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Youtube Ads are NOT just for “Awareness” they absolutely can drive CONVERSIONS!
Over the last year or so, I've seen MANY ad consultants and agencies say either, "Youtube ads aren't meant for driving conversions" or, YT is plainly, "not good at driving conversions," and it's more for generating "awareness" in the customer.
Well, I've been tinkering with the platform for the last 15 months, and have found that to be NOT true at all.
I'm selling a $27 course in a hobby niche, and sure, it was a rocky start, but over time, I've managed to find what works and what doesn't work.
So, considering how great the r/ppc community is, I thought I'd do a little "giving back" and pass on my knowledge of what works.
Rule #1: Get your targeting right
For a new account, I've found custom intent audiences to be the best at getting conversion data flowing. The best audience to go for? The domain names of your closest competitors. Try both people who BROWSED those domains, and people who SEARCHED for them. In my experience both work, with SEARCHED working the best (lower CAC).
With that said, I've not found these audiences to be the best for scaling. Once you have your first 100 sales or so, it's then time to graduate from the kiddy pool, into the grown up pool, and that's where InMarket and Affinity audiences come into play. And they don't need to be that specific either.
For example, if you were selling a course about gardening, you could choose audiences like…
InMarket: Other – Garden Plants
InMarket: Other – Potted Plants and Container Gardening
InMarket: Other – Garden Supplies
InMarket: Other – Garden SoilAffinity: Other – Organic Gardening
Affinity: Other – Garden Tools
Affinity: Other – Lawn and Garden Equipment and Services
Affinity: Other – Garden Watering SystemsYou'll want to test each one individually inside it's own campaign.
In my experience you'll find a lot of these perform "okay," but you'll find 1-3 that REALLY perform well, where you'll get your lowest CAC.
Set your budget on each campaign to $50-$100 per day, and let it run for 5-7 days, and see what happens.
Rule #2: Get your creative right
Creative is EVERYTHING. If your ad sucks or is just 'okay,' then you'll be struggling trying to steer a sinking ship. Look at your closest competitors, see what they're doing in their ads, and come up with something better.
For me, showing a VISUAL representation of the main benefit, while also working hard to create a truly stand out UNIQUE MECHANISM made the biggest difference. It was truly night and day once I put those things in place.
Rule #3: Test your landing page/sales letter/VSL like crazy
Once you hit upon an ad that does particularly well, then make sure you mention (and expand on) the things mentioned in the ad in your sales letter. For me, having a simple lander with a VSL, and a delayed buy button that appears when the price is revealed works best.
Things like testing when you reveal the price (and therefore when the button is revealed) can make a HUGE difference to your conversion rate.
The name of the game is to TEST, TEST, TEST!
I started to really get some traction on my 9th version of the VSL. Never stop testing. I'm currently on version 13, with outlines for future tests saved in a spreadsheet.
So, long story short, you absolutely CAN use Youtube ads for conversions. Just be RELENTLESS in your testing and DO NOT give up.
If you have any questions, ask away (though I'll be keeping my niche a secret for obvious reasons).
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1 Reply
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Audible AU ran YouTube for action ads years back. Google rep tried so hard to sell in a small $50k test over a month (which is legit tiny expenditure, less than a day of normal Google ads). Sure. Set it up. Agency ran it. Google’s YouTube nerds checked in once every so often. Got something like a dozen free trials off that for post- lick conversion – crazy inefficient CPA and negative return on lifetime value. We asked for a new Google rep and got one, who never mentioned YT in the same sentence as Acquisition.
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Great study! What would you suggest in terms of bidding strategy for the Youtube campaigs?
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Really interesting – thanks for sharing! We’ve seen some success with lead gen campaigns in YouTube in the real estate space, but the CAC was always better for similar campaigns in Meta – so we ended up moving budget there.
Could you please give us some more context around what creative you found works? Live action / animated text / talking heads etc? I would assume the same scripting frameworks that work in Meta work here too (hook-> problem-> agitate-> solution (benefit)-> social proof-> CTA)?
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YouTube can work very well, but it’s clearly the most challenging of all Google Ads campaign types.
We work with eCom brands exclusively and manage around $1 million in monthly Google Ads spend for them.
In almost all of the more established brand accounts we use YouTube at least for retargeting or to fuel our top of funnel a little bit. The cases where YouTube **really** drives cold traffic revenue profitably in and of itself are pretty rare, but they do exist.
From my experience it comes down to three things:
1. A “YouTube-ready” product that is exciting or very demonstratable or super visual.
2. Great Assets (= videos)
3. Ideally some sort of bundle deal or special landing page to focus and capture YouTube sales with
One of our clients has a 12 million views YouTube ad that drove insane value over time (and it’s still live), but we have also stopped many tests after $1k or $3k in ad spend.
The channel is getting more important though for sure.
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Creative used to a major challenge, now with the advent of AI tools, that shouldn’t be an issue now.
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Seems like the services/products that do well organically (or paid) on YT directly are: fitness, yoga, self-help, learn art, learn hobbies, etc. & scams (get rich w/ real estate, crypto, etc). Low cost low risk. AOV normally is about $130 on paid, YT is probably AOV $25-30 guessing
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Sounds like it would be crazy expensive and time-consuming for very little return.
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Possibly for demand gen—-not video action ads. Do you understand the difference?
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Our company is on the FT1000 list two years in a row, and we have built it all on Youtube.
It is THE best channel in the digital realm.
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Like others have said, I can see YT working for specific products. Of course, you do need a really compelling ad, too. But I think for most small local service businesses (my bread and butter), it’s a money pit.
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