Reach More Customers with Audio Ads on YouTube
by Chun Lee in Marketing Strategies
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Audio advertising is rising as the advertising industry strains under strong economic headwinds. Digital audio ad sales soared by 20.9% amassing $5.9 billion in ad revenue. In contrast, digital video ad revenues grew by 19.3%. Search and display ads revenues had a 7.8% and 12% growth rate.
What is Audio Advertising?
Audible ads on YouTube target users who stream podcasts, YouTube Music, and specific Google Nest speaker content. These ads appear on YouTube as audio files with a static or animated on-screen graphic.
At launch in 2020, an audio ad could run for up to 15 seconds. However, following YouTube’s 2022 audio ad updates, you can now have a 30-second-long audio ad. Additionally, US-based advertisers can confine their ad campaign placements to their preferred podcast genres.
The benefits of audio advertising
- It offers access to an untapped new audience, its current spend representing a paltry 2.8% of the industry’s total share.
- A growing user base since, as per the AIB, podcasting revenues are growing 2X faster than the entire digital advertising average.
- Audio ads reach people who listen to YouTube while out and about their daily activities lowering skip rates. Conversely, 65% of YouTube video viewers skip ads the first chance they get.
- Audio ad’s average production costs range from $650 for a 30-sec audio ad. In contrast, a video ad of comparable length could cost upwards of $2000
- They offer a lower CPM (cost per thousand) than video ads
- They have precise targeting features
- They have a familiar ad buying and campaign setup on Google ads
- They have high ad recall and emotional connection rates
How a business can implement Audio Ads on YouTube
- First, create your ad and make your message evocative, specific, friendly, and concise. Then, give it a call to action that directs listeners to offers or landing pages. Test and iterate your audio ads on your target audience through A/B testing.
- Upload your audio ads to YouTube. Your audio ad should have a static or animated image that will display on the screen.
- With your YouTube account’s audio ad URL, sign in to your Google ads account to create your audio ad campaign.
- Go to your campaigns page and click the blue + button to set up a new campaign.
- Next, choose your campaign objective. The best objective for an audio ad is brand awareness and reach.
- Next, choose video under the ‘Select a campaign type’ tab, then select ‘Audio’ under the ‘Select a campaign subtype’ tab.
- Click ‘Continue,’ then name your campaign.
- The ‘Bid strategy’ tab will have ‘Target CPM’ (per 1000 impressions) as your goal since your brand objective is brand awareness.
- Navigate to the ‘Budget and dates’ tab, input your budget amount, and type. Choose between a campaign total or a daily budget per your campaign goals. A daily budget is an excellent choice for advertisers that want to perform actions like frequency capping or exclude some audiences in evergreen campaigns.
- Choose your network, location, and language, and set content exclusions or suitability. Alternatively, set your content suitability via the Tools and Settings tab under the Setup tab for account-level management options.
- Create an ad group and use the targeting options to narrow your audience.
- Then, place your URL link on the ‘Create your video ads’ slot and input your final and display URL. The best practice is to have various audio clip options to test your ad performance on the Ad Creation tab.
- Set your YouTube audio ads CPM target bid cost for every 1000 times that listeners listen to your ad. Click apply, and Google will display your campaign’s estimate. Adjust that amount up or down as per your budget and goals.
- Click create campaign, review, and modify on the Ad Groups tab where necessary.
The final word
Audio ads use is rising as brands embrace podcast and music streaming ads due to shrinking marketing budgets. In addition to that, audio content is also ascending the popular digital entertainment ladder on YouTube. The video content king has now upended Spotify’s top post as the most popular podcast streaming platform in the US, making this the perfect time to kick off your audio ads on YouTube strategy.
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✓ Streamline communication
✓ Allow for more adequate comparisons
✓ Deep data analysis to adjust and readjust strategies for success
