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Guidelines to Create Google Ads Video Ad to Promote YouTube Videos

BY: Nik Soni |

March 7, 2022

Last Updated On (Feb 26, 2025)

Guidelines to Create Google Ads Video Ad

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YouTube was launched in the year 2005 as a platform for sharing user-generated videos. It was reported that more than 500 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube every minute.

This means approx. 30,000 hours of content published per hour. Therefore, it is hard to stand out from your competitors.

Hours-of-video-uploaded-to-youtube-every-minute

(Hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute)

But what if you could reach your target audience and turn them into loyal subscribers? Here comes the role of Google Video Ads.

It is an effective tool for advertising your YouTube content directly to your preferred customers. Whether you are a business owner, creator, or marketer, video ads can supercharge your results.

However, do you know how to create a Google Ads video ad and its benefits? What are the video ad formats? This guide will help you learn all about YouTube advertising. This is the fifth post in our Google Ads series, where we’ve covered topics like:

Now, we are focusing on video ads—your key to promoting YouTube content successfully. Ready to grow your channel? Let’s dive in!

Understanding Google Ads Video Ad Formats

Google Ads provides various video ad formats to match your goals, from driving conversions to building brand awareness. All ads are designed to engage the audience effectively. Scroll further to choose the right ad format that help you increase your campaign success.

YouTube Advertising Formats

1. Skippable in-stream ads

Skippable in-stream video ads are a new format for reaching and targeting audiences directly on YouTube with video-based content.

In-stream-skippable-video-ad

Use this format when you want your video ad to appear before, during, or after other videos on YouTube and video partner sites on the Display Network.

You can select goals such as – Leads, Website traffic, Brand awareness, reach Product and brand consideration, or Campaigns created without a goal.

2. Non-Skippable in-stream ads

The importance of non-skippable video ads is that the viewers do not have a skip option on your video. You can promote your video content across YouTube and other Google video partners to view your entire message. For goals, select brand awareness and reach.

Non-skippable-in-stream-ads

3. In-Feed Video Ads

Use this format to reach people in moments of discovery, when they are searching on YouTube or browsing videos and next to related videos on YouTube and across the web and mobile homepage. For goals, select product and brand consideration.

In-feed-video-ads

4. Bumper Ads

Bumper ads are short video ad formats that let you reach more customers and increase awareness about your brand by using a short, memorable message. Your video must be 6 seconds or shorter.

For goals, select Brand awareness and reach. Then select Standard awareness – Drive reach, impressions, and views for a campaign subtype.

5. Masthead Ads

To drive brand awareness in a short time across a massive audience for your new product or service, you can consider masthead ads. This format autoplays up to 30 seconds of video without sound on a desktop, with the full duration on mobile devices, and on YouTube home feed.

Masthead ads are only available on a reservation basis through a Google sales representative.

Masthead-ads

6. YouTube Shorts Ads

Shorts ads target a mobile-first audience by promoting video content within YouTube’s Shorts stream. They may be skipped by swiping, replayed by scrolling back, and occur in between organic Shorts. Users are sent to your landing page when they click on the CTA.

Youtube-shorts-ads

Under this Google video ad format, you are charged based on impressions, views (after 10 seconds or a click), or engagements. They are perfect for promoting your business idea in a clear, compelling, and mobile-friendly style.

Choosing the Right Video Ad Format for Your Goals

When you want to promote your YouTube videos to increase business awareness through Google Ads, remember that not all video ad formats are created equal.

Each Google Ads video ad serves a different purpose. Therefore, selecting the right one can make or break your campaign.

Whether you are looking to enhance brand popularity, engage your customers, or generate conversions, knowing how to correlate ad formats with your business goals is the key. Below are the ways to consider while selecting the right video ad format.

Aligning Ad Formats with Your Business Objectives

  • For Brand Awareness
    • Skippable In-Stream Ads: This Google Video ad is perfect for reaching a broad audience and introducing your brand.
    • Masthead Ads: You can even consider this ad format for large-scale campaigns aiming to make a big announcement.
  • For Engagement
    • In-Feed Video Ads: Select this video ad to get clicks and interactions from customers.
    • YouTube Shorts Ads: This vertical, 15-second ad is perfect for attracting viewers who love quick videos.
  • For Conversions
    • Non-Skippable In-Stream Ads: This ad is best for driving action or promoting a specific offer to your target viewers.
    • Bumper Ads: Choose this video ad if you want to clarify your message and keep your brand top-of-mind of viewers.

