How to attract new customers using the full YouTube funnel?

The webinar “YouTube Full Funnel: How to attract new customers and create demand” by Google was designed to reveal the essence of the full YouTube funnel strategy, and in particular, how to use YouTube as effectively as possible for all marketing purposes. In this article, you will find a concise but fairly comprehensive overview of this webinar.

Why advertise on YouTube using different marketing objectives?

Let’s start with why to use YouTube? — Firstly, this is the hugest video hub on the Internet, which is used by an enormous number of people (23.4 million users in Ukraine as of July 2023).

When using YouTube, marketers typically aim at attracting new customers who are in one of these stages of the sales funnel:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Action (decision)

By leveraging YouTube at all stages of the aforementioned funnel at once, it is possible to meet customers’ needs at all stages of their journey to purchase. There are potential customers at each of these stages, and if you focus on just one of them, you will miss the opportunity to create new or convert existing demand.

Speaking about the advantages of this approach, the following indicators speak for themselves:

• Increased reach and an average of 28% additional conversions through branded videos.
• YouTube Action advertisers who use more than two CPM brand ad formats at the same time increase conversions by 9% on average.

How to start an effective YouTube campaign for different types of advertisers:

Video trends

To achieve the best results on YouTube, it is necessary to make trending videos. There are a few main YouTube trends or characteristics that make videos worth watching:

Trend #1 – Streaming. More and more people are watching videos on TV, and the rate of such YouTube users within Ukraine has reached 25%. Extensions for CTV facilitate better brand engagement on mobile and CTV screens.

You should also pay attention to the audience of Light TV Viewers (mostly people 20-40 years old) – that is, those who watch TV no more than 1 hour a day and view YouTube content from their large screens

Trend #2 – Short video format. The so-called YouTube Shorts are gaining more and more popularity. For an advertising campaign, simply recording videos in a vertical format is sufficient, and it is important to record short videos that link to regular long advertising videos

Trend #3 – Shopping everywhere. This is an extremely popular trend since YouTube is constantly replenished with video presentations of products, video unpacking of products, video lessons, and product reviews. 70% of YouTube viewers admit to having purchased a brand’s product after seeing it on YouTube at least once. Thus, YouTube not only helps to increase brand awareness but also contributes significantly to the growth of conversions.

On YouTube, in particular, you can successfully make sales using the following formats:

• Maximum efficiency
• Product feeds in Discovery ads (beta)
• Product feeds in video campaigns (Video Action)
• Experimental extension with AR for video action (beta)

Recommendations for video ads

Whether it’s building brand awareness or an emotional attachment to a product, or making a purchase, according to the YouTube’s Full Funnel strategy it’s best to combine different types of video campaigns to achieve various advertising goals. To create and effectively conduct video campaigns, it is advisable to use the Coverage Planner (which allows you to create an effective media plan and evaluate coverage) and the Efficiency Planner.

The use of advertising in different formats leads to greater effectiveness of campaigns. For example, speaking of CPM, you can run a 6-second bumper that can quickly generate interest and people will move on to longer videos about your brand.

Recommendations for video campaigns

General recommendations for conducting effective video campaigns are summarized as follows:

• Use a combination of CPM and CPA formats
• Use these additions: call to action, related videos, product feeds
• Reach more potential customers interested in your business (using Optimized Targeting, which uses Google’s AI to go beyond manually selected CAs)
• Optimize bidding to increase relevance and improve results
• Complement the Video Action campaign with the Discovery format, which significantly increases the likelihood of conversion. The Discovery format is particularly effective within Ukraine, as 80% of Ukrainian YouTube users have Android devices
• Use the best properties and feeds to encourage customers to take action and increase efficiency
• Use data-driven attribution and Unique Reach reporting

Recommendations for creatives

Also, obtaining remarkable results in YouTube campaigns is not possible without good creatives. It is advisable to use the following recommendations for building creatives:

1. Interest. Show the product close-up
2. Brand. Mention the brand at the beginning of the video to immediately grab attention
3. Communication. Use fast pacing and attention-grabbing techniques in your story to keep your audience engaged. You should also include people in your videos and maintain diversity
4. Action. Prompt the user to take action

Adherence to these recommendations leads to a 30% increase in the probability of sales in the short term perspective, and a 17% increase in willingness to support the brand in the long run.

Recommendations for measurement

To effectively calculate your YouTube campaign budget, and most importantly, to see the results of your campaigns, it’s important to follow these guidelines:

• Track Google Ads web conversions to measure CTC, EVC, VTC
• Add links to content for advertisers with in-app conversions
• Optimize your account structure for cross-network measurement
• Do data-driven attribution or non-last-click attribution ( an inter-networked one)

Optimization of creatives

Use the following tips to optimize your creatives:

• Use the previously mentioned ABCD principles for designing creatives
• Use objects that work with different inventory
• In the absence of your own video, use tools and services that automatically create videos

To optimize your creatives for the short format, follow these principles:

• Short videos should be vertical. Use vertical or square objects in the video, with the option of adding multiple objects
• Emotional component. Start selling emotionally, offer emotions
• A short video does not need a scene. Get to the details immediately, and create the right feeling at the right moment of the story

Audio advertising

Audio advertising is primarily aimed at increasing product and brand awareness. Thus, according to researches, 87% of measured audio campaigns contributed to an increase in the level of ad recall, and 81% of them led to an increase in the level of brand awareness. Anyway, not everyone loves watching ad videos, many people prefer merely listening to the commercials instead.

Conclusion

YouTube’s full-funnel strategy really makes sense for many reasons, the first of which is the ability to reach customers at all stages of the sales funnel: awareness, consideration, and action. To use this strategy effectively and achieve great results, you need to launch numerous ads of different ad formats at the same time. You also need to pay special attention to creatives and follow the latest YouTube advertising trends listed in this article.