Leveraging Youtube Video Ads to Grow New Users

Leveraging Youtube Video Ads to Grow New Users

October 8, 2019 - by Jason Kamara

In the mad scramble to find PPC platforms that will yield a strong return on ad spend, you may find yourself turning to the usual culprits: Google Ads, LinkedIn and Facebook. Instagram is another favourite for those working in the B2C space. There is a tendency to overlook Youtube video ads given the relatively high cost of producing video compared to display and text ads. But here’s the thing… launching PPC campaigns on Youtube can be surprisingly affordable, require less maintenance than other types of campaigns and can produce great returns.

 

Driving User Growth with Youtube

I am by no means a Youtube ads expert. I’ve spent far more time creating and optimizing ads for Search and Display Network campaigns. But I can certainly vouch for the efficacy of this unique platform and its ability to lower user acquisition costs. If you happen to be generating demand for a SaaS or mobile application, I would definitely recommend giving Youtube some real consideration. Here are four reasons to use Youtube to hit those new user growth targets.

Reason #1: You Can Show Your Product in Action

When working with display ads, trying to cram all your messaging along with a strong call to action into a mere 70-100 characters can be a real challenge. Yes, you can create animated banner ads but those also take more time than static ones and still rely on the viewer watching each frame. A 15-second Youtube pre-roll ad can contain a strong hook, product imagery, narration, sound and a strong call to action.

There are inexpensive development tools like Animatron and Animoto, that help you create these ads quickly, enabling you to split test and serve up multiple ads to reduce ad fatigue. If you have 3 key benefits you want to showcase to a particular audience or persona, why not split them up into 3 short videos? You can rotate these ads to ensure that each audience member being targeted is seeing all the benefits.

Using a short teaser video that is less than 13 seconds will ensure that a viewer has to watch at least half of it before skipping. That should be enough time to establish relevancy and possibly even a visual or verbal hook to entice the viewer to continue watching.

Reason #2: Pre-Roll Ads are Reasonably Priced

Anyone used to running campaigns on LinkedIn would be unphased by CPCs of $8 or CPMs over $30USD. Of course LinkedIn has some unmatched targeting features that still make it worthwhile at those rates. But if your target audience lives on Youtube (and who doesn’t these days), you’ll be faced with significantly lower cost per action and CPM rates. A recent study by Adstage reported median CPCs of $2.54 and CPMs of $7.50 respectively.

These are increasing year over year but still affordable compared to many other SEM, paid social and programmatic options. I argue that the costs are ‘reasonable’ because you get far more visual real estate in a short video ad than you do with any display ads. You can catch a viewer’s attention, show relevancy, pique their interest and drive engagement on different calls to action in a matter of seconds at a cost that is often lower than text and display ads.

Reason #3: Effective for Small Budgets

Relatively low CPCs and CPMs can make Youtube more affordable than other options. If you have a modest ad spend budget, you can still drive user acquisition to your SaaS or mobile product. This is achieved by:

  • Using Google Ads remarketing audiences and Youtube remarketing lists
  • Layering on demographic and regional targeting
  • Excluding channels and placements that are not relevant

If you are working from remarketing audiences/lists with hundreds of thousands of members, you can prune those audiences down to <20,000 highly targeted members that closely match the profile of your ideal paid users. Serve this highly targeted audience short video ads, each either showcasing one key feature or addressing one major pain point.

Due to the vast amount of time the average person spends on Youtube, you have the ability to very quickly rotate through different creative to drive engagement. Since you only pay for non-skipped videos, it is entirely possible to start testing campaigns in the sub $100/month range while still driving new user growth on a daily basis.

Reason #4: Frequent Exposure is Great for Branding

If you choose a remarketing audience, you have the ability to reach people who have already engaged with your brand in some capacity. While retargeting is available on all major paid social networks, only Youtube has the capacity to display multiple videos to the same viewer in a single session. The more people are replacing TV watching habits with Youtube, the greater the opportunity exists to serve targeted ads within a single user session.

The same way cable TV advertisers can monopolize episodes of your favourite show, inbound marketers can achieve with Youtube. If you are looking to drive more new users to a freemium call tracking solution, you could target your SMB audience and restrict your ad placements to popular videos and channels specifically targeting that same audience. If a particularly popular channel streams longer videos, this is an even greater opportunity to try non-skippable video ads. These can be highly effective to strengthen your brand when used in the right way (and carefully so as not to turn off your prospects).

Final Thoughts

Getting your feet wet with any new platform requires a degree of patience, vigilance and setting reasonable expectations. But the incredible reach and unique abilities Youtube advertising offers can make it a great channel for generating a steady stream of new users to your SaaS or mobile platform – all without breaking the bank or requiring extensive ongoing campaign maintenance. Try out this excellent guide from HubSpot to get started.

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