Kamil Sattar
- Oct 13, 2019
- 11 min read

YOUTUBE AD GUIDE FOR E-COMMERCE & SHOPIFY DROPSHIPPING IN 2020

Updated: Jan 2, 2020

In May, YouTube became a platform hosting more than 1.8 billion monthly users. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that a lot of online store business owners want to reap the benefits of eCommerce YouTube ad.

It is an established fact that video marketing is an effective eCommerce strategy, and YouTube is becoming the top platform of choice in that regard. Below are some quick facts about video marketing.

• According to Wirebuzz, brands that incorporate video marketing often report faster year-on-year revenue growth.

• 80% of consumers consider demonstration videos helpful when making a purchase. (Blue Corona).

• Statistics from Adobe show that people are 1.8 times more likely to purchase an item after viewing a demo of the product.

• Cisco reported that in 2017, of the total global traffic, 69% of that traffic was video traffic.

• According to Business Insider, over 500 million videos are watched daily.

• Perhaps the most relevant stat is the fact that YouTube ads perform better TV ads among their audiences. (Ipsos Reid).

The YouTube ad guide for eCommerce is a guide that will cover a variety of subjects that would introduce both veterans and newcomers to the world of YouTube advertising. The guide will highlight some of the best practices that would allow you optimize your video ads for better results.

The guide will cover the following sections;

• YouTube Ad Types• YouTube Campaign Creation• Campaign Optimization tips• General YouTube tips

YouTube Ad Types

There are several types of YouTube ads namely;

1. Bumper2. Preroll (unskippable)3. TrueView (skippable)4. Overlay5. Sponsored Card ads

Bumper YouTube Ads

Bumper ads are short video ads that often last roughly 6 secs. They are unskippable and they play at the beginning or end of a viewer’s selected video. The purpose of this type of ad is to create awareness for a branch and increase its reach. Most brands use Bumper YouTube Ad together with TrueView to achieve better results. Bumper ads extend beyond YouTube to other Google apps and partner sites. According to a YouTube study, brands are able to achieve a 90% increase in awareness and recall when using Bumper Ads.

General Overview

Type: Cost-per-thousand impression (CPM)

For: Reach and Awareness

Length: 6 seconds maximum

Preroll (Non-Skippable) YouTube Ads

Preroll (Non-Skippable) ads are shorts videos that play before, during or after a video stream a user is watching. They are slightly longer than the Bumper ads as they have a length of roughly 20 seconds. When done correctly preroll ads are a great way to reach mobile users without being intrusive or annoying. They also yield effective results, but it is worth noting that YouTube put a stop to the long 20-second videos. Despite that development, creative marketers can still take advantage of the preroll ad.

General Overview

Type: Cost-per-thousand impression (CPM)

For: Reach and Awareness

Length: 20 seconds maximum

TrueView Ads

TrueView ads are video ads that are skippable, drive web traffic, and engagement. Due to the low financial risk and the potential to reach a larger audience, the TrueView Ads is a popular video ad choice for eCommerce businesses. It offers a great deal of versatility and you pay when someone clicks or watches the ad.

There are two major forms of TrueView ad, the in-stream and discovery type.

In-stream TrueView Ads

In-stream TrueView ads are short video ads that will play before a user selects a YouTube Video. The ad behaves the same with other third-party apps and sites. When creating an in-stream ad, it is important to understand that you have roughly 5 seconds to impress your audience and cause them to take an action. Therefore, it is crucial to use ad assets like the call-to-action (CTA) overlays effectively.

General Overview

Type: Pay-per-view (video interaction)

For: Reach, leads, Brand Awareness and Website traffic.

Length: 12 seconds to 3 minutes.

In the process of creating your video ad, always aim to be as engaging as possible. Google Ads and YouTube have outlined a couple of hints to help you with creating engaging content. Click here for more details. In the list, take note of the TrueView for shopping campaigns. It allows marketers to leverage product data to create up to 6 shopping cards ads.

Tip: Another way to approach the process of creating engaging content is to tell a story that people can relate to while watching.

Discovery TrueView Ads

Discovery Ads were previously known as Display ads. They are the type of ads you see on thumbnails with text urging people to click to watch a video or perform some action. Discovery Ads are often found on homepages, YouTube videos and search page results. Click here for a guide on using TrueView Ads.

General Overview

Type: Pay-per-click

For: Mobile users, brand awareness and driving traffic.

Length: Static.

Outstream Ads

Outstream Video Ads was launched in April 2018 and it is fairly new. It is a mobile-only type of ad that is targeted at third-party apps and websites. Furthermore, the videos are often mute until the user clicks on it. The views are counted after two seconds when open on more than 50% of the screen space.

