How to Create Targeted YouTube Ads in 2022

My name is Mac Frederick and I used to work for Google. Over the past 6 years I have been running my own small business digital marketing agency helping other business owners with SEO, Paid Advertising and more!

The first thing you will need to do is setup a Free Google Ads Account. The accounts are free to create using a gmail or Google account. You only pay for when people see and/or click your ad depending on how you setup the campaign. Once you create an account you can implement your settings and billing.

From there you can create a new campaign. First I’d suggest linking a Google Analytics account and maybe even setting up conversion tracking. This will allow you to measure conversions and estimated ROI from your paid ads.

When creating a campaign you can choose a campaign type. These can be focused on what you want to achieve depending on your goals.

• Branding and Awareness
• Lead Generation
• Traffic and Clicks
• Video Views
• Local Traffic and Phone Calls
• Sales & Conversions

Types of YouTube Ad Campaigns

Google will then let you pick a campaign type based on your goals. These various campaigns are based upon their ad formats and the targeting you create.

• Local Ads (Search and Maps)
• Search Ads (Text ads on Google & Search Partners)
• Search & Display Ads (Google Search, Search Partners, Local Ads, & Ads on other websites)
• Video Ads (Can be broken down into youtube search, display ads, video ads, skippable ads)
• Gmail & App Ads (mostly display based visual ads)
• Some other various combinations of targeting

For this scenario we are going to focus on YouTube ads and video views for people searching on YouTube, browsing videos, and watching certain videos. YouTube allows you to show up with searchable videos on YouTube at the top. You can also choose in-stream skippable ads. You can setup display ads that show up on the videos or near the videos or other websites playing YouTube videos. The most popular type might be skippable in-stream videos that play for 5 to 15 seconds and you can skip or it goes into the next video.

I suppose everyone with a smartphone or internet connection has watched a YT video at some point in their life. Check out some of these metrics and measurements to see the power and growth of YouTube.

Here are some groundbreaking YouTube statistics presented by Hootsuite earlier this year that might surprise you.

1. YouTube has more than 2 billion logged-in monthly users
2. 74% of adults in the U.S. use YouTube
3. YouTube is the world’s second-most visited website
4. People watch more than a billion hours of video on YouTube every day
5. 41% of YouTube watchtime happens on mobile
6. 51% of B2B decision makers use YouTube to research purchases
7. 70% of viewers bought from a brand after seeing it on YouTube
8. YouTube ads targeted by intent have 100% higher lift in purchase intent than those targeted by demographics
9.  In the U.S. alone, YouTube will make 5.56 billion dollars in advertising revenue in 2021
10. YouTube Q3 Ad Revenue Balloons 43% to $7.2 Billion, Tops 50 Million Music and Premium Subscribers (Fact presented by Variety blog)

Need more convincing to run YouTube Ads? Well, let me tell you, YT itself allows for very detailed targeting for your ads, similar to other social media platforms like Facebook Ads. You can target people using some of the following methods.

• Age and Gender
• Various Demographics
• Interests and Videos they like to watch
• Geographic location (where users located)
• Keywords people are searching for or watching
• Specific Videos and Channels

That last targeting method is the craziest one to me. You can literally target people based on the videos or channels they watch. Imagine having a shoe competing with Nike and having your shoe ad show up before every Nike video, but also only targeting the type of user who might buy your specific shoe based on where they are located, their age, gender, income level and more. It’s crazy right.

As mentioned, start by creating your account, starting a campaign, and choose the goal and campaign type. Let’s use the example of targeting and using a skippable in-stream ad on YouTube. In the how-to video example above we used the company Formthotics who sells foot pain relief products such as insoles and inserts to help various feet conditions. Lets think through the targeting audience and who we want to reach with our video ads.

• Men and Women, older probably 45+ age
• Busy people on their feet a lot and athletes
• Maybe senior living communities in Florida
• People watching videos about feet pain, insoles, shoes, and running

So when you are setting up your campaign you will choose the campaign type and targeting set. This will start with a budget for your campaign which can be daily or lifetime budget. I’d suggest daily so you dont forget to turn it off. Then choose your bidding method based on conversions (remember to setup conversion tracking) OR you can use a CPC (Cost per click) or CPV (Cost per view) method. I’d suggest focusing on CPV and setting a low CPV bid of less than $0.25 per view.

Within your audience targeting if you have a smaller budget I’d suggest ‘layered targeting’ meaning you can choose geographics + demographics and layer on top specific videos or channels you want your video played before or during. So if you are a women ages 55 living in Florida and watching videos about running or foot pain then you might be shown the YouTube ad for Formthotics.

Next you will choose the video you wish to use for advertising from your specified YT channel. I’d suggest something informative but also with a call to action (CTA) that inspires people to click, buy or visit your website. You will choose a URL for the landing page. From there you’ll setup your headlines, descriptions, and call to actions for the button.

If you have any other questions please check out this Youtube Ads Guide from ClickMatix.

Here is what your ad could look like.