Eric Siu: In this video, we're going to show you to blueprint ... YouTube advertising. My name's Eric Siu. I am the cohost of the daily Marketing School podcast, and the host of the weekly entrepreneurial Growth Everywhere podcast. So enjoy, and I'll see you on the other side.

Andrew Bloom: Thanks, Eric. Now, hello advertisers. I know many of you are running a YouTube in stream ads campaign, and you're asking yourself, "Okay, I'm set up now, but what can I do to improve?" And here, I'm about to give you five tips for improving your YouTube ads' view rate.
First off, let's talk about what improvement really means. There's your ... And click through rate for people who click. There's your conversion rate, but the best barometer that we've ever found for just improving quality and showing that you're making the right choices in a YouTube ads account, is that view rate. It's the amount of people who choose to not only not skip, but watch your video all the way through to the end.
Now, first important assumption: You're never gonna run out of volume on YouTube. It's a big place. You're not gonna reach every eyeball, so you can assume that there's pretty much an infinite number of impressions to be had, and that's okay. So when we're talking about improvement, we're often talking about who not to show to. Who to cut out.
Now tip number one, AB test your creative. Don't just run one ad in your campaign. Cut several. Test things like length. Test things like what happens in the first five seconds of that ad, when someone wants to decide whether to watch or whether to skip. One rubric I ask myself is, "Is this ad giving, or taking?" Now, you might not think that's happening in the first five seconds, but promise you, everyone at home is deciding whether an ad is gonna give them something or take something away from them. Also, just stay away from gimmicks. You don't need to move the button. You don't need to put a Lamborghini in your background. Just focus on giving value.
Tip number two, campaign level settings. YouTube ads is just AdWords, so we have all the campaign level settings available to AdWords advertisers. That includes devices, geography, day of week, time of day, even the demographics, even audience lists of people who may have interacted with you before. See this other video where we talked very closely about one particular feature called video sequencing, which can help you out in that department. There's also YouTube partners. We might not know who they are, but you can actually syndicate your YouTube video ad to other video networks beyond YouTube. Warning: Impressions here are not reported as views, but as Google display network impressions. So remember that in your reporting.
Now these first two tips might take time. They might take resources you don't have right away. So what can you do right now to improve your view rate on YouTube ads? So tip number three, trim fat. It's the philosophy we take to every campaign, regardless of YouTube. Look at your topic targeting. Look at your affinities. Look at your display keywords, and see what's working and what's not working. Now, if you've targeted them using inner section, as we recommend, your cost per view is actually going to be elastic to your view rate. Meaning that you can trim fat here, and take cost out of these targets without experiencing much of a decline in view rate. So simply move away bids from where you're seeing weak performance and that'll have the same effect as reinvesting that money into better performing targeting.
Tip number four, we're getting a little more advanced now. Try out alpha beta custom affinity audience campaigns. That means not just one custom affinity audience, but two. Create an alpha audience, which is gonna be your most directly relevant material. It's your direct competitors, it's your direct interest, and you're letting Google build a custom audience for people that it feels matches this profile, and is gonna be a way of going and targeting this group that's going outside the box of the normal targeting options that are available to you. Especially if you have an unusual product or you're a new innovator, or you're disrupting your scene. This is gonna give you the flexibility.
But beyond that, also make a beta. Make a second custom affinity audience group which is attribute marketing. Maybe not something that's directly speaking to your target users, but something else they'd be interested in. Okay? It's easier to sell a Rolex to someone who drives a Mercedes than it is to a Dodge Neon. So if you're selling a Rolex, what else is the Mercedes out there that you can target?
And lastly, tip number five, ninja placements. "Managed" placements. We call them ninja placements because you're using your ninja sword to chop through all the noise out there. It's the ultimate goal of algorithmic targeting anyway. Sure, there's so much volume out there on YouTube that you have to use targeting algorithms to see where you land, but don't you just want to eventually pick and choose the right channels and videos that are performing for you? And that's what ninja placements are. You're gonna review your managed placements, you're gonna look and see which of your channels have been giving you better than average view rates over time, and you're gonna take notes of them. And as long as they're being consistent, you can create an entire new campaign and target them specifically, because they are driving your best performance. And that's the true meaning of data driven marketing. You're learning from the data, and you're taking direct action. It's a little bit more tedious and time intensive, but only the best marketers do it. And we recommend you take the time.
So this has been five tips for improving your YouTube ads' view rate. Back to you, Eric.

Eric Siu: All right. So hope you enjoyed that. Leave, in the comments below, the actions you're gonna take to level up your business, and don't forget to hit subscribe. And we'll see you tomorrow.