3 advantages of political advertising on YouTube
YouTube advertising is an amazing compliment to any campaign strategy. Not only can you reach key voters on their mobile and desktop devices, but you can connect with audiences at home via smart TV.
Last year, aware of the massive rise in popularity of internet connected television, Google introduced TV screens as a device type option. This allows campaigns to reach crucial audiences who watch YouTube through devices capable of streaming online TV content, like smart TVs and gaming consoles.
By serving YouTube ads directly onto users’ smart TVs at home, you’re able to reach a huge group of voters with precise and meaningful targeting who have cut the cord on traditional television.
If you have yet to integrate internet connected television into your campaign strategy, YouTube ads are a great next step.
Here are three main reasons as to why YouTube ads are so incredibly effective:
1) Audience size
To put it simply, there are a ton of people watching YouTube content, every day, every hour, every minute. And it’s all video content, so you know audiences are engaged the entire time. On TV screens alone, users watch over 180 million hours of YouTube every day.
Not only is YouTube a place for entertainment, but users also turn to the site for information. In fact, YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google. An analysis by the Pew Research Center found that of every English-language video uploaded by “high-subscriber channels in the first week of 2019” 16% were related to current events or politics.
2) Targeting
If you are familiar with running search campaigns through Google, YouTube can be thought of as an extension of Google Ads. You get the same options for reaching your intended audiences. This includes targeting by demographic groups (age, income, gender, etc), geo-location (specific regions, cities, zip codes, congressional districts), topic, custom keywords, interests, operating system, device models, language… and the list goes on.
Most importantly, with YouTube ads, you can place your ad in front of specific content types. For example, if a user is watching a video about 2020 Democratic candidates or trying to find out more information about an initiative proposed in their state, Youtube can serve them an appropriate political advertisement before, during, or after the video. In turn, audiences will find these ads to be both relevant and important.
This helps create an environment that feels 1-to-1 between you and your audience. Users are served appropriate ads based on the topics and keywords they are searching for and you can be sure their ads are matched to content that’s relevant.
3) Measurable
YouTube’s sophisticated metrics take away a lot of the guesswork associated with some forms of video advertising. Questions like, Are people actually paying attention? Are they engaged? Did they watch the full ad? Am I spending my budget effectively? YouTube’s advance analytics helps you to optimize your campaign and evaluate the effectiveness of your video ads.
To find out more about YouTube or to get started on building a digital advertising plan, talk to our team today.