ad consists of a thumbnail image and up to 3 lines of related text. If a user clicks on it, they are linked to the video’s YouTube watch or channel page where they can view it. In many ways, the discovery ad is more like a native display ad than a video ad.
From an objective perspective, the discovery ad is very different from the other video ads available on Google. While all of the other ad types are relatively short, in-stream videos intended to convey a marketing message and possibly drive a user to click through to a brand’s website, the discovery ad is actually promoting specific videos on Youtube itself.
Bumper ads, skippable and non-skippable in-stream video ads are all basically commercials. They are not a piece of content typical of what is posted on a brand’s Youtube channel. That’s why most brands will not even make their in-stream ads visible on their channel. They are only intended to be consumed as ads.
In contrast, discovery ads are promoting actual content that a brand has uploaded to their channel and which provides users a variety of useful information about their product or brand. Typical content that a brand may have on its channel which it would want to promote using discovery ads includes: testimonial videos, product tutorials, upcoming product news, among many others.
With discovery ads you bid and are charged on a CPV but since your video only starts playing if someone clicks your discovery ad and goes to the video watch page, in reality, the CPV for a discovery ad is really comparable to bidding on a cost-per-click (CPC.) You only get charged when someone clicks on your ad so that they can view your video.
Unlike in-stream video ads, the discovery ad spec relates to creating the native ad that will be served across YouTube to promote your video content: