YouTube plays a central role in the modern media mix, and it’s responsible for a growing share of ad revenue. As of January 2024, YouTube was the 4th most commonly used social media platform among marketers worldwide. Leveraging this platform’s potential effectively requires expertise, strategic planning, and an in-depth understanding of its unique features. This article explores the nuances of YouTube marketing and how entertainment brands can harness its capabilities for maximum impact.
What Does YouTube Ads Entail?
YouTube marketing encompasses various ad types, each serving different purposes. The ad types people are most familiar with are in-stream ads and in-feed ads.
- In-stream ads: These ads appear before, during, or after a video, typically for short durations of 5 to 30 seconds. They are excellent for delivering concise, impactful messages.
- In-feed ads: Formerly known as video discovery ads, these promote full-length videos and appear as recommended content on YouTube’s homepage or sidebar. Great for increasing views on organic videos e.g. your latest music video.
- Connect YouTube Channel to Google Ad Account: Link your artist’s or brand’s YouTube channel to your Google Ad account. This connection enables you to create “warm audiences” of viewers, subscribers, and people who have engaged with your videos. You can then target these audiences more effectively in your campaigns.
- Audience Segmentation: Maximise your retargeting efforts by creating multiple audience segments based on engagement duration. For example, create audience lists for users who have interacted with your content within the last 7, 30, 90, 180, and 540 days. This tiered approach allows you to prioritise your highest-engaged audiences before expanding to broader, colder audiences.
- Use Negative Placement Lists: If targeting cold audiences, employ negative placement lists to ensure your ads are not displayed alongside irrelevant or unsuitable content for your brand, on YouTube. For example, rock bands or films aimed at older markets should exclude channels featuring nursery rhymes or children’s content to help save their budget from being spent inefficiently and targeting the wrong audience. Ways to do this is by preparing a list in advance for negative placements before launching your campaign. Entertainment brands should also frequently check where their ads are showing, and update their negative placement list to maintain relevancy and efficiency.
- Turn Off Audience Expansion: Google Ads often defaults to expanding your audience beyond your specified targeting criteria to optimise for conversions. However, to maintain the effectiveness of your niche targeting, it’s advisable to turn off this setting. This strategy ensures that your ads reach the specific audiences you aim to target without unnecessary dilution.
- Employ Conversion Tracking for comprehensive audience data: Implement conversion tracking using Google Tag Manager and leverage comprehensive data from Google properties like Google Merchant Center and Google Analytics. This allows you to import relevant audiences to your Google Ad account to refine your targeting and streamline your campaigns, as well as monitor key actions such as ticket purchases, album pre-orders, or website visits. You can use this data to build audiences of users who have completed specific actions and exclude them from future display ads and also ensure that your budget is spent on users who are yet to convert, increasing the efficiency of your campaigns.
- Ad Variations and Formats: Use various ad formats to engage different audience segments. While landscape videos generally perform well, newer formats like vertical and square videos can capture attention differently, especially on mobile devices.
- Optimise Ad Creatives: Place your key message within the first few seconds of your ad, as many users skip ads quickly. Early messaging captures attention effectively.
Distinctions Between Platforms: YouTube vs. Others
Compared to platforms like Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and LinkedIn, YouTube is less conversion-oriented and more focused on brand awareness. Users on Meta platforms often engage with ads while scrolling. In contrast, YouTube users are primarily there to watch specific content, making them less likely to click on ads spontaneously. YouTube is ideal for broad-reach campaigns aimed at engagement and awareness rather than immediate conversions.
YouTube for Entertainment Brands
Entertainment brands can significantly benefit from well-planned YouTube marketing strategies. Retargeting is an especially potent tactic. By linking their YouTube accounts to Google Ads, brands can retarget fans who have interacted with their content, running campaigns that re-engage viewers with tailored messages about new releases, tours, and other updates.
In addition to retargeting, YouTube’s targeting capabilities allow entertainment brands to reach users based on specific interests and behaviours, laying the foundation for innovative campaign types tailored for growth and engagement. For instance, brands can target users interested in certain music genres or those actively searching for concert tickets, therefore delivering highly relevant ads to potential fans.
Why YouTube Stands Out for Entertainment Brands
One of the unique advantages of YouTube is its extended retargeting window. While platforms like Meta allow retargeting for up to a year, YouTube extends this to 540 days, allowing you to deliver ads to people who may have watched one of your videos or subscribed to your channel over a year ago. This prolonged engagement period is incredibly valuable for long-term campaigns, such as promoting albums or concert tours. For example, our campaign for The Hives helped re-capture a legacy audience over 6 months prior to the album announcement using YouTube’s extended retargeting window to promote the new album, maintaining engagement over a longer period.
One of the latest innovations in YouTube advertising is the introduction of a campaign type specifically designed for driving engagements and growing YouTube subscriptions. This feature addresses a common request from clients who are focused on boosting their YouTube channel’s subscriber count. Previously, the approach involved delivering videos to as many people as possible and hoping they would click through to the channel and subscribe. With this new campaign type, advertisers can now specifically target users with the goal of increasing subscriptions. This specialised campaign type offers a more efficient and targeted method for growing your YouTube audience, streamlining efforts to enhance channel credibility and reach.
With the Google Merchant Centre integration, you can also showcase products alongside video ads, allowing people to click through to an artist’s store and make a purchase. For example, during an album campaign, you can showcase your upcoming album products available to pre-order alongside a video ad promoting your latest single release.
Cost Considerations
Ad costs on YouTube are generally lower for awareness-based metrics like cost per view (CPV), making it an economical option for broad awareness campaigns. While conversion rates may be lower and the cost per conversion higher compared to other social platforms, YouTube remains a cost-effective solution for achieving extensive reach and engagement.
Key Benefits for Entertainment Brands
YouTube offers extensive reach and precise targeting capabilities. Brands can effectively segment audiences based on geography and interests, ensuring ads are delivered to the most relevant viewers. YouTube’s integration with Google’s ecosystem provides seamless access to tools like Google Merchant Center and Google Analytics, enhancing campaign tracking and optimisation.
Metrics that Matter
For effective YouTube marketing, brands should focus on key metrics such as:
Cost per view (CPV): Measuring the cost-effectiveness of reaching viewers. (e.g., a successful music video campaign might aim for a CPV of £0.02)
Cost per conversion: Evaluating the expense involved in driving a specific action, such as ticket sales.
Click-through rates (CTR): Though not always high on YouTube, CTR can indicate the engagement level of viewers.
Budgeting for YouTube Marketing
Budgeting for YouTube campaigns depends on audience size and campaign goals. If you’re running an in-stream video campaign you’ll likely get something between 25k-50k impressions per £100 spent, which is a good starting point for finding what works and establishing a benchmark cost per view.
Best Practices for YouTube Ads for Entertainment brands
Final Takeaways
YouTube remains an indispensable platform for entertainment brands aiming to engage with their audience extensively and cost-effectively. Its wide reach, detailed targeting capabilities, and cost efficiency for awareness campaigns make it a vital tool for modern digital marketing strategies. By understanding and applying these insights to YouTube ads, entertainment brands can navigate the complexities of digital campaigns, ensuring that each initiative delivers maximum value and aligns perfectly with their overarching goals.
Contact us today to discover how our expertise can elevate your brand’s digital presence through strategic YouTube marketing.
