Several DTC e-commerce advertisers are doing admirably well with Facebook ads.
But I don’t think any brand should depend on a single marketing platform.
I’ve written before about how to bring winning assets from Facebook to Google with a Performance Max campaign that replicates the social experience as best as possible.
Today I want to explain when, how and why to consider YouTube ads.
What you need to know before you start
YouTube is a unique platform: it’s not really search, it’s not really social. It’s part of Google, but it stands on its own. As a result, it is not easy to master.
I addressed this in 7 Important YouTube Ads Lessons Every Media Buyer Should Know. If you don’t want to click, here’s the gist.
Facebook and Instagram combined heavy targeting with a captive audience to shorten the conversion cycle, spoiling other platforms for many advertisers. On YouTube, users watch content they like or learn how to do something. YouTube lets you target people based on something they’ve searched for, but aren’t actually searching for right now. This lag of intent, combined with the diversity of intent, means that the “next step” after YouTube must be particularly compelling. A brand with a robust organic YouTube program will outperform one that uses the platform only for advertising. They have high quality content waiting for people who end up on their channel from an ad.
A7: It’s funny how many companies don’t leave their video ad variations unlisted on YouTube. Many times you can just go to their channel and see exactly what they are advertising. #ppcchat
— Joe Martinez (@MilwaukeePPC) August 6, 2019
For brand safety, you can disable sensitive categories at the campaign level. Combined with audience and interest targeting, you can effectively block people who shouldn’t see your ads. Google relies heavily on automation, so you need to monitor your campaigns. Even with your targeting absolutely right, you still need to feed data back to Google to improve its decision-making. Video action campaign reporting is more detailed and robust than many other Google campaigns, including peak performance. You can take advantage of this to optimize quickly and intelligently. YouTube fits perfectly into a broader marketing or media buying mix, whether you need a new platform to expand your audience or want to scale an existing campaign. But you can only succeed if you know and accept its limitations.
With that in mind, here’s why direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce brands should consider YouTube ads.
Why YouTube and DTC eCommerce are a good match
Remember the mood people are in when they browse YouTube.
You have people in theater mode, looking for a solution or catching up on content. And you have people scrolling through Shorts, similar to the endless scrolling of social media.
But unlike Facebook, ads on YouTube are interruptive. Whether they appear at the beginning of a video or in the middle, you’re asking for attention when people would rather be doing something else.
But if there’s one thing DTC eCommerce advertisers are good at, it’s thumb hooks.
Ultimately, both platforms are about the retention chart. Like Facebook, YouTube shows you a graph of how many viewers are left on a video until the end. You’ll want to reference this chart and adjust your creatives accordingly.
How do you get more people to stay until the end? Make your content more interesting.
With a strong hook and a compelling story, your “ad” can be anything from a music video to a how-to guide.
As long as it’s entertaining, people will watch videos that are several minutes long because that’s what they came to YouTube for.
Another approach is to build around short, snackable content. Take your winning Facebook ads, trim them if they’re longer than 60 seconds, and populate your feed with various organic shorts.
You can use them to start advertising (see below how to set this up). Any content that performs well organically should also perform well on the ad platform and vice versa.
5 recommendations for new YouTube advertisers
It’s easy to get things wrong on YouTube, from unrealistic expectations to expecting clear attribution. But with the right approach, an already strong brand is likely to rise even higher.
Here are five things you should do to give your brand the best chance of succeeding.
1. Know what you’re getting into
YouTube has more than 2.68 billion users, making it the second largest search engine behind Google. So once you’ve leveraged other networks: Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and everything else, YouTube offers a lot of scale to diversify even further.
Note: Google attribution is primarily based on clicks, so you won’t see as many reported conversions. Both your ROAS and CPA will be lower than you’re used to, while campaigns will take longer to start seeing results in post-purchase surveys.
2. Understand the platform
YouTube Shorts is particularly interesting, but Google doesn’t offer the ability to create a shorts-only campaign. There are ways around this, somewhat.
Create a new video action campaign that targets mobile devices only. This somewhat forces the system to go mobile only, and in this format it tends to lean towards shorts.
Make sure to only provide vertical video assets under 60 seconds.
3. Adopt the right mindset
You won’t get the same ROAS you do on Facebook, at least not the same reported ROAS. But it can provide a similar level of incremental revenue and scale.
Your approach needs to be different as YouTube tries to build awareness so that other platforms can gain more conversions.
Whatever revenue Google reports, know that it’s just a drop in the bucket in terms of its incremental impact on your business.
4. Don’t try too much at once
If you enter a lot with YouTube, there’s a good chance you won’t get any results. Start with a campaign and see how things go. YouTube is budget intensive.
Without sufficient investment, there’s a good chance you’ll go months without seeing any scale. Or worse, derail what could have been a high-potential campaign.
5. Use your own attribution
There’s a good chance you’re already using post-purchase surveys to ask customers where they first heard about your brand. This is a great way to find people who discovered you on YouTube but converted elsewhere.
But it’s self-identifying and not foolproof, so you might want to consider tools like Northbeam or Triple Whale to measure impact. Just remember, no attribution is ever perfect.
YouTube is the next frontier for high-performing e-commerce brands
I like to think of YouTube ad clicks as the start of a beautiful journey.
Some people become website traffic and enter your remarketing campaigns. Some will join your email list. A few may not click or visit your site, but they think of you later and look you up by name and eventually enter your funnel through a brand ad.
Naturally, attribution and reporting aren’t robust enough to track all of this. So you’ll have to be patient, trust YouTube and your own creatives, and look for incremental correlation rather than causation. This means not testing other platforms while expanding on YouTube.
Consider what YouTube means to people. It is a source of entertainment, an escape from reality. A place where people go to have their prejudices confirmed, problems solved, and business and careers made.
It’s natural that users value their time there and have demanding attention spans.
But if you’re sitting on earning assets that deliver and align with what they’re looking for, ignoring YouTube is as good as leaving money on the table.
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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