Using YouTube at Every Stage of the Consumer Journey

Over 34.6 billion people visit YouTube every month, making it the second most popular website in the world. While the streaming giant has been growing for a number of years, YouTube saw significant growth among Americans during the pandemic.  

The pivot to video continues to grow and marketers need to fully embrace its power and relevance to ensure they are reaching a wider, more engaged audience. While previously thought of as a merely top-of-funnel ad channel, YouTube can mean so much more for your brand if you don’t limit your strategy. Video ads can be utilized at every stage of the customer journey, driving consumers decisions from discovery to conversion.

Reaching Audiences

You can find YouTube videos dedicated to pretty much every subject. The same can be said for the type of viewer. No matter who you are trying to reach, you’ll be able to find your target customers on YouTube. 

When advertising on the platform, you can get granular with your targeting to uncover significant insights about your audience and their needs. This can be done by leveraging first-party data to personalize ads and target customers with content relevant to their interests and viewing habits to increase engagement rates and, ultimately, improve your chances of building trust, leading to conversion. Applying targeting options in different combinations to showcase your brand to a wide variety of consumers will help expose which of these audience segments are the biggest converters and where you will get the most return on your ad spend.

YouTube also has access to a  wealth of data Google has available on customers, audiences, and online behaviors. Through Google Search Intent, you can add keywords in AdWords that your prospects are likely to be searching. This process allows your brand to target consumers with relevant ads on YouTube based on factors such as viewing habits, interests, or online behaviors.

Measuring Success

One of the biggest questions marketers have about video is tracking campaign success. Most people don’t click on a video, so how do you know if it was effective? There are trackable metrics such as view-through rates, watch time, audience retention, re-watches, engagements, etc. If you find that everyone is skipping your ad, you’ll know it’s time to change up the creative or try some new messaging. However, these KPIs often toe the line between being valuable and vanity metrics. Measuring them can be important, but the emphasis you place on them shouldn’t trump actual success metrics. 

It’s important to consider indirect metrics and conversions as well. Google Ads now shows attribution information such as top Paths, path Metics, and assisted conversions. These details can help tell a broader story about campaign performance and audience insights. They reflect the incremental impact each ad, video included, has on conversion by comparing user paths. With more marketers relying on attribution models to evaluate performance, these metrics will show how channels complement each other and where creative types, such as video, are most impactful. As audiences continue to rely on YouTube for things such as DIY projects, cooking tips, car shopping, entertainment, etc, the data derived can be an optimization guide for other digital platforms and strategies. 

Overall, the numbers don’t lie. There are billions of eyes on YouTube right now waiting to see your brand’s ad. Don’t miss this opportunity to reach a wealth of new prospects and gain clear insights into your target audiences.