Addictive. That’s the word to describe YouTube. Can you count the number of times where you’re listening to a music video at work, only to find yourself seconds later watching another video on how to make margaritas? 90% of viewers discover new brands on YouTube every day. Switching your perspective from a consumer to a business owner, you can see how YouTube audio ads are the rising star when it comes to advertising media. If you’re already knee-deep in radio ads, perhaps it’s time to diversify those marketing funds towards an effective new channel in order to reach new markets.
YouTube audio ads are basically ads on the platform that include audio dialogue. Audio-visual advertising has long been proven effective for brand recall in the marketing industry. With 1.9 billion users worldwide and 62% of businesses advertising through it, YouTube is the reigning king over all social media platforms. Heck, it’s king of all websites aside from Google, who, incidentally has also bought over YouTube. As the world progresses into a digital era, so must conventional methods of advertising. To get “discovered” on YouTube is therefore to become a noteworthy global brand.
Create, advertise, amplify, and repeat! It’s not all that daunting. This article brings you the good, the bad and the evil of YouTube audio ads. We’ll talk about how you can harness its campaigning power to take your business ahead.
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This post was updated in April 2021
A Worthy Investment?
Marketing is a game of constant change and optimization. A/B testing is paramount in helping you to identify which basket you should place your eggs in. No doubt having to develop the ad requires professional outsourcing of writing great content, hiring voice talents and even employing some translation, the ROI is definitely worth the investment if done right. The YouTube audio ad is thus an awesome media channel for anyone looking to cast a wider net. That which, includes business objectives such as globalization, increasing brand awareness and driving traffic to your e-commerce site. Here to inspire you to take the plunge are some impressive statistics:
Localization
Desire lies in the ears of the beholder! YouTube has been launched in more than a hundred countries and reaches audiences in up to 80 different languages. That’s 95% of the world’s population, a gold mine for anyone seeking to develop their brand worldwide or plant their product flag in new targeted markets. In the world of YouTube ads, 95% of them contain audio. As such, polls have proven that the inclusion of audio dialogue makes the ad 1.4 times more effective on brand recall, and 1.6 times more efficient in creating brand awareness. These numbers are in comparison to ads with only a visual aspect. As such, both language and dialect play an important role in the creation of a genuine and compelling brand message. That especially with the objective of localization in mind.
Quick Tip:
Digital localization can reap rewarding ROIs especially through driving web traffic. Whether you choose to dub or voice over your YouTube audio ad, the usual elements of culture, values, language, nuances, and accents play a sizable role in creating an authentic and resonating product or brand message. If you already have an ongoing radio ad campaign or television commercials running, it’s easy to reframe that structure and content into another language. Hiring a professional native-speaking voice talent, or perhaps employing a voice-over translator can convert your existing advertisement into a YouTube audio ad.
Segmentation
Don’t preach to deaf ears. You need to first and foremost have a deep understanding of user behavior and your target market to ensure that your investments are funneled into worthy potential markets. YouTube helps businesses connect with the right audience with a customizable selection of locations, topics, keywords, and demographics. This tailoring helps you to reach potential consumers that might be interested to purchase your product.
Take one example. YouTube allows for targeting through both custom affinity and custom intent. To explain simply, custom affinity targeting would be your audiences who have visited pages or videos with broadly similar content to yours. On the other hand, custom intent targets audiences who have visited your competitors’ sites or channels. It allows you to reach consumers actively in search of specific content relating to your industry, topics, products, or services. YouTube automatically grows your viewership based on audiences who’ve had past interactions with your brand. This is an effective mechanism for remarketing purposes. Such detailed customization of demographics would not be possible or as specific for radio ads as they are generally more location-based.
Quick Tip:
Did you know a majority of 56% of YouTube audio ad views were on gender-neutral or women-led topics, personalities or voices? That despite a majority of ads featuring male voices and characters. Choosing to go with female voice talents for your YouTube voice-over ads is always a safe choice. But if you’re not sure this applies to your brand, measuring your success with your “Analytics” tab on your linked Google Ads paged can always help you learn more about your audience with each campaign. You will be able to track the customers who view your ads, and how long they stay to watch your ad. This will then allow you to tweak your demographics, budgets or content to increase your ROIs more effectively.
Engagement
YouTube is essentially the radio and the telly combined! Although we will be mainly focusing on the audio aspect in this article, it’s important to keep in mind the boundless accessibility of the platform. Out of 10 people, 6 say they prefer online video platforms such as YouTube to programmatic live television content. It is no surprise as consumers get to choose any topic in the universe to watch. Anything available on the worldwide web, including to quote Barney Stinson in the “How I Met Your Mother” series, a dog pooping on a baby!
The targeted accessibility to consumers is not all. Let’s not forget how ad content from YouTube channels can be so easily shared with just the click of a button. According to advertising reports, 83% of respondents from 60 countries claim to trust recommendations from friends and family. If your YouTube audio ad makes an impact, your advertising efforts could lead to an amplifying ripple effect in your visibility reach.
YouTube also allows two-way communication between the consumer and your brand. The comments section enables feedback and interaction between buyers and sellers. Research has proven that consumers who engage with a recommended ad product have a 70% higher conversion rate. Although mostly a positive feature, such can be a double-edged sword because some haters will be haters, and we can’t control what people think.
Quick Tip:
Brand interaction is very important. It exhibits accountability and good customer service. The best way to gain trust from consumers would be to respond to every one of their feedback. This is either by thanking them or providing them with a further recommendation.