Pros and Cons of Each Ad Format

Ad FormatProsCons
Skippable In-StreamAffordable, wide reach, viewers choose to watchReduced authority over content marketing and the potential for omission
Non-Skippable In-StreamEnsured audience, ideal for short but powerful messagesmight seem invasive, and each view costs more.
In-Feed Video Adseffortlessly integrates with organic materials and promotes interactionStrong copy and images are necessary to make a statement.
Bumper AdsFast, remarkable, and reasonably pricedlimited time to deliver the message; it works best when combined with other advertisements.
Masthead AdsGreat exposure, perfect for new brand launchesExpensive and unsuitable for tight budgets
YouTube Shorts Adsengages viewers and takes advantage of the growing short-form video demand15 seconds is the limit; innovative modification is needed.

 

Video-ads-ad-format

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Google Ads Video Ad

Google Ads Video Ad allows you to promote your video content in YouTube search results, as well as before, during, and after videos on YouTube and the Google Display Network. Creating a video ad has a similar procedure as a text ad. Let us take a look!

1. Setting Up Your Account and Defining Goals

Go to the campaign tab and select “Create New Campaign.” Then, choose a campaign objective from the list below according to your business needs:

Campaign-objective

After that, you will see the following campaign type. Select video.

In Google Ads, you can create compelling video campaigns with a range of video ad formats to engage customers in different ways on YouTube and across video partner sites.

From the above sections, you must have learned about different types of video ad formats and their benefits.

Google-ads-video-ad-type-selection

2. Choose Campaign Subtype

After selecting a goal and campaign type, you will be asked to select a campaign subtype. Select it as per your goal and video ad format.

Video-ad-campaign-subtype

Then click continue and add your Campaign name.

Campaign-name

3. Setting Your Budget and Bidding Strategy

You can select bid strategy as your goal, i.e., Target CPM.

Target-cpm-bid-strategy

Now you have to select the Budget and dates.

Google-ads-budget-and-dates

There are two types – Daily and Campaign total. Select the budget as per requirement and enter the amount of your daily or campaign total budget.

  • If you select a daily budget, then you need to select a delivery method – standard or accelerated. The standard method allows you to spend your budget evenly over time, and the accelerated method allows you to spend your budget more quickly.
  • If you select the campaign total budget type, you have to select the start and end dates of your campaign.

By filling in the start and end date, your campaign will automatically stop after your date range.

4. Configure the Networks Section

Networks Section

As you can see, by selecting a specific option, you can show your video across YouTube videos and channels, YouTube search results, and Google Partners on the Google Display Network.

We have a new option here for Google TV where your ads will be displayed in video streaming apps available with Google TV.

Note:- Google TV network is only available for campaigns running in the United States.

5. Choose Languages and Audience Segments

Select the preferred languages of your customers to whom you want to show your ad.

Language, Audience Segment And Broad Keywords Settings

You can target audiences based on location. By selecting locations, your ad will only show in those specific locations.

Next is, content exclusions, which help you filter out potentially negative or sensitive videos that could reflect poorly on your brand or message.

Content exclusions

Click on the devices tab to select platforms such as mobile, tablet, computer, and TV screens. You select the device on which you want to show your video ad by operating systems, device models, and networks.

Devices

Next comes the Ad schedule. Select the time at which you want to show your video ad. Likewise, if you simply want to run it only on specific days of the week, you can do that too.

Now you are ready to go to Create your ad group.

Create your video ad group

Give your ad group a name.

Next comes the Demographics

Demographics

Select your demographic target from Gender, Age, Parental Status, and Household income. Pick specific visitors to whom you want to show your video ad.

Next, you can select Audiences

Audiences

You can select your audience by affinity groups, in-market and life events groups, and remarketing groups. Affinity groups allow you to get very specific in what audience you are looking for. You can also mix the groups.

Then come Keywords

keywords

Add keywords related to your video ad. Keywords are words or phrases that are used to match your ads with the terms people are searching for.

Topics will determine what videos your ads show up on. Also, topics are a great way to target a more relevant audience to your product or service.

