YouTube ads are a mystery to many of us, even if you've been running ads
on other platforms for years. Let's talk about how to create YouTube pre-roll ads.
One of the best ways to get started with YouTube ads is by creating pre-roll ads and what exactly
is that again? Don't worry, we'll cover all the requirements of a YouTube pre-roll ad in today's
video and above all the other tips you can find online, there's 1 key that can make or break a
pre-roll ad so stay tuned, I'll tell you all about that and if you want tips to entice your viewer in
less time, I'll give you 3 of them to keep in mind for not only any pre-roll ad but any video
you create. So, what is a YouTube pre-roll ad? It's an ad that appears right before the video that
you want to watch. It can be up to 2 minutes long but the sweet spot for advertisers is between 15
to 25 seconds. Maybe you even saw one right before you watched this video. Pre-roll ads don't have a
defined call to action so you'll mostly be charged on a cost-per-view basis. Pre-roll ads are great
because you can be specific about where you want to place them based on the viewer's interest so
if I know that I want my videos to be on channels that are about marketing, I can be specific to say
I want to put these in front of videos that I know my audience is looking at about marketing.
I've even seen some pre-roll ads from a competitor right before the video and they were really funny
and saying hey, don't watch this video, click this instead, that competitor doesn't know what they're
talking about. Come to our stuff instead. So, not that I'm telling you to be a little competitive
like that, but it really captured my attention to see that. Now, before we get into the key to a
successful pre-roll ad, have you subscribed to this channel yet? Hit that red button below to get brand
new content marketing strategies and business acceleration tips straight to your YouTube feed
5 days a week. Are you ready for this? This is the most important key to a successful pre-roll ad
and think about your behavior when you're watching a video, you've clicked on that video, you just want
to watch it and sometimes the ad can be annoying, it's a distraction that you have to sit through
you know it usually says like this video will play in 6 seconds before you can skip through.
So, in that time, you want to hook your audience in, you need to hook your audience in
in that first 5 seconds or else they're going to click through and completely forget about you.
So, you can accomplish this by knowing your audience. What are the things that are going
to keep them on the edge or give them that cliffhanger that they think well, now I need
to keep watching this. If you know your audience well, you can speak to them better. So, where do they
live? What language do they speak? What keywords do they search? What topics are they watching
and what interests do they have? If you know that about them, you can capture them with some sort
of attention-grabbing hook and that hook can be something like an engaging question that really
tugs at their heartstrings or nails their pain point that makes them go oh my gosh, yes that is me,
it's like they're in my head or you can have an ad that captures their attention with a shock factor
or something that's humorous that makes them want to keep watching. I'd love to hear from you because
we have all had to sit through some ads and we've also been distracted by some really good ones. What
are some ads that have captured your attention and maybe even led you to becoming a paying customer?
One of my favorite places to get ideas for ads is by just looking at other people's ads or
looking at the commercials that we see on TV. Now, I know with Netflix and so many other platforms, we
don't always have to sit through commercials but look what happens around super bowl time, people
love watching the commercials because we know the quality of them are going to be excellent.
So, watch those great quality commercials and ask yourself what is it about them that caught your
attention and when you know that, that can give you some inspiration for what to put in yours. So, now
I'm going to share with you some of my tips for pre-roll ads based on some of the things that I've
observed in my own behavior from the ads that I've enjoyed watching. My first tip is to try to make
your ad more compelling than the video itself so that people are prompted to click on your call to
action. If you think of the Old Spice commercials, that's one that comes to mind when I think of
compelling ads. You know the guy in the Old Spice commercial and he's like sitting on a horse or
he's on a boat and he's doing something crazy and fast-paced and ridiculous, sure, if it was just a
guy holding up a bar of soap or a bottle of body wash and just saying hey, this stuff is good, it
was what was on screen and how fast-paced it was and how humorous it was. So, what can you do that's
going to align with the messaging that gives them that visual and also an emotional reaction to
what you're sharing? My 2nd tip is to target your audience as much as possible especially
using YouTube's targeting options, you have a ton of possibilities here. Remember, I told you
the story of how I saw an ad where I was going to be looking at a specific software's YouTube video
and before that, their competitor came on screen saying hey, you don't want to watch this video,
what they do doesn't work but this is so much better. So, that was very specific targeting, they
knew what they were doing and knew that the person watching that video would be their exact customer
demographic because it was their competitor. Now, I'm not saying you have to do that by specifically
targeting your competitors videos, but if you know that you're within a certain niche or that your
customers have specific interests, you can be specific in targeting that you put your
pre-roll videos before videos that are aligned with that topic or industry or interest. This
is why it's so important to do customer avatar exercises. Now, I would have been the first person
to roll my eyes at that. I used to hate customer avatar exercises like answering the questions of
what kind of neighborhood do they live in and what keeps them up at night, what magazines do they read.
I hated answering those, I thought it was a waste of time but when I finally did sit down and do
that exercise, it changed everything in my business because when I can understand my audience better
than my competitor, I'm going to be able to speak to them in a way that they relate to more than
anyone else. Have you ever seen an ad or looked at a social media post that you felt like the person
just knew you? They were speaking your language, they understood your pain points or they gone on
an emotional journey that you could relate to and thought this person is just like me and it creates
that know, like, trust factor where if you feel like they understand even if you haven't met them,
you feel like you can follow their journey and they probably have solutions to problems that
you've been experiencing. One way you can consider looking at your audience is as if they were a
version of you like 3 years ago . Your before picture is likely their current reality so think
about that when you're creating your ads, what would a previous version of you be captivated by?
Speaking of captivating, that leads me to my 3rd tip which is to have a story within that 15 to 25
second period. Now, I'm not saying open a book once upon a time, happily ever after kind of story but
ideally you're bringing people along an emotional journey, you're painting a picture for them
of what life could look like with your solution or you're tugging at their heartstrings or you're
nailing the pain point that they're experiencing and so that they can watch it and be captivated
by that. Think about any movie that you've watched, why are you so on the edge of your seat throughout
the whole entire journey? Why do you cheer loud when the hero wins at the end of the movie? Well,
it's because you saw what they've gone through, you saw them hit rock bottom, you saw them work
their way up and fight the villain and land the dream job and get the girl and whatever the big
epiphany is at the end of the movie. You went along the journey with them. So, when you're creating an
ad, think about the emotions you want to entice your audience to feel. Memories are created when
there's an emotion attached to the message, so if you can be memorable in your ad, that's what's
going to get your audience to want to follow through and take action on your call to action.
Running pre-roll ads is just one of the ways that you can be generating leads and turning them into
high-ticket clients, which is my favorite thing to help my clients with. If you're
ready to take your marketing to the next level and build an evergreen lead generation machine,
click the link below, reserve your spot in my next free training. This is a free training called Hello
to High Ticket where I'm going to help you get more high ticket clients in your business.