Do YouTube Ads Actually Work? (Archive, 2021)

Recorded in May 2021 during Simon's s.media agency era — a team compilation. Published as part of a dated historical record.

How does YouTube generate leads?

The question that comes up most. YouTube is a great platform for curating and warming leads for both your brand and your product. You can target advertising down to very granular details and hone in on your audience — and if you've got a genuinely good offer for them, you'll see the campaign making back more than you put in. You can pause, test and tweak — though as it's a machine-learning system, the best practice is really to let the machine work within your budget and optimise how it spends.

The other half is warming the audience: content that helps people understand what your business is about, your mission, why you do what you do, why you're different. All of that comes across brilliantly on video. Layer in ways for people to learn more or buy, run it as a deliberate content strategy, and it generates leads.

Does YouTube actually influence what people buy?

Studies showed that YouTube content has a significant impact on customer purchases, through two routes. Influencers first: everyone knows brands can sell out in minutes or hours through the right influencer, because people want the products these influencers have — they want to be like them, and it shapes their purchasing decisions. Advertising second: you can target the right audience at the right time, when they're ready to buy — often people who have already searched for the product and carry the intent. And if they're not ready yet, the ad still builds awareness: they learn, you educate them about the product or service.

Then remarketing compounds it. Audiences who watched 50 or 75 per cent of your ad can be remarketed to on other platforms, not just YouTube — reaching the same person while they're scrolling Facebook in the evening. That's how YouTube keeps influencing the decision after the first view.

How do you know if it's working?

One of the underrated strengths: the metrics are easy to track, and they're what tells you whether the strategy is actually working. Google Ads gives you views, costs and budgets; the YouTube side gives deeper analytics on who your viewers are and what content they enjoy. And viewership tracking shows how far people watched into your ad — 25, 50, 75 per cent — which reveals exactly where people drop off and which section needs something more interesting to keep them watching. See what's performing, change what isn't, get better results.