Google Expands YouTube Ad Targeting Capabilities

Google announced new ad extensions, leveraging YouTube users’ search and viewing habits to create more targeted, actionable advertising options for businesses.

The new ad extensions for video were just announced at Advertising Week in New York, and reported by CNBC, stating, “it’s the latest effort by Google to turn the company’s massive video engine into a bigger money maker and diversity from search.” To put it simply, Google is integrating a bit more with YouTube to leverage more power as a total search, education, information and social network.

The two platforms used to be a bit more separated: Google for search and YouTube for viewing, sharing and social interaction.   But, in recent years they’ve started to integrate with one another more closely – for example, last year they started allowing advertisers to buy ads on the video site based on a user’s YouTube searches.

YouTubeYouTube’s role in the Buying Process

The video hosting platform has proven to be an integral part of users search and shopping activities. People searching for a product or service will check out unboxing videos, how-to videos, review videos, testimonial videos and more before moving on to a related site to make their purchase.

As CNBC reports, “Currently, Google search, Google Maps and other Google app data can be used to build “custom intent audiences” that can be targeted across the company’s properties, including YouTube. However, YouTube data is not used to find potential customers on other Google platforms.”  That is and will be changing.

YouTube

Details about the new extensions

Long gone are the days of videos being used for basic brand awareness or passive engagement. Google is digging in to offer advertisers better ways of targeting viewers and better ways of leveraging performance metrics to measure ad success.

To start, Google will give advertisers more ways to target users based on their search queries as well as their viewing habits on YouTube. For example, people searching for Travel destinations who choose to watch a travel-related video could see sponsored links below the video that direct them to resources for booking a trip.

YouTube

This gives advertisers the ability to reach a more targeted audience and to deliver resources in more actionable placement.

With the incredible amount of data and daily user activity Google search, apps and YouTube have to leverage, surely the options will continue to grow – offering highly measurable and effective options for businesses of all sizes to reach their target audience.

While we at Grey Sky Films already offer YouTube distribution and advertising services, we’ll continue to expand options for our clients – not only on the advertising side, but on the production side – to help maximize video engagement and actionable performance.

Related Reading:  6 Benefits of Using YouTube to Market Your Business

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