The Advantages YouTube Ads Have Over Facebook Ads

The Advantages YouTube Ads Have Over Facebook Ads In today’s digital era, it is very important to use all available methods you can to boost your sales and promote your company in order to be seen.Nowadays, competition is very high on the markets, due to the effects of globalization and the opening of the worldwide market.That includes the usage of everything that could help with internet marketing, such as Google, Facebook and YouTube ads, amongst all other things.Each and every one of these platforms has certain advantages and disadvantages, depending on the situation and the nature of advertising.YouTube ads are considered to be more trusted and easier to handle, which means they are more accessible to beginners.On the other side, we have Facebook, the platform full of different content and ads.That diverse structure makes marketing and business promotions be a bit harder to manage, so it can sometimes be difficult to get access to the right customers.In this article, we are going to make a clear distinction between YouTube and Facebook ads, we will see how each of them works and what are the advantages YouTube ads have over Facebook ads.Without any further due, let’s begin!WHAT ARE YOUTUBE ADS?Recording a video and sharing it over different social media is just a start when it comes to making yourself visible.If you want to be seen by a lot more people, you need to be much more proactive when it comes to getting a lot of attention.One thing that can be helpful with making sure that your video content is seen by a larger number of people is YouTube ads.Though YouTube advertising is considered to be easier than most of the other types of advertising, it is still much different than PPC advertising because there are some limitation and a lot of different options regarding YouTube platform.That’s why you should inform yourself about all the available options first.Since the beginning of 2017, people who advertise their businesses on YouTube have been able to reach a higher number of viewers, due to Googl e announcing that they had changed certain things in AdWords to allow it to be more useful for YouTube ads.Changes especially targeted mobile devices, since over 50% of YouTube views are coming from there.The crucial change was that viewers will have been able to be targeted by taking their Google search history into the account, which would lead to an increasing number of viewers.For example, when you search a certain product in Google search, you might be targeted by specific YouTube ad that would include that product.So, if you would search for a hair dryer, you would be more likely to get targeted by ad regarding hair dryers rather than something else.Apart from that, it is less expensive to target keywords on YouTube than by using traditional Google Search. YouTube views average cost is $0.06 per click, which is way less than the average Google search cost per click, which are said to be around $1 or $2 each.That, along with the addition that targeting includes, search history makes it easier to produce video content, which is more engaging to the targeted audience.TYPES OF YOUTUBE ADSDepending on your needs, there are three different types of YouTube ads, which you can use: TrueView, Pre-roll and Bumper ads.1. True View AdsThe first type of YouTube ads we are going to mention is TrueView ads, which are the general type of ads you can see on YouTube videos.In this type of ads, people who advertise pay only when viewers interact with their ad or when they watch it. However, there is one more catch.Advertisers pay only if viewers watch the video ad for longer than 30 seconds, if they watch the entire ad and if they take an action, for example, if they click on a so-called “call-to-call” action.There are skippable and non-skippable versions of TrueView ads. There are different rules set by YouTube for each of these versions.Skippable ads need to be somewhere around 12 seconds to full 6 minutes in length, while non-skippable version can last from 15 to 20 seconds in order for viewers not to get bored and cancel watching the video.Furthermore, we can say that there are two additional types of TrueView ads, which are Video Discovery ads and In-Stream ads.a. Video Discovery AdsWhen you search something via YouTube search box, you can often see a couple of videos with “Ad” tag before the actual search list. This type of videos is video discovery ads. They show up when the ad is related to the topic you had searched.They can also appear in the actually recommended list on the right side of the video and can be accessed by clicking on them. If clicked, they show the ad and the product description, all related to the search term you used before.b. In-Stream AdsThis type of ads is easily recognizable. These ads can be seen before the beginning of the video you had selected. In-stream ads can be skippable and non-skippable as well, usually after five seconds. What is interesting about these ads is that you can use them anywhere in the GD N, which is shorter from Google Display Network, or on any website that uses Google video ad space.In-stream ads are useful for customizing video ads and making them more entertaining from time to time.TrueView ads can present various subjects, from different things about people and dialogue to music, which has to be either marked as royalty-free or got the permission to use specific content.Since most of these short videos can be skipped, it is important that you present some interesting content during that short time, so people would watch it until the end instead of skipping it right away.In other words, you have to think of a good reason to