General Overview

Type: Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM)

For: Mobile users, brand awareness, reach and driving traffic.

Length: Few seconds.

Mobile app placement: In-feed, both full screen and portrait mode, banner and interstitials.

Mobile web placement: Banners

Setting Up Your First YouTube Campaign

There are four major steps to take when setting up your first YouTube Campaign. They are as follows;

1. Link both YouTube and Google Ads Accounts: the first step is linking both your YouTube and Google Ad account. In so doing, you easily gain access to data about your video’s performance via YouTube reports and Google Ads in one place. Using that data, you can create more engaging content that will drive interaction. Below are some of the things you could do with the data.• Develop a marketing list using YouTube viewers.• Preview and analyse the video and action metrics of each ad• Create CTTA overlays

Click here to follow Google’s guide on linking accounts.

2. Deciding on the type of Campaign to run: Once you open your linked accounts, there are four types of campaign you can run. They are;

• Leads: Lead campaigns are there to generate leads or generate customer sign-ups. For those in the eCommerce sector, it is a great way to get your customers to register to a subscription service or simply join your email marketing list. With custom targeting and bidding, you can optimize the ads to reach potential buyers looking for your products. Likewise, you could use the ads to induce action and collect subscription data.

• Website Traffic: These type of ad campaigns are strictly made for the sole purpose of directing the YouTube audience to your website. The CTA used in the ads will be targeting potential shoppers looking for your product, remarketing old traffic and exploring new customer bases.

• Product and Brand Consideration: With the option of a product and brand consideration campaign, you will be targeting a set of customers that have interests in the type of product or service you offer. Ads in this campaign will be focused on potential customers searching for products in your niche or potential shoppers viewing your product online.

• Brand Awareness and Reach: The name of the campaign gives its purpose away. It is a campaign to raise awareness about a new product or your eCommerce brand in general. There are a variety of ad options that allow you to reach new audiences.

Nevertheless, if you are unsure of what type of campaign to run, simply click on the

create a campaign without a goal option to get started manually. Alternatively, if you are hoping to utilise a type of YouTube ad, then here is an outline of what type fits a particular campaign.

Bumpers and Outstream are great for brand awareness campaigns and campaigns without a goal. Meanwhile, discovery ads work for brand and product consideration campaigns as well as campaign without goal. Finally, instream ads can be used on any type of campaigns. Here are Google’s video campaign goals and subtypes guide for more information.

3. Set up the Campaign: To get started you have to gather the following details;

• Campaign name

• Start and end date

• Budget

• Locations

• Bids

• Network

• Demographic and Audiences

• Languages

• Ad groups

• Targeting (Keywords, topics & placements)

YouTube Campaign Targeting Options

A lot goes into YouTube targeting and in this section, we will be analysing the various strategies in detail.

1. Demographics: In this section, you consider age, gender, household income, and parental status of your audience.

2. Audiences: With audience targeting you act or retrieve the following information;

• Custom affinity and Affinity audiences. You can target people who already have an interest in your product or similar interest. For instance you could be targeting people who love listening to a brand of music or watching makeup videos

• Detailed Demographics

• Customer intent, In-market and life event. It involves targeting people with a history of the search for your product online.

• Remarketing or similar audience is a way to target people that have interacted with your post, video or product previously. Also, it applies to people looking at similar videos as well.

3. Keywords: You can write in words or phrases you wish to target

.4. Topics: In this category, you choose a category and subcategory among the listed interests like entertainment, food and drink, and many more.

5. Placements: It concludes the final targeting option covering platforms like videos, websites, YouTube channels, app categories and apps.

YouTube Bidding Options

There are several ways to pay for ads depending on your campaign choice. They include; CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions),

CPC (cost-per-click) or CPV (cost-per-view).

Below are the various campaigns with ad payment type.

• Leads campaigns –CPA (cost-per-acquisition)

• Brand awareness and reach – CPV (cost-per-view)

• Product and brand consideration campaigns – CPV (cost-per-view)

• Website campaigns – CPA (cost-per-acquisition)

4. Create your video creative: After uploading your video to your YouTube channel, then you get the choice to create your video creative and choose a campaign. Your creative option will vary depending on both your campaign and video. For example, you will choose a thumbnail that has two one-line descriptions, landing pages and video for Discovery Ads. Meanwhile, display URLs, banners and ad name is the standard for in-stream videos.

Campaign Optimization Tips for eCommerce

Once you decide to launch a campaign, then you must take the responsibility to optimize and monitor the campaign. Below are a few tips to help you optimize your YouTube Campaign for eCommerce.

