How to Create a YouTube Ads Funnel

…Have you experimented with YouTube advertising?

What success have you seen?

If you haven’t seen good results, have you given YouTube a fair shot? Have you deployed these 3 tactics for YouTube advertising?

With YouTube, we must understand that there are different reasons why users are on the platform. It could be research, entertainment, etc. That’s why we must be very strategic with the content we are serving to users on YouTube.

This post will look to help you funnelize your YouTube advertising efforts.

Phase 1: Cold Traffic: Introduce the User to the Brand

With Cold Traffic, we must build value with the user and serve and a video that grabs their attention. First we must understand a few of the most effective ways to target users on YouTube.

Cold Traffic Targeting:

• Affinity: Google categorizes people by what they’re a fan of
  • • I.E book lovers, fashionistas, beachbound travelers
    • This is similar to “interest” on Facebook/IG ads
• In-Market Audiences : Categorized by what people are most likely in the market for
  • • I.E. looking for a new car, looking to plan an event, etc.
    • This is pulled based off of users recent search history, we cannot target the queries directly but Google can understand whether someone is in the market for something based off their search intent
      

• Content Keyword: Place ads based on relevant keywords in video titles and descriptions. Utilization of Keyword Planner to make decisions backed by data
• IE: People searching “SEO strategy”, “Social Media Marketing”, “digital agency”
• Channels: Utilize YouTube’s robust database to target prospects based on their activity on YouTube such as:
  • • Competitor Channels
    • Industry Thought Leaders
• Intent of Cold YouTuber Viewers: Serve Advertisements based off their mindset. We see three different types of users on YouTube.
  • Spectator – Watches: Entertaining content IE: highlights, content
  • Info-Seeker – Watches: How-to’s, Informationals, Guides
  • The Shopper – Watches: Reviews, Comparisons, Demos, Unboxings

Based off what they are watching, you will want to serve them an asset accordingly.

For example, if someone is watching an unboxing video of your product that hasn’t been to your site, you should retarget them with a very direct response offer on YouTube.

Now let’s move onto warm traffic.

Phase 2: Warm Traffic: Get the First Purchases

Once you introduce a the user to your brand, YouTube can play the role of an incredible lead nurturer.

This is an opportunity to stay top of mind with users that have been to your website but haven’t converted just yet.

The goal here is to CONVINCE the user to convert.

…How do you we convince these users?

Well for one, retargeting off the the URL’s the user with advertising speaking to the paint points a user is looking to gain research around.

For example, if someone has hit your pricing page, it’s not a bad idea to serve an offer clarifying pricing, or if price is a concern, the opportunity for the money that could be made.

Here’s the ways we can target/message warm traffic on YouTube:

Warm Traffic Targeting:

• Website Retargeting: Retarget Website Visitors Up to 540 Days

• Video Remarketing Lists

• Viewed Any Video From Relevant Channels

• EVEN your competitors

• Viewed certain videos

• Liked any video from a channel

• Specific channel subscribers

• Content Types for Warm Traffic:

• Social Proof

• Time Bound
• Answers Specific Intent of Page Visited on Website

Just like in sales, once we get that first purchase, maximizing your lifetime value of a customer is key via hot traffic.

Phase 3: Hot Traffic: Maximize Lifetime Value

The ability to segment your past customers on YouTube depends on the size of your CRM lists.

On YouTube, the minimum cookie pool is relatively high to delivery well, so our CRM lists need to have a high enough match rate to hit that minimum number.

So, if you have thousands of users within your CRM, that means you can get way more segmented in your messaging and cross-sell/upsell services based off their current service they’re on.

If you have a smaller list, segmentation on hot traffic is very difficult and will likely be a fairly minimal spend and the message cannot be as segmented. In these cases, we suggest pushing your most common upsell/cross-sell.

Here’s the ways we can target/message hot traffic on YouTube:

Hot Traffic Targeting:

• CRM Retargeting

• Pixel Based Retargeting

• Content Types for Hot Traffic:

• Cross/Sell
• Upsell

Ad Types

One thing to understand is the different placements on YouTube. The three placements we recommend for YouTube advertising is:

• In-Stream
• TrueView Discovery
• Bumper Ads

In-Stream and TrueView Discovery have been the most effective placements we’ve seen to date but make sure always test.

Wrapping it Up

It’s been fun watching the evolution of YouTube Marketing in the digital space. The best YouTube Advertisers are the ones that think like salesmen or business consultants.

In digital, it’s very rare someone buys the first time these days, and that’s why we want to create the customer journey that will net the most return for your company.

What wins have you seen in the B2B Marketing Space?