YouTube video advertising—outside YouTube—is now available.
In case you missed it, Google recently announced Google Outstream ads for YouTube videos.
This isn't groundbreaking news. Native videos have existed in different forms through Facebook, Virool, and even Google's own Google Display Network (on top of Google-owned AdMob), offering "native" video advertising options for years.
Yet there are certain perks to this YouTube ad-extension that can be useful to marketers.
Before we go further, a little primer: There are still some points of contention with what exactly counts as a "Native Video" ad (people can't seem to agree on one definition). We at Construct Digital believe that "native" ads are anything that is integrated or appears in-line within a user's content-consumption, and doesn't disrupt that said consumption process.
In other words, not a pop-up, full screen video, or any other form of "disruptive" video ad content.
So, what's the big deal about native ads, anyway?
The largest draw for native formats is that they seem to drive better results.
According to Instapage, by a few percentage points more than instream formats!
Additionally, outstream ads currently cost 10-25% cheaper than their pre-roll counterparts—which translates to savings for your marketing budget.
Better results at a lower price? I guess we've found another way to stretch ad spending!
What else does it mean and why does it matter to me?
1. A mobile-first approach
The numbers don't lie: While we talked about mobile failing to "kill" desktop traffic as predicted, mobile still accounts for a larger pie of web traffic. Outstream ads capitalise on that now because ads now appear in-line with content, and is designed with mobile in mind.
2. It's native.
Native ads have been talked about to death. But as a summary, the benefits native ads bring are that the ads live within the user experience stream, not on sidebars or header and footer banners, and serve primarily as a brand advertising format.
3. Extended inventory options
The most important part to us is this: more options to purchase inventory to push content to audiences. Brands are spoilt for choice as is, but more options to deliver and amplify content or campaigns are bad—said no marketer ever.
4. Ability to drive and generate more non-organic YouTube traffic with externally targetted ads
YouTube advertising was previously limited to pre-roll ads or ads within other videos, within embedded YouTube videos or on YouTube itself. The prevalent user sentiment is that these ads are terrible for user experience (albeit accepted as the price we pay for technically "free" video consumption). While the ad view is integrated into your viewing flow, it is still disruptive to users getting to the actual content they want.
With Outstream ads, which start muted as you scroll through content, you can choose to watch ads that seem relevant, allowing for better user experience.
5. Running collation of video views, likes, dislikes—and spark potential conversations around them
Now, we're not saying these matter. Besides, these metrics don't mean anything to most marketers, since views (much like likes) present arbitrary numbers. But it sure would be more impressive to users who land on your video on YouTube to see the video count to be much higher than just "1". It only means other people have been viewing your video as well—making it more believable.
Users are also able to provide feedback on video ads with YouTube's like/dislike meter, allowing marketers an opportunity to gauge the efficacy of their video messaging and reception from target audiences. This also means potential to spark conversations on the YouTube video page itself, taking advantage of functions built-in to YouTube since its inception.
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There you have it: your recap on YouTube's new Outstream Video ads. For more information, head on over to Google to find out more and try it out yourself.
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