Set Metrics and Goals

If the goal of the campaign is conversions, then analysing a couple of key metrics will offer key insights. For instance, low clicks and view will mean that you have to try out new headlines and creative. The metrics that are relevant to you, are video clicks, conversions, video views, clicks on features like cards or banner, and audiences.

In the shopping campaign and TrueView active, monitoring metrics are very important. There are several tools that can help you optimize your YouTube campaigns in real-time like Traffic Booster.

Test and Monitor your Call-to-Actions (CTAs)

If you have low clicks and high views, then you have to reassess your overlays, CTAs and headlines. Similar to running a Google Ads campaign, you have to keep trying new things within your budget to get the right results. Also, it is worth testing out a few CTA options before committing your entire budget to it.

Optimize for View Rate

YouTube has a history of rewarding videos that have high view rate. They help increase their chances of enjoying CPVs and winning auctions. Therefore, to enjoy similar benefits and reduce your overall cost, you need to optimize your video to gain higher view rates. Here are some tips to help you;

• Refine your targeting plan to ensure that you are reaching the proper audience

• Avoid repeating the same videos and try to alternate between two or three video campaigns to engage your audience.

• Add CTAs, change and test end cards to improve your view rates.

•It is common knowledge that you should aim to keep your videos short (roughly 30 mins) for better engagement. Nevertheless, it important to analyse the numbers regarding video length for your niche audience. It will help you determine the best video length for your audience.

Optimize for Cost-Per-View

If you want to know where you spending most of your ads, then you have to optimize for cost-per-view (CPV). The key thing to note is that you always want your CPV as low as possible. In so doing, you will save more on your advertising YouTube Budget. Below are the three areas of your campaign to makes changes that will lead to better CPV.

1. To increase your view rates and reduce your CPVs, then you have to improve your video creatives.2. Manage your campaign bids to ensure that you are not going beyond your budget.3. Keep expanding your audience to reduce your competition.

General YouTube Tips for eCommerce

To maximise your success on YouTube, you have to plan for your videos to succeed. It doesn’t matter if the video is for your channel or a campaign, you have to be intentional with your video creatives. Below are some YouTube tips to help you channel your video content for eCommerce success.

Use YouTube Cards to Push Product Videos

YouTube cards are the “i” that viewers can click on your videos. Addition of the cars to your YouTube video content will help engage both potential customers and viewers. In your card, you can decide to either direct people to your products or showcase other YouTube content.

Work on Your Titles

Your video title is the first chance you get to both impress and engage viewers with your content. You have to get creative to make the title concise, short and without clickbait phrases or words. A great title is a great way to extend your organic video reach on YouTube and other non-video SERPs. Information from Search Engine suggests that the following are thetop tips for creating great YouTube video title that will result in better CTRS.

• Keep title within the character limits and short• Make sure the title is descriptive and direct• Always perform keyword research for your titles• Study the popular video titles in your niche• Always add the word video to your title.

Understand the Importance of Your Channel

If your goal is to run a series of video ads, then you must take time to build your channel properly. That way when someone looks through your store’s channel they can find a ton of content that will continue to engage them while promoting your brand. The content should not be limited to just video ads, there should be informational posts as well. Also, remember that you want a channel that is both active and relevant to your audience.

The viewer should see your channel as a place where they can get answers to their questions. Going by example, you can easily begin to notice that value outweighs quality most of the time. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t compromise on quality as well. Furthermore, to keep your audience engaged and excited over a series of videos, best to arrange your videos in a playlist. You can check out the YouTube channels of eCommerce stars like ThinkGeek as an example.

Your Video Thumbnails

Always make sure that your thumbnails stand out for all your YouTube video content and ads. Invest in designing something that promotes your brand while grabbing viewer’s attention. Here are some tips to get you started.

1. Pick the correct resolution (1280 X 720)2. Ensure that the minimum pixel width is 6403. The thumbnail should be accurate, honest and relevant4. Always maintain a consistent design style for your brand.

Add Closed Captioning to All Videos

A way to reach wider audiences is to add closed captioning to your YouTube videos. Captions made in other languages will attract newer audiences and it also helps with SEO since Google indexes videos with closed captions. Therefore, we can say that captions will help increase your SEO rankings and engagements.

When picking a caption, you can either upload yours or opt for Google’s automatic captioning. In the link is a guide to adding subtitles and captions to your videos.

Leverage on End Screens

In conclusion, one of the best ways to turn your viewers to active subscribers at the end of your YouTube and campaign videos is to add end screens. As subscribers, your viewers can receive links to

products and special offers. Click here to access Google’s guide on adding end screens.

So, we have come to the end of our step-by-step guide to leveraging on YouTube videos for your eCommerce store. For more information and guidance, do not hesitate to contact us here.