give to your viewers in order for them to have a will to keep watching your ads.So, it is probably not a good idea to just present a certain product, because it would be interpreted as a cheap move.What you should do instead is show people some interesting stories, something like real life struggles some entrepreneurs had and similar.That wou ld interest a lot of people, seeing how other people face the same problems, same fears, so they would have someone to relate to, which could motivate them to keep watching the ad until the end.Now, in order for you as an advertiser to have a better understanding of how these ads work, you should use AdWords to get a lot of information regarding everything you need to know about the performance of all of your ads.2. Pre-roll AdsPre-roll ads are those ads that can appear anytime, before, during and after the video. It is usually not possible to skip them, which can strike as a bit of annoyance, especially if they happen during the video.Their length varies, but the general length is from 15 to 20 seconds, depending on the ad itself.When we talk about ads appearing in the middle of the video, the general law is that this usually happens in videos that last longer than 10 minutes.Just like with TrueView ads, you can use a different type of content in pre-roll ads. People, music, conver sations, and others. It doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as it is a good representation of your brand.Since pre-roll ads usually cannot be skipped, the best possible solution is to include CTA, or call-to-action content, in order to keep viewers interested in your brand. CTA means that viewers are encouraged to click on your ad and get something in return.Another reason why that is a good solution is because video space you can use for these ads is sold on a PPC, or pay per click, basis, which means that every click viewers make is very important.Thus, you should encourage them to do it as much as possible.3. BumpersAnd the last type of YouTube ads we are going to mention are bumpers. Bumpers are the shortest type of YouTube ads.They usually last around six seconds and are generally played before the video begins.Since bumpers are very short, you cannot include a lot of content into them, so probably the best solution is to give something interesting to your audience.Make sure to include the best aspects of your brand, which would be able to put its best qualities forward and make people click on it to find out more about a certain product or service.In other words, try to make the 6 seconds you have count.WHY ARE YOUTUBE ADS SO IMPORTANT NOWADAYS?You may wonder why are YouTube ads or any video ads so important in business nowadays?Well, it is because video content is something that each and every modern content strategy must include.It is very important for you, as a seller or a multinational company, to be able to reach customers all over the world.And there is no better way of doing that, but by introducing yourself and your products and services over the internet.Of course, you can have websites and such, but in order to be seen, you need to have video advertising because it is much interesting to watch a video than read boring product description.Adding to that, since YouTube now allows advertisers to use search history to target their audience , YouTube ads are more useful than ever before.Apart from that, creating video content and sharing it globally is a bit newer and less popular that things like having blogs and websites.But, it is becoming more and more popular as the time passes by, just because there are people who had seen the potential in it and who managed to use it to help their businesses grow and expand furthermore.WHAT ARE FACEBOOK ADS?I know we had said that YouTube ads are generally easier to use and setup than most of other social media ads, including Facebook, but that doesn’t mean that you should completely ignore Facebook ads because Facebook is the largest social media platform out there with the largest base of active users. Source: bigcommerce.comWith over 2 billion active users Facebook is racing to make a revenue of more than $4 billion just from advertising campaigns.This data confirms that so-called theories about no one clicking on Facebook ads are completely false.In fact, it’s the complete opposite, meaning that Facebook ads are one of the most popular ways to promote your brand via the internet. HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS?Now, let’s take a look and see how Facebook ads work in order to get a better understanding of the situation. There are different version and varieties of Facebook ads, depending on your needs and actions you can make.In general, Facebook tries to keep viewers on their own website when clicking on ads, so they could get higher traffic and more clicks, but there are ways which you can use to promote your website and send people to it.Targeting specific users on Facebook can be done based on their location, information that is shown on their profiles and demographic information. A lot of companies and entrepreneurs don’t succeed to implement Facebook advertising the right way, not because they are just bad at it, but because sometimes those individuals are not a good fit for advertising on Facebook.That said, in order to be successful in it, you should test advertising on several different channels and try to adapt your business model to each of these channels.Some business models might work on Facebook, some might not, so you will have to think it thoroughly before fully committing yourself to Facebook advertising.You should look at Facebook ads, not as a mean to be search ads because they are definitely