Why creating Pre-Roll videos on YouTube makes great sense

What Is Pre-roll?

You’re having a rough day, so you head to YouTube to find a little happiness in the ​“cat who rides the robot vacuum while dressed as a shark.” But first! This message from Geico.

That’s a pre-roll ad.

For now, we’re going to discuss pre-roll as it exists in YouTube world. Twitter recently started to offer pre-roll ad options, but we’ll cover that in another blog post.

So, why are we starting with YouTube? YouTube is currently the second largest search engine after Google (who owns YouTube). Every month, over 1 billion people visit YouTube. And those 1 billion people watch over 6 billion hours of videos. That’s a lot of people watching a lot of content.

YouTube offers three kinds of advertising: In-Stream, In-Search and In-Display. Pre-roll ads fall under the In-Stream category. These ads can play before, in the middle of, or at the end of a video, but most often appear before your chosen video plays. Viewers are given the option of skipping the ad after five seconds.

Why you should think about using it

There are a number of reasons. Specific target marketing, budget and measurable results are three of the biggest.

Most often people go to YouTube and search for something specific. By using this search data, marketers and advertisers can target a very specific demographic of engaged users. You’re able to pinpoint viewers by geographic location, topic, keyword, interests or by specific demographic criteria.

Check out this example of how specific Burger King got with their targeting: 

The real beauty is that placing YouTube pre-roll can cost as much or as little as you want. You decide how much you want to spend on a daily basis…you can spend ten dollars a day or one thousand dollars a day. Whatever works for you. Plus, you only pay if your ad is watched for a full thirty seconds. We’ll talk about how to use this to your advantage in a future blog post.

And finally, YouTube’s Analytics tool will help you measure your results. You’ll be able to see the number of views, the number of follow through clicks, the location of viewers, and the amount of time your spot was viewed. Additional metrics are also available.

Bottom line

Creating Pre-Roll videos for YouTube is one of the most effective Ad buys on the internet today. With the ability to reach specific target markets, the peace of mind of set budgeting, and the analytics to support results, a pre-roll strategy deserves a place in your ad budget for 2016.