YouTube advertising has revolutionized the advertising and marketing space, and brands all over the globe are leveraging the attention to convert it into sales/leads. Amidst all this, most of us wonder that advertising is not new and has been a crucial part of humanity since time immemorial!
Does that mean there was a marketing technique that was better than YouTube in the past? Does that also mean that it could still be relevant and maybe even better than YouTube?
This also leads us to the question: What traditional marketing technique is YouTube closest to?
In this blog, I am going to do an extensive comparison of YouTube with Television Ads, the closest traditional marketing technique that shares almost every marketing factor with YouTube.
From the delivery to concept, YouTube Ads have a similarity with TV Ads, let’s talk about the basic similarities:
Despite these similarities, there are humongous differences between the two, which makes one of the two more relevant in 2022 and beyond.
Let’s compare some key advertising factors for both of these Ad formats.
TV has ruled the advertising world for decades and numerous brands have built “cults” thanks to famous advertising campaigns. Every nation on earth would have some or the other story linked to TV Ads.
When TV became mainstream to recent times, Ads have worked great for companies and even continue to do so for specific sections of audiences. However, with the introduction of the smartphone and especially the internet (I cannot afford to miss talking about social media), the attention of users has shifted.
Even during TV Ads, it's common for people to mute their TV and scroll their phone till the time they get to enjoy their favorite program again.
This gives us an idea of user attention, which is relatively large on smartphones.
Along with interest, we also need to understand user intent and Ad delivery linked to it. In TV Ads, the most you can choose is the program, channel and the delivery time of the Ad. This means your Ad will be shown to everyone watching TV at that time.
You pay for all the impressions you get at that time. However, YouTube gives you countless targeting options for your Ads. You can choose:
This means you get to advertise to a micro niche and just the audience which is most likely to purchase your products or services.
When you compare the targeting options you get, the cost of running YouTube Ads is way lower than TV Ads. Also, small businesses cannot think about running TV Ads because of the expenses and they often go into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Another crucial factor for your Ads is your control over delivery. Like I just mentioned, thinking of TV Ads for small businesses is almost impossible but the same is not true for YouTube Ads.
In YouTube, you can start small and eventually grow your spend based on the results you get. You also get to control almost everything about delivery, the time, placement, channels, keywords and hundreds of other options.
You can also continuously tweak these settings as per the results you get.
The reach and impressions on TV used to be huge, and TV was also the only video advertising platform that you could think of.
Things have changed now and YouTube’s reach cannot be compared with any TV channels.
One of the most important things while advertising is metrics that basically give you an idea of Ad performance.
YouTube offers a crazy metrics dashboard where you can access details about everything about your campaigns. You can know:
You also get to test different Ads, copies, audiences, and hundreds of other things to continuously improve your conversion rates.
All the points above might make you think that YouTube Ads are the ultimate winner in video Ads. That is actually true for most scenarios except a few industries, products, and services that target specific age groups.
Older audiences for example are more receptive to TV Ads and more likely to convert using traditional marketing techniques because they have been doing so all their life. Some TV programs are also very engaging and target only a small niche audience which makes them perfect advertising spots for certain products and services.
I hope this gives you clarity on how and where YouTube Ads are better for brands than TV Ads.
But before you jump into conclusions, it is important to understand that advertising results are based on hundreds of factors and you must know them to successfully execute campaigns.
Also, YouTube might or might not be the best advertising platform for your brand. If you have experience with advertising or are pretty confident about the marketing campaign you are planning, go forward and do it!
If you are not sure and are looking for expert help in planning your advertising campaigns, contact us using the information on our website to know how we can help your brand grow profitably.
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