Hey, there friend! Setting up your first advertising campaign on YouTube is really easy, you just have to know where to get started.
Today we are going to walk you through the creation of a basic YouTube ads campaign. From signing in to the proper advertising platform to preparing the video that you want to promote, you’ll learn all it takes to set up and launch the best possible YouTube ad in a matter of minutes!
Getting Started
You can no longer promote YouTube videos or create video ad campaigns directly from your YouTube studio. Instead, all YouTube ad campaigns can now be created through Google Ads.
To access Google Ads, all you have to do is go to “ads.google.com” in your browser while logged in to your Google account. Make sure to sign in to the Google Ads account that you linked to your YouTube channel!
Creating A Video Ad Campaign For YouTube
Now that you’re logged in to Google Ads, click on the “campaigns” tab. On the following page, click on the “plus” button, and then on “new campaign”.
When you create a new ad campaign on Google Ads, you will be suggested to select a campaign goal. When you select a goal, the new campaign will be optimized to meet the goal you selected, such as boosting sales or generating more website traffic.
Now, you might simply want to promote a video from your channel, or you may just be interested in creating a quick, basic video ad campaign for YouTube, without optimizations. In that case, you’ll just have to click on the “create a campaign without a goal’s guidance” option.
Now you have to select “video” as your campaign type. You always have to select this campaign type when creating YouTube ads. After selecting “video” as your campaign type, you’ll have to select a campaign subtype. The available campaign subtypes will vary depending on the campaign goal that you choose. For this campaign, we are going to select “custom video campaign”.
This campaign subtype will allow us to select a single, basic type of video ad format during set up, and it is the recommended campaign subtype to select when creating basic YouTube ads campaigns. You can click on “continue” to move to the next step once you make all your selections on this page.
Now it is time to set up the actual campaign. Start by typing the name of your new campaign in the “campaign name” field. Now scroll down to set up your “budget”. First, select the budget “type”.
Select “daily” if you want to spend a specific amount of money a day on YouTube Ads. You can spend as little as $1 and get good results! Or select “campaign total” if you want to spend a specific amount for the total duration of the campaign.
Be careful in case you assign a campaign total, as you can easily spend $50 fast and not see results because campaign totals don’t allow you to test and optimize with the same flexibility as a daily spend. Now enter the amount you want to spend below, after selecting the budget type. Next up select the campaign’s “start date” and “end date”.
You can start running ads as soon as they’re approved, or you can select a date to run them later. You can opt to run ads indefinitely by selecting “none” as your end date, or you can select a specific end date.
Next up you can select a custom “bidding strategy”. The default bidding strategy will be selected according to the campaign goal you choose, but you can change it in the “bidding strategy” menu.
Basically, all bidding strategies are based on “costs per view” and “costs per mile” that are optimized for each campaign goal. Please note that not all types of bidding strategies will be available for all campaign goals.
Next up you have to select your target “languages”. For example, if you only want to reach viewers that speak English, you simply have to click on the “enter a language” field, and then select “English” from the language menu. You can also select your target “locations”.
You can target “all countries and territories”, specific locations that speak your target language, or “custom” locations. Now you have to enter a name for the ad group where you’ll save your ads. Here you’ll simply have to type the ad group name in the “ad group name” field.
You can further refine your target audience in the “people” section. Here you can define “demographics” by “gender”, “age”, “parental status”, and “household income”, as well as “audiences” by attributes such as “interests” and “intent”.
You can make better use of your ad spending by defining your target audiences in this section. In the “content” section you can narrow your reach by showing your video ads to people who use specific keywords and search terms.
You’ll simply have to enter your target keywords and the search terms that are most relevant to your business in the “keywords” box. Each keyword and search term that you enter here has to be separated by a line.
You can also show your video ads on content about specific subjects by selecting topics. You simply have to click in the “topics” field and then select one or more topics from the topics menu.
You can go even more granular by only showing your video ads in very specific placements. Click on the “placements” menu and then enter a keyword or phrase to look for placements on YouTube and around the web.
You will get suggestions based on the keywords you entered as well as the average number of impressions per week that you can get on each placement. Next, you have to enter your maximum bid in the “bidding” section.
Here you simply have to enter the maximum amount that you are willing to pay per view or per mile.
Creating The Video Ad
Now it is time to add and customize the video ad. Start by pasting the URL of the YouTube video that you are going to promote in the “your YouTube video” field.
You will be able to select a custom video ad format after you load your video from the URL. For basic YouTube Ads campaigns, the available ad formats will depend on the length of your video.
If your video is 15 seconds or longer, you can create skippable “in-stream” ads, which are video ads that appear before, during, or after another YouTube video, and “video discovery ads”, which appear as recommended videos and in search results pages.
If your video is 6 seconds long, you can create non-skippable “bumper ads”, which are short video ads that appear before, during, or after another YouTube video.
The most basic and more common video ad format is “in-stream”, which we’ll select to finish setting up this YouTube Ads campaign. When you select the “in-stream ad” format, you’ll just have to enter your business landing page URL in the “final URL” field, and a display URL in the “display URL” field.
Then you have to select if you want to “autogenerate a companion banner from videos from your channel” or to “upload” your own companion banner image. Then you have to enter the name of your new YouTube ad in the “ad name” field.
You can check how your video ad will look on different placements in the preview window on the right. You can click on “save and continue” when you are ready to launch your new campaign. Now review your campaign settings on the next page and click on “continue to campaign”.
Awesome! Now you’ve just launched your first YouTube ads campaign the right way.