Placements decide where you want your ads to be shown. Meanwhile, if there are certain YouTube channels or videos you would like to pre-roll your ads on, enter them here.

6. Create Your Video Ad

Create Your Video Ad

For this step, you need an active YouTube account with video content on it. If you don’t have videos on your YouTube, you will have to create an account on Google and upload your video.

Set a bid for this ad group

set big group

Add the amount that you want to pay when someone views your video ad. Then simply hit “Create Campaign” and you are done.

That’s all, you are now set to show your video ad. Finally, after approval from Google, your video ad goes live.

YouTube has 1.57 billion logged-in monthly users, watching a ton of mobile videos.

Moreover, 1 billion hours of YouTube content are watched per day.

There are 30+ million Total Daily Active YouTube Users.

Note: 5 FREE YouTube Tools For Creators

Key Advantages of Google Video Ads

⇒ Superior Storytelling & Emotional Impact

Video Ads have three major elements i.e., visuals, sound, and motion which evoke emotions, making brands relatable and memorable. For example, a genuine customer testimonial video builds trust faster than text reviews.

⇒ Higher Engagement & Retention

As per the study, viewers can remember 95% of a message from the video as compared to 10% from the text. Dynamic video ad content including humor, drama, or animation keeps audiences hooked longer than static ads.

⇒ Information Delivery in Seconds

Through Google Video ads, you can convey complex business ideas within seconds. It is best for audiences who like reels or videos with short duration.

⇒ Boost SEO & Website Performance

Investing in video ad content is more beneficial. As per the statistics, “Videos are 53x more likely to rank on Google’s first page.” And when you link your website to ad content, it increases the average time spent on that particular page while reducing bounce rates.

⇒ Cost-Effective ROI

83% of marketers say video delivers strong lead generation. Repurpose your video for ads, social media, emails, or webinars.

Video-delivers-strong-lead-generation

Video ad has more benefits and is worth the time and effort. The future of Video Ads is Bright. Besides that, the audience is large, and there is less competition, as many marketers have been slow to adopt online video campaigns.

This presents a great opportunity for marketers willing to invest in video content. Moreover, if you have used Google Ads, getting up and running with an Ads video campaign is surprisingly simple.

Tracking and Measuring Your Video Ad Performance

After creating a Google Ads Video ad to promote YouTube content, how to keep track of views and measure the performance? Below are the points to consider for both beginners and data-driven marketers.

→ Key Metrics to Monitor

Views and impressions: It is essential to monitor how many times your ad was watched. Examine VTA i.e., view-through rate to know the percentage of viewers who watched a particular part of the video.

Engagement: Look out for the % of viewers who clicked your CTA, i.e., learn more or buy now button on the video ad. Also, how long audience stay engaged with your ad content

Conversions: Track the percentage of buyers who took the desired action, i.e., purchase, sign-up, or download.

Audience Insights: Watch out for the age, gender, and location of potential viewers. And track the performance of mobile vs. laptop.

→ Using Google Ads Analytics to Refine Your Strategy

Set up tracking: Link Google Ads to Google Analytics for cross-platform insights. Also, use UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters to track traffic sources.

Analyze performance: Examine conversions or leads in the “Campaigns” Tab. Check the audience’s behavior and see how they navigate after watching the video ad.

Optimize: Focus on audience targeting and modify your Google video ad content according to their recent requirements. Check your YouTube’s audience retention graph and also allocate the budget to top-performing platforms, i.e., YouTube vs. Facebook.

→ A/B Testing Your Ads for Better Results

Create two Google video ads and compare them for better results. Test their creative elements, content concept, placement of the ad in the video, and much more.

Test one variable at a time for clear understanding, and run the test for 7 to 14 days. Here you can consider using tools like Google Optimizer or Facebook’s Split Testing.

However, by measuring and tracking what matters and continually improving, you can turn data into revenue-driving decisions.

Conclusion

Creating Google Ads Video ad to promote YouTube content is the best way to engage audiences, boost brand visibility, and drive conversions.

If you are ready to unlock the full potential of Google YouTube ads and increase your video views, this blog is your ultimate roadmap.

From creating attention-grabbing thumbnails, and targeting the audience to tracking the performance, this guideline will change your YouTube promotion game.

Don’t miss out! Read the full blog and start converting your video visitors into powerful growth engines.

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