# I promoted my YouTube release via paid advertising (Google Ads) - what were the results?



## JyTy (Apr 2, 2022)

Hi fellow composers!

I have just released a new track on my YouTube channel:



And have been promoting it via Google Ads paid campaigns for a week now.

I haven't touched the Ads platform for years now, so in a way I'm a complete noob. But I was working in the agency/advertising space for years, so I'm very familiar with some of the concepts.

Getting started was very confusing and I was searching for some tips across the forum (even on web) but didn't find many for the exact use case - promoting your own YouTube track release. So I want to share my experience with you hoping that someone will find it useful.

*GETTING STARTED*

So the fist thing I did was google for YouTube video ads and I got a link to their site: https://www.youtube.com/intl/en_us/ads/

I clicked on the Start Advertising Button, got a very friendly and simple setup flow and my Ad was ready in a matter of minutes. The targeting was very basic, mostly covering the interest of the viewers on a very broad scale. I chose Music Lovers & Movie Trailers or something in that matter...

The Ad started to run in the next 24 hours and the results were very poor and very expensive. *On the first run I got 24k ad impressions and 330 video views and I think one subscriber* - that is a 1,4% view rate - with an average Cost Per View (CPV) 0,04 eur. For that first run I paid around 13eur. Not much, but the results really sucked...

*CUSTOM CAMPAIGN - TARGETING OPTIMISATIONS*

So after that I started clicking around the platform a bit more, started to research custom campaigns, targeting options and reading some documentation on how to set things up. My next campaign had a custom targeting:
- Displaying the video on some of the channels I thought my potential audience would hang on, like: Epic Music World, Pandora Journey, Trailer Music World... Those are all channels that get millions of views, so a lot of potential traffic there.
- Targeting for some specific keywords, so the video would appear in search as well.

The results improved significantly right away! *View rate went up to 5,2% and average CPC dropped to 0,01 eur! *So views started to ramp up, people started to like the video and even got a subscriber here and there, but ...

Most of views were coming from countries like India, Indonesia - nothing wrong with that, as I was aiming for a little exposure to viewers that like that kind of music, but after reviewing some of the subscriber YouTube profiles, they were not the targeting audience I was aiming to get on my channel. Just some random profiles, liking everything there is... so some further optimisation was needed.

*FINAL OPTIMISATION*

The next thing I did is I ran three different campaigns, targeting US, UK and EU. Just testing if there were any difference between them. There was not, probably because my budgets were way to low to really make a difference.

So for my final run I targeted the campaign to US, UK and some European countries - I also added some interests, age and household income targeting and reviewed current keyword and placement targeting and only kept the most performant ones.

This campaign preformed really well, *View rate dropped a bit to 4,51%, CPV stayed at 0,01eur. But at the end campaign produced 9,5k video views, aprox 70 subscribers and 157 video likes.* As for subscribers I even got a few fellow composers and people interested in making music from time to time. And the final cost for that was around 100eur.

Now was it worth it? Well as a learning experience definitely. The video has 10k views atm, and that looks good. As for growing the subscription base this is still expensive. I know this is not the way, but optimising this a bit further it could be a good way to grow the channel on the side for a small monthly budget... So for the next run I'm working on a different kind of video with sample library users in mind. Will take all of this learnings and see if I could increase the subscribers rate more efficiently.

What is your experience with paid advertising? Any