Everything You Need to Know About YouTube Ads for Your Business with Tom Breeze
Today on Just the Tips, I make the huge mistake of being outnumbered by Brits, and immediately lose control of the show. But luckily, our guest, Tom Breeze, is such an insightful guy that the episode turned out to be more bangers than mash. Tom is the founder and CEO of Viewability, a company specializing in YouTube advertising, boasting an impressive client list of international, personal and corporate brands. Tom is also a speaker, author and consultant, teaching businesses around the world how to advertise successfully on YouTube. There are so many ways to leverage YouTube ads for your business that it can be daunting. Luckily, Tom is here to undaunt them for you.
How did Tom get into YouTube ads?
There are a lot of British things that happen in this episode of Just the Tips, but one story Tom tells about how he headed down the rabbit hole of YouTube ads was maybe the most British of them all. Tom had started dabbling in internet marketing for his own business, largely focusing on things like search engine optimization. And while the business was doing okay, he decided to make a video that potential clients could watch to learn about why they should work with him. He woke up the next day and saw that he’d had a lot more success overnight and thought, in that most British of ways, that something had gone wrong, and the data was bad. But in reality, he’d just discovered the power of YouTube ads.
YouTube ads are not just for lead generation
Tom notes that a lot of what users go to YouTube for is to learn something. Maybe it’s how to fix something wrong with their make and model of car, or maybe it’s how to lose weight, etc. But there is a huge user base of YouTube going there to learn every day. And so it’s no surprise that a lot of YouTube ads are designed to generate leads for educators. If you want to learn more about how to market your business, an ad promises, follow the link to download a PDF. But I asked him if you can do direct sales through YouTube and he told me about how you can go straight from an ad to an order page. If you’re new to YouTube ads, you have to listen to this week’s episode of Just the Tips.
The different type of YouTube ads
There are so many different types of ads that pop up when you watch a YouTube video, I had to ask Tom what the differences are and when you should use one over the other. He told us that the little banner ads you see pop up while watching a video are actually part of the Google display ad environment. But there are also bumper ads, the six-second ads you see before your video starts, but those are mostly for brand awareness, because there’s no link to click through to your site. Then there are the big, 20-second ads that a lot of big brands use. But what Tom says most businesses use are in-stream ads and discovery ads. Want to know more about those? Listen to this week’s Just the Tips.
YouTube ads are a different marketing beast
Tom broke down how to actually structure a solid ad, and it’s very counterintuitive for people use to common marketing principles. Tom says that within 30 seconds, you have to tell your audience that this is an ad, and there’s a call to action. You may lose viewers, but that’s okay, because the ones who stay are the ones who are going to click. It runs against the received wisdom of “sell them on a story first,” but Tom knows his stuff. If you’re interested in YouTube ads, Tom is offering tons of insights on how to make them work for you on this week’s episode of Just the Tips.
Outline of This Episode
- [4:00] How Tom got started with YouTube
- [12:26] Are YouTube ads still unexplored territory?
- [17:55] Are YouTube ads just for lead-gen, or can you sell directly?
- [20:42] The different type of YouTube ads
- [26:00] How to structure an ad
- [35:58] How to connect with Tom
Music for “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
