2019 is ending soon, and with it, we close another chapter of technological progress. What started as a handful of social media platforms for a niche crowd of users has spiraled into a system of mass communication through connectivity. Social media has grown in leaps and bounds. So much so we have 7 major platforms with hundreds of millions of users every day. That is wild! Marketers and businesses are scrambling to figure out how to get their message across on these new platforms.
One of the massive changes in this past decade is video. Whether it is a recording, live, or a 5-second blurb, people are communicating the most through video. Advertisers can either sponsor a content creator, submit a basic ad for an algorithm or plaster their message on a webpage, the options are endless. You can target your ads to a specific niche of people that would consume your product. They can even set it up to air during a specific time of day.
However, one of the major problems of having so many choices is that it can get overwhelming fast. Especially if you don’t know how effective or ineffective, these platforms can be. So, we are going to breakdown what we know based on the collected data we have for 3 major platforms with video. YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
YouTube Advertising Results
If you would ask anyone in internet culture where video content got popular, most people will tell you that Youtube would be the progenitor of the posted video format. There were videos before then in small spurts alongside flash animation on both eBaum’s world and Newground before. But it was Youtube that easily solidified the video platform. According to Wikipedia, “Three former PayPal employees-Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—created the service in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion; YouTube now operates as one of Google’s subsidiaries. “
So, not only did it start the platform, but it has strong ties to Google, making it the top platform in the US and worldwide. YouTube and selected creators earn advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program that targets ads according to site content and audience. So, it runs under the same umbrella of basic Google Ads search results. But how many people watch YouTube?
Pros
As of 2017 1.5 billion, logged-in viewers visit YouTube every month. Given the global population is 7.5 billion, that is a sizable potential audience. For ROI and ROAs, the numbers are telling. When video ads are on YouTube, there is a drastic uptick in consideration, favorability and purchase intent. The results double across the board if the people watch the ad for 30 seconds. And often, it is after one exposure.
This is because of how YouTube targets its audience based on relevance to related interests. The average search relies on keywords, and while that works to a point, it is only until recently that search algorithms can track context. However, YouTube Ads take it a step further.
“With affinity targeting, you are reaching a very vast and diverse pool of people. Many people fit into the affinity category and ads targeting this market can last for a long time since interests don’t change frequently.” It also takes major life events into account, such as weddings, moving, and graduation.
Cons
However, there are negatives that come with the positives. These ads have skippable options and cue themselves smack in the middle of content with no warning which can come across as invasive or annoying. Especially if you have an ad that is 10 minutes long in the middle of a 20-minute video. This is not optimal if you are expecting a call to action. Especially with the National Average click-through rate being 0.1%.
So, you are dealing with an audience that has potentially short-term attention spans, who are not fond of surprises in the middle of their content. Also, they are literally watching a video on purpose to entertain themselves or to quickly learn a skill; it isn’t good timing to point them to another location because they don’t want to go to another location.
Conclusion
If you are going for a video campaign that reaches a wide audience for the sake of brand recognition and will work on a long-term timetable then it will be an ideal platform for your company. If you are expecting an immediate response in action or want to divert traffic to your website, aim for one of the other two platforms that we will cover in the next two weeks, Facebook and Instagram.