Why We’re Betting on Youtube

Have you seen “Charlie bit my finger”, watched Lady Gaga’s latest music video, taken a guitar lesson, or looked up a how-to for your latest home project – online? I’m betting you’ve hit up Youtube for at least one of these in the past week. Youtube is currently the second largest search engine behind Google, reaching over 171 Million users (81.9% of the U.S. population) in April 2011 alone.

What Youtube Offers SMB’s in Baltimore

Over the last year, we’ve been launching geo-targeted online video ad campaigns for small businesses in Baltimore on places including Youtube. If Baltimore businesses are using online video to attract new customers, it’s usually a company overview embedded on their home page, or maybe even a series of videos on their own Youtube Channel. These are both great strategies, and things small businesses should be doing. But – they should also be looking into the advertising opportunities that Youtube offers – such as Featured Videos, and in-stream advertising.

15-second Pre-Roll Ads

We’re using Youtube to help our small businesses with limited budgets. For one client, we’re targeting viewers that are located 3 miles surrounding their locations in Pikesville and Perry Hall. For another client, we’re targeting several key zip codes in Towson where they have a competitor coming into the market in the next 6 months, in combination with a direct mail campaign. And for another, we’re targeting an audience within a 30-mile radius of their medical practice.

What Youtube Offers Small Businesses in Baltimore:

  1. Attractive Cost-Per-Thousand (CPM) and Cost-Per-Click (CPC) compared to other internet marketing outlets
  2. Allows geo-targeting–specific zip codes, cities, states, or within 5 miles of your location
  3. Provides direct link from ad to website
  4. Actually make an “Impression” – people that have to sit through a :15 ad actually see the content, as opposed to an “Impression” measured from a Search Engine Results Page
  5. Follow the big boys: 94 of Ad Age’s 100 top advertisers have run Youtube campaigns this year
  6. Nearly 2 billion Youtube views a day: more than double the prime-time audience of the 3 major U.S. broadcast networks combined
  7. U.S. online video ad spending is expected to grow from 13.4% t0 35.9% by 2014
  8. Internet users spent an average of 14.9 hours watching online video in April 2011

A Snapshot: The Stats

One of our clients is a small business in Baltimore that is in a highly competitive industry. They don’t have a huge budget, but they want to grow their business.  They started by launching a Google Adwords Search Engine Marketing Campaign, targeting key zip codes in Baltimore. They have a lot of competitors both locally and nationally bidding on the top keywords in this area, which is driving up the average Cost-Per-Click to close to $20 – not cheap. We ran a small A/B test looking at the results between Search and Youtube. While Search Engine Marketing offers local advertisers a direct link to people interested in their products and services in real time, we think Search and Youtube working together provide an awesome combination of branding, impressions, lead generation, and an increase in web traffic that will ultimately get local businesses the best bang for their buck. Here’s the stats:

May 1- May 31 2011

We think the numbers that Youtube drove (and the actual leads) make a lot of sense, and we would also make the argument that an impression from a video is worth far more than an “impression” from a text ad on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) that you may or may not actually see.

The internet marketing landscape is always changing, and our job is to evaluate new opportunities to get the best results for our clients. For many of of B2C, we think Youtube is cost effective, engaging and innovative, pushing it up there on our current favorites list. But remember – even the perfect ad outlet can fall flat if you don’t have the right messaging. Make sure that your video ads are engaging, informative, and leave the viewer wanting more.

So don’t be surprised the next time you’re looking for an educational, funny, or entertaining clip on Youtube and you see an ad for one of our clients! Be sure to check them out too – we work with some really awesome local businesses here in Baltimore.