YouTube Advertising

How much would you pay to be able to read a person’s mind?  How easy would it be to sell a product, or close a client if you knew exactly what they were looking for?

The cool thing about Google and YouTube is that people tell them exactly what they’re looking for. Google then takes the keywords that people search for and places ads right in the search results.

Keyword research gives you a huge advantage to getting your product in front of your future customer.  It’s like reading your customers journal.

If you want to learn how to read minds, read on.

Back to The Basics

Before you even begin getting started with YouTube, you need to do your research.

Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” –Google.

Google uses keywords in order to carry out its mission. Your keywords are what you search in Google or any other search engine and those keywords help Google scrape the internet and find what you are looking for.

The more broad the keyword, the more results you will see. The more specific the keyword, the less results you will see. In order to get started with your keyword research, answer this question: “What is your business’s product, or service?”. Once you’ve answered that question go to https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner.

Google’s Keyword Planner

First of all, Google’s Keyword Planner is an essential tool in helping you with your keyword research. If you don’t have a Google AdWords account then you’ll be prompted to create one and provide certain information. Once complete, you’ll be taken to a web page that looks like this (we’ve put annotations in our images to help guide you):

 

Once you’ve pushed the “Get Ideas” button, you will be taken here:

The following will help you understand what is on this page:

Ad group ideas

• List of keywords within the ad group that are relative to what your product or service is.

Keyword ideas

• List of individual keywords that are relative to your product or service.

Avg. monthly searches

• Pay attention to Avg. monthly searches because you will want to know how many times per month that keyword is being searched. This will help you know that your product or service is something actually being searched for on Google.

Competition

• “High” Competition means that there are a lot of other companies and businesses bidding for that same keyword. You may need to have a higher Cost Per View (CPV) for keywords in TrueView if they are “High” in competition.
• Keywords with “Low” competition may not be searched as often as “High” and don’t have as many businesses bidding for them.

This is where you will be spending a lot of your time during your keyword research. You will want to be finding keywords that you feel are relative to what your business is offering in the ad you’re planning. You can add groups of keywords to your plan or just individual keywords. Adding keywords to your plan will allow you to download them to an excel spreadsheet.

Tips for finding good keywords:

1. Look for keywords that are low in competition but high in average monthly searches.
2. Don’t be afraid to choose a keyword you’re not sure will work. Lots of testing is required in Google AdWords.
3. Understand the long tail of Keyword Demand. Moz gives an excellent explanation of what long tail keywords are and how to use them. Long tail keywords are not searched nearly as often in Google. If you use them correctly, however, when they are searched, your ads will have a better chance of showing up.

Once you’ve done your research, you will want to download your keywords to a spreadsheet.

You will want to save this spreadsheet and use it as a reference when you are setting up your ads. Check out our Ultimate Guide to YouTube Advertising post to learn how to load these keywords into your ads.

YouTube Auto-Fill Method

The next keyword strategy we want to show you is something you maybe have never thought of using before. You should all be familiar with the auto-fill function on Google and YouTube when you are typing in a search. Use this as one of your keyword research tools! Here are 4 easy steps to use that feature:

1. Type your business’s product or service in the search bar of YouTube.
2. Stop a couple letters before actually finishing the word you are typing in.
3. Make a note of the words that have dropped down so you can refer to them later.
4. Put these new keywords into your spreadsheet so you can easily import them into your TrueView targeting groups.

Using VidIQ

Start by downloading the VidIQ App for your browser. The VidIQ app will help you analyze certain data points of YouTube videos that you wouldn’t usually be able to see.

VidIQ will also give you access to what tags have been used on certain videos. If you go to a video that is related to your business’s service or products, write down what tags have been used with that video. Using this strategy will give you additional keywords that you may not have thought of.

In-Display Keywords

Keyword targeting groups perform best with In-Display campaigns. In-Display campaigns also allow different match types for keywords unlike In-Stream. Taking your keywords from a broad match type to a phrase match type (phrase match keywords are keywords that have “   “ around them) can increase your conversions and lower the cost/conversion.

We felt that the Adwords Wrapper from Michael Wong is a great tool for getting your keywords from broad match to phrase match. Follow the images below as a reference:

Save the newly matched keywords to your spreadsheet so that you can easily find and load them into your targeting group when you’re ready.

In Closing

You’ve read the word “research” in this post so far over 20 times. If you made it through reading this blog post without having a panic attack, great job! Sounds like you’ve accepted the fact that research must be done in order to be successful with what keywords you use!

There is a lot of information on the internet about landing pages. I suggest you do as much research as possible when creating your landing page. This checklist is for a YouTube specific Ad campaign.

This is a proven formula that is working right now in successful YouTube campaigns.

Get Someone’s Number Before You Ask Them To Get Married

We know for a fact that YouTube is a great tool for collecting leads. The best way to entice viewers to become leads is to offer a lead magnet.

For those who don’t speak Digital Marketer, a lead magnet is something of value you can give people for free.  In return, they offer you their name and email (maybe a phone number, but people are often reluctant to give this out right away).

Once you have an email you can begin the process from lead to customer with your email marketing. Here is a great resource from Digital Marketer to help you come up with lead magnet ideas

What Type Of Headline Keeps People On Your Page?

• What Your Headline Should Be…
  • A statement that touches on the fears or desires of the customer
  • A statement that shows the major benefits of your product
• What Your Headline is not…
  • It is not your product name
  • It is not misleading comments or information

Not Having a Video Is The Biggest Mistake You’ll Make

People are on YouTube expecting to watch a video, give them what they want and put a video on your page.

