Ads on YouTube
By: Ryan Prussky
So you’ve just created your first YouTube channel and are wondering how to manage your channel and content to attract ad dollars. While, the key to monetization with ads is to have an engaged audience. This is important because advertisers want to work with channels that have high traffic, far reach, and a specific target demographic. It is essential that you grow your audience to a respectful number before you monetize your channel. Once you feel you are ready to turn ads on, it will behove you to learn the role of the viewer, the creator, and the advertiser. Viewers genuinely come to YouTube to be entertained, they also provide the views required to help creators and advertisers make money. Creators are on YouTube to express themselves, and share their content. This will lead to them gaining a following and eventually making profits. Last is Advertiser’s, their responsibility is to study a channels demographic, and choose whether or not they want to post an ad before, during or after their videos.
There are many different available ad formats, which can be applied all together or individually. These forms of advertising include display ads, overlay ads, TrueView in-stream skippable video ads, non-skippable video ads, and midroll ads. You have full control on which ads you want to be shown, if any. You can also prevent certain advertisers from using your channel. For example, a fitness channel might choose to not allow a fast-food restaurant from posting ads on their video. Non-skipping videos can be placed before, during, or after a video and must be watched in its entirety before selected video can be viewed. When just building an audience, it is smart to avoid these ads, as they are the most universally despised. In contrast, TrueView in-stream skippable video ads, are inserted before, during or after the main video, and give the users an option of skipping the ad after a few seconds. Overlay ads, however, are transparent ads that appear on the lower portion of your video. Display ads, or banners, may run across all areas of YouTube except the homepage. They appear on the right of the featured video, directly above the video suggestions. Finally, midroll ads, are used on videos that are longer than ten minutes, and can be placed multiple times within the video. They can be automatically assigned or done manually, depending on if you have a preference in where the ad is shown.
YouTube runs on a specific algorithm that works to show the right ads to the right viewer at the right time. Ads are matched with a specific audience, when a viewer watches that video, a small percentage of the revenue is shared with the content creator. This algorithm also attempts to make sure that no viewer is overloaded with ads while watching a video. There are a series of elements which will likely restrict ads from working with your content. Before you start worrying, it is necessary that you check that ads are enabled and the your privacy level is set to public. Ads may choose not to utilize your content if they think you have no demographic audience, or if your audience is not the same as the advertisers consumers. Sensitive content, like inappropriate language or vulgar imagery will have advertisers staying clear as they like brand-safe videos. In addition, advertisers will not touch any content that is clearly copyrighted.
Advertisers choose which videos they would like to be associated with, and those videos are almost always brand-friendly videos. It is important to know who your audience is. Advertisers will commonly look at your demographic audience. They are interested in targeting groups between 18-24 who are interested in fashion, or sports. Advertisers will look to see how large and loyal your audience is. If your audience is diverse, engaged, and scattered from country to country, you will likely appeal to ads. As I briefly stated, many advertisers will not want to be associated with any content that is not family-friendly. Advertisers like when a channel has all forms of ads enabled, as it gives them more possibilities to be noticed, however, too many ads overpowering your video can be offputting to a lot of subscribers. It is best to consider what works best for your channel and brand as a whole. Ultimately, advertisers have more to gain from working alongside your content, so if you can follow the restrictions listed above, you will have a source of income that requires no maintenance on your part.
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