not search ads. Instead, they are kind of more like display ads. In other words, their main goal is not to fulfill demand but generate it.When someone clicks on your Facebook ad, they usually don’t look to buy your product instantly. Companies that tried doing this simply failed, because that is not the way Facebook advertising works.If you ask your vi ewers to buy something immediately, clicking on Facebook ads will simply lead your visitors back to Facebook instead of letting them see your website.That’s why you should take things slowly, simply send them to sign up page or newsletter, depending on the nature of your ad.After that, you can easily use e-mail marketing to try to sell your products and services.Now, asking for an email or simply sign up is not what will give you the money in order for Facebook ads to be profitable.Therefore, you will have to interest your viewers another way because if you want people to buy your products, you need to build trust over time.And that is exactly how the best business model for using Facebook ads looks like. You have to increase your revenue over a significant amount of time.You shouldn’t expect a large influx of revenue all at once, that’s simply not the way this works. In that regard, it is better to offer smaller purchases than focusing on one or two big sales.Really good exam ples of business models that have an excellent chance to succeed by using Facebook ads are subscription sites and websites that offer daily deals.All of this can be a bit overwhelming at the start, and it could take you a lot of time to figure out how everything works, but once you do, there is really no limits, and you can use Facebook ads to boost your business if you have the right business model.YOUTUBE VS FACEBOOK ADSRight now, the two most popular platforms for video advertising are Facebook and YouTube, with the largest number of active users, as shown in the graph above.Hence, it is not surprising that there was some research done regarding both of these platforms.Like we had said, in 2017 YouTube had made some changes to its advertising policy, made some deals with Google to improve search patterns and to make YouTube videos more visible on the Google search page.At the same time, Facebook had increased the video ad costs for advertisers, which went up by 43% in the fourth quartile of 2017, compared to other social media platforms.All that was interesting to Social Media Lab, who decided to dig a bit further and do an experiment comparing YouTube and Facebook ads.Their main hypothesis was that YouTube ads are capable of yielding a larger number of free trials than video ads on Facebook.They had spent almost the same amount of money on both platforms, which was $742 on Facebook and €602 on YouTube ads.Results showed that Facebook managed to achieve a link click-through rate, or CTR, or 0.21%, while YouTube ads managed to get 0.31%, which is 10 base points higher.What that means is that a larger number of people clicked on their YouTube ads rather than on their Facebook ads on an average basis.YouTube ads generated more traffic than Facebook ads for pretty similar ads spent. Source: Social Media LabAs you can see, YouTube generated more views, more clicks and more free trials than Facebook ads.The average costs of each trial for Facebook ads were $61.84, while for YouTube that number was $24, which is way more effective.Before we definitely announce the winner, let’s get some more proof.In order to see if these results are statistically important, researchers from Social Media Lab put all these numbers in statistic calculator and got the following results:Conversion rate â€" the conversion rate for Facebook ads was 1.55%, while the one for YouTube ads was 1.44%. What that means is that there is really no significant difference between Facebook and YouTube ads when it comes to the number of clicks per views.Conversion to free trials â€" when it comes to conversion to free trials, they found out that YouTube ads traffic managed to convert to free trials 66% better than the traffic regarding Facebook ads.Following all that, their statistical formula showe d that YouTube ads had P-value of 0.9999, which means that its statistical significance is 99.99%.The conclusion of the experiment is that YouTube ads were better than Facebook ads on several different levels:First, cost per view is lower on YouTube than on Facebook ads, even though YouTube only counts views where people watched more than 30 seconds, while on Facebook that number is 3 seconds.And second, YouTube ads have higher CTR, which only adds to their advantages over Facebook ads.FINAL VERDICTAs the experiment above had shown, using YouTube ads is a better option for you than using Facebook ads to promote your brand.This is especially true if you do not have the funding to use both of these platforms.We saw that in that regard, YouTube ads are a bit cheaper than Facebook ads, while providing more clicks at the same time, thus, allowing more people to come and see your products and services.So, if you have any doubts whether to use one or another, we recommend using the YouTube ads, especially since YouTube now allows targeting audience via search history, which makes things much easier than before.All in all, this was what we intended to share with you today folks! We defined what are both Facebook and YouTube ads, how you can use each of them to boost your business and promote your brand.Then we went through an experiment conducted by Social Media Lab, which proved that YouTube ads are more economical and profitable than Facebook ads.If you enjoyed the article, let us know of your thoughts in the comment section down below. See you soon!