According to a study by eyeviewvideo.com, adding a video to your landing page can increase conversion rates by 80%.

From our experience the most successful landing page videos are about 1-3 minutes long and go into more depth about that value and features of your product and/or lead magnet. We have seen people be successful with videos up to 20 minutes long.

It’s most important to retain the same formula from your video: Ad = Hook + Value + CTA

Having The Main CTA or Form Above The Fold Will Decrease The Drop Off Rate

Lower your bounce rate by having the checkout form/button above the fold. “Above the fold” means that people do not have to scroll to see it.

It should be placed next to or just below your landing page video.  Also check out the cool mustache I gave Jake in the image.

Tell People How They Will Benefit

Give a list of the top features of your product or service. These features should be specific to the desires and fears of the customer. No one will read a list unless it relates to them

It is often beneficial to add a disclaimer or money back guarantee to be upfront and confident about your product. Google also likes the transparency and it may help get your ads approved. If you need more help getting your ads approved you can check our post about it.

Testimonials Do Something In Minutes, That Would Take You Months 

People don’t generally like being sold to. However, they’re a lot more ok with being sold to by your customers than they are with being sold to by the actual vendor.

If you don’t have testimonials, ask for them.  People are often willing to give them to you if you have provided them value. If you have video testimonials use them in your landing page video.

Why do you think restaurants want a high score on Yelp?

Do You Need A Checklist & Visual?

Here are the 7 things that we have discussed to far…

1. Get An E-mail Address
2. Headline
3. Video
4. Form/Checkout for Lead Magnet
5. Product Image
6. List of Features
7. Testimonials

If you want a really good visual here is a great one by Neal Patel.

Follow the formula we laid out and use this visual from Neal Patel and you will have a landing page that converts.

From here you have two great options for moving forward.  If you want specific campaign advice, set up a free consultati on or you can join the Video Power Lab.  You want to be successful, we want to make you successful.  So, we are offering these tools to make you successful.

Get Instant Access To The Lab

“Hey you, with the face, looking at your computer screen. I see you reading this post.  I know what you’re here for. You want to learn how to create YouTube ads that don’t suck so viewers will stop skipping them and buy your stuff.  Well that is what I am teaching you right now.”  I hooked you by directing my comments to you specifically . And if you’re still reading, it worked.

Creating a good hook is a giant problem most people have when writing their script and filming the ad.  They do not have a hook that will grab attention and create an engaged the audience.  Lets face it, if you are not hooking your audience your ad is worthless.  Putting money into an ad with a crappy hook is like putting money into a TV ad.  People are just going to fast forward it.

Your Hook Is Like Your Underwear… 

“Your hook is like your underwear; it covers the important stuff, but leaves people curious.”Jake

People are on YouTube to watch the video they chose, not your ads. You have 5 seconds to steal their attention. If the audience does not see how this ad is relevant to them, they do not care to watch it. Their mouse is already hovering over the “Skip Now” button, chomping at the bit to get the annoying YouTube Ad off their screen.  Your job is to make them choose your video in that crucial first 5 seconds.

These Geico Ads are great examples of hooking the audience.  They get their message across before the audience gets a chance to skip.

The Elements Of A Good Hook That Nobody Knows About

Be upfront with you audience. Tell them why you are there and what value you are going to bring to them. The people who are interested will listen to what you have to say. This will segment your audience into your potential customers and those who are not interested.  The skip button then actually becomes your ally, because you only want to spend your ad dollars on people who are potential customers anyway. Everyone else can go ahead and skip.

Call Out Your Target Audience

One way that we often segment our target market is to call them out.  This will catch the attention of everyone we actually want listening to our message, and get the others to skip. We get a relevant audience watching our ad and stretch our ad dollar in the process.  In our video ads we would say…

“We only want to talk to serious marketers. If you are not a marketer or business owner, skip this ad because we don’t want to talk to you.”

Address Their Fears or Desires

The two most powerful things in the world are fears and desires.  When someone is afraid of something they will do anything to prevent it from happening.  The same goes for a desire.  A person will go to many lengths to get what they desire. If you can address a fear or desire of your customer, they will listen.

Say you were targeting businesses and entrepreneurs, a good phrase that would insight the fears or desires would be…

“Are you scared that you will be trapped in a cubicle for the rest of your life? Do you have aspirations to own your time?”

Look People In The Eye

Something that we have noticed is that your ad should have an actual person talking. This is especially the case in the first 5 seconds. People are more inclined to listen to you if they can see you.  A voice over is easily tuned out when you are trying to skip an ad, but when you can look a person in the eye it does two things

• Lets the person see who you are.
• People begin to trust you are more inclined to listen to the words coming out of your mouth.

Almost every ad we run has someone talking to the camera at some point during the ad, especially at the beginning. When you can look someone in the eye and are confident in your message, that is powerful.

This is one of our Ads  that nails all three…

 Geico’s Missed Opportunity

Let’s return to the Geico ad that we saw above.  From my perspective Geico nailed the hook.  Beautiful work on that front.  However, they missed a huge opportunity.  The one thing Geico failed to do with the unskippable ad was a Call To Action.  They would have thrown a CTA in at the end that drove a ton of potential customers to their website.  Instead the great hook was wasted, and the ad became a passive experience. This is how you should feel Geico…

If you want to create YouTube Ads that don’t suck, you can join our Video Power Lab.  Or if you want to talk to us and see what we can do to help you create campaigns that don’t suck, setup a Free Consultation.  We’ll be here when you want to succeed.

Don’t Know Where To Start? Set Up A Free Consultation.