Online Advertising
Moving image is expensive to produce and cheap to deliver. That inversion of the usual cost structure is what makes the channel interesting for mid-sized firms.
YouTube is the second-largest search engine after search itself and simultaneously the cheapest moving-image surface on the market. Together that makes a channel suited to two very different jobs: building reach and harvesting concrete demand.
| Format | Length | Charged | Cost per contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skippable in-stream | from 12 sec | after 30 sec view or click | £0.02 to £0.08 |
| Non-skippable | 15 to 20 sec | per thousand impressions | £8 to £25 CPM |
| Bumper | 6 sec | per thousand impressions | £5 to £15 CPM |
| In-feed | free | per click | £0.08 to £0.40 |
| Shorts | up to 60 sec | per thousand impressions | £3 to £10 CPM |
The first line is the commercially interesting one. With skippable ads you pay nothing when someone clicks away after five seconds. That means the first five seconds are free reach, and you pay only for people who actually listened.
Build the spot so the core message stands complete within the first five seconds. Everything after that deepens it but replaces nothing.
A working structure for a 30-second film: seconds 0 to 5 name the problem and show the brand, in picture rather than in voice; 5 to 15 show the solution, concretely and visibly; 15 to 25 give proof, a number, a reference or a demonstration; 25 to 30 give a single next step.
The audience options differ sharply in effect. Intent audiences built from search terms, people who searched recently, are the strongest option for direct response. Placements on named channels, where you choose the channels your ad runs on, work excellently for niches in B2B. Topics and content types are coarse but cheap and usable for reach. Your own data and remarketing give the best cost per conversion within a limited pool. Demographics alone make sense only for very broad consumer offers.
A usable spot needs three things that cost money and one that costs nothing. Costing money: good sound, sufficient light, an edit with pace. Costing nothing: a statement that is true and that nobody else can make in the same way.
Firms consistently underestimate sound. A phone image with a good lavalier microphone reads as more professional than a camera image with the built-in mic. A usable lavalier costs under £100.
Views are the channel's least useful metric. What matters: view rate, the share who stay 30 seconds, where above 25 per cent is good; cost per view compared between creatives; brand searches in the days after launch, which is the best evidence of effect; and assisted conversions, because this channel is rarely the last contact before purchase.
That third point gets forgotten. If searches for your company name rise 30 per cent after a video campaign starts, the campaign is working, even if the ad account shows few direct conversions.
Between £800 for a solid in-house production with good sound and £15,000 for an agency production. The jump in effect is far smaller than the jump in price.
No. The first five seconds are the only ones guaranteed to be seen. Do not waste them on a logo.
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