What Makes A Good YouTube Video Ad?

In today’s digital landscape, PPC ads on YouTube and other social media platforms are easily one of the most cost-effective ways to increase brand awareness, convert more paying customers, and above all to boost your business’ bottom line. 

However, without proper planning and execution, YouTube video ads can quickly eat up your ad budget without making much of a difference to your return on investment or ROI. 

Below, we’ve put together a quick guide on what makes a good YouTube video ad so that you’ll be able to craft better ad campaigns that not only captivate your audience but will also boost your bottom line! 

1. Know Your Audience

As with any type of sales or marketing, it’s crucial that you know and understand who your target audience is! 

Knowing your audience makes it so that you’ll be able to craft content that speaks directly to the people who are most likely to interact and buy from your brand! 

The best way to learn about your target audience is by creating a series of buyer personas.

A buyer persona is, essentially, a semi-fictional representation of the people who are most likely to be found in your audience. These mock-ups should include as much information about a potential buyer as possible, including their age, gender, geographic location, hobbies, interests, etc. 

Then, by understanding who these people are, you’ll be able to create video ads that contain the information they’re interested in learning! 

2. Keep Your Ads Short And To-The-Point 

Modern consumers have a shorter attention span than ever before, especially when it comes to advertisements. 

Roughly 91% of consumers believe that ads are more annoying and intrusive than they were 2 to 3 years ago. 

Therefore, you must do your best to keep your YouTube video ads short and concise. 

Between 30 to 60 seconds is best! 

Don’t ramble about irrelevant information before getting to the point since most people aren’t likely to make it through more than 30 seconds of your video anyway. 

Right from the start, you should state the information you want to say before your audience loses their focus. 

3. Make Sure Your Ads Are Mobile-Optimized

According to Google, in 2018, more than 70% of videos watched on YouTube are viewed from smartphones or tablets.

Therefore, you must create video ads that are optimized for viewing on these devices. 

For this, Google recommends that you create either square or vertical videos, which are better viewed on mobile devices. 

As a best practice, as opposed to a traditional landscape ratio of 16:9, it’s best to use either a vertical ratio of 9:16 or a square ratio of 1:1 or both for your video campaigns. 

Google also recommends that you create multiple versions of your videos using various ratios and run them as part of the same ad campaign. 

When you set up your campaign, you should choose the “Optimize” ad rotation setting, which will choose the best ads to serve depending on the user device. 

By doing this, it will be more likely that your viewer will see an ad that is optimized for their device. 

In other words, if they’re viewing the ad on a computer, it will likely be shown as a landscape ratio. But if the user is on a mobile device, it will either be shown as a vertical or square video. 

4. Include Your Branding 

Most modern consumers are already wary of the brands they see online. 

Because of this, you don’t want to go overboard or be pushy about shoving your branding down their throats. 

However, if you want your ads to be memorable, which you do, then you must include some basic branding information in your videos, such as your company name, brand logo, or web address. 

Not only does this simple tactic make your brand more memorable, but it also shows the viewer that there’s more to your brand than just a paid advertisement. 

From there, they can move forward to research your brand to see what you’re all about. 

5. Don’t Forget Your Call-To-Action

Even if your video ad speaks directly to your target audience, is short and concise, is optimized for use on mobile devices, and contains your branding, it’s not going to do you any good if the viewer doesn’t know what you want them to do after viewing the ad. 

It seems obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many brands spend hundreds of dollars creating promotional video ads but forget to include a call-to-action, also known as a CTA, at the end of the video. 

Similar to including your branding, this crucial step gives the viewer something else to do after the video has ended.  

Keep in mind that your call-to-action should line up with whatever your overall marketing goal is. 

For instance, if you’re simply looking to increase brand awareness, you might ask your audience to visit your site or follow you on social media. 

Or, if your goal was to increase sales, you might ask the viewer to click a link to check out a new product you’ve recently launched. 

6. Crafting Compelling YouTube Video Ads

Without a bit of proper planning, you can quickly run through your entire ad spend in a few days without any successful conversions. 

However, when you know your audience, keep your ads short and to the point, ensure they’re optimized to be viewed on mobile devices, and include a CTA, you’ll have a considerably better chance at crafting successful YouTube marketing campaigns!