Visibility
From today’s modern smart telly to computers and all kinds of funky mobile hand-held gadgets, YouTube is everywhere. Its display network isn’t just confined to the YouTube app itself, but also to approximately 2 million apps and websites. This is the accessibility to over 90% of internet users globally.
On top of that, you get to decide where your YouTube audio ad plays. Play it before the start of a video, alongside a running video, or even on partner sites outside of YouTube. Organically visible or not, it all all depends on your budget and the objective of your ad.
Quick Tip:
Paying to run campaign ads can help drive more traffic to either your website or increase subscribers and viewership to your channel. Your console that is linked to Google Ads allows for detailed customization. Choosing which way to go really depends on your budget and the purpose of your ad. You will be able to choose 3 objectives below
- Increase leads and website traffic to drive conversions
- Increase brand awareness and audience reach
- Brand or product consideration that casts a wider net to broader audiences including influencers
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Let’s Talk Moolah
Now comes the iffy topic the price of budgets. There are a few things to consider here. Mainly, content creation first, and then, campaign advertising costs. So let’s break this down into bite sizes.
Content Creation
Creating content is kind of like being on a first date. If you keep talking about yourself (your product), there’s not going to be a second! Depending on your needs, you can go partial or full-stack outsourcing to complete your ad project. The differences are as below:
Tweaking an Existing Script:
If you already have existing TV commercials or audio ad campaigns running and are looking to break into a new market with the same content, you might need to hire a voice over translator. You can learn everything you need to know about that right here.
Creating from Scratch:
If you’re looking to create from scratch, remember that content is the atomic particle of all digital marketing. So you want to take the dive, make sure you do it right! You don’t want your audio ad to sound choppy or amateurish. Unless you are confident in crafting a compelling script and executing a crystal clear voice over, dubbed, or newly scripted audio ad, you might want to consider outsourcing. Not sure how that works? Here are some tips to make sure you stay on the right track. Fret not as there are plenty of platforms out there that can help. The challenge doeth lies in finding a dependable one that yields professional outcomes, deliver reliably with quick turnaround time and have cost-effective rates.
Now let’s break it down further so you can set allocate your marketing budgets. YouTube audio ad lengths can range between 5 to 30 seconds. The ideal number of words for 30 seconds that would be between 60 to 80 words. That’s so you don’t sound like Twista, the fastest record-holding rapper, or Sleepy, the dwarf from Snow White. So let’s work with estimating the budget for a 30 seconds ad below from services provided by a reliable production platform. One that has delivered for big conglomerates and international brands such as Logitec and Yelp.
Only Voice Talent – USD 70 & above Full Audio Ad Production (Script included) – USD 205 & above
Bear in mind that with the fees above, you will be able to choose from over 50 languages and dialects and over 28,000 voice actors. So zero qualms with localization campaigns! The audio ad can be mixed with existing audio files as well as integrated and exported into a video. Your ad will be delivered to you in your requested format, all ready for upload, plug and play!
Campaign Advertising
Let’s start with the types of YouTube ads available. Non-audible ads include bumper ads, overlay ads, display ads, and sponsored cards, which we will not be focusing 0n here. But let’s explore the types of YouTube audio ads, their pros and cons, and how much of an investment would be appropriate for attaining ROIs.
Audible YouTube Ads
1. TruView Discovery Ads
- Ad length: No limits
- Recommended video pop-up on YouTube’s page.
- Does not play automatically unless clicked on.
- Low risk, high rewards.
- People who click and watch the ad are 23 times more likely to visit or subscribe to your brand channel
- Goal: Great for reach
2. TruView Stream Ads
- Ad length: Up to 3 minutes
- Plays on YouTube or other Google affiliated display networks such as games and apps.
- Skippable after 5 seconds.
- Goal: Increase traffic as clicks go to your website.
3. Non-skippable Ads
- Video ad length: 20 seconds (reduced from the previous 30 seconds frame)
- Ads that play before a video, or mid-way through a video that is 10 minutes or longer.
- The ads play start to end and it is compulsory for the viewer to watch it.
- Having crystal clear audio and a compelling script are recommended as most would not watch the video, but will unavoidably listen to the ad.
- Goal: Brand exposure and market targeting.
How Much to Invest
If you’re new to the game, let’s assure you that YouTube is a great low-risk channel for cost-effective advertising. Picked your type of ad yet? We’ll start with the basics. On average, it costs about 10 to 30 cents per action of view which adds to about $10 in a day. Most businesses, therefore, start their budgets at $10/day for campaigns targeted locally. A couple more statistics below can help you weigh your investments, or gain some leverage when requesting for extra marketing budgets from your boss.
- YouTube ad campaigns have an average view rate of 31.9%
- The average click-through rate is approximately 0.514%
So to conclude on advertising costs, you can probably start putting aside approximately $300 bucks a month on top of your initial production costs to start with on your YouTube audio ad campaign.
In a Nutshell
A good marketer makes the company look smart, but a brilliant marketer makes the company feel smart. Audio plays as big as the role of having a solid script. We know YouTube audio ads are effective because several studies have proven audible information to provide better memory retention and brand recall. The audio component is thus as important as the visual aspect of a YouTube ad. Therefore, choosing the right voice talent for your content is important. That means taking into account his or her accent, voice profile, and language skills. We, therefore, deem YouTube ads a powerful, low risk and cost-effective marketing channel.
Wondering how to start trending on YouTube today with amazing audiovisual content? Submit a project with Bunny Studio and we’ll help you create the YouTube ad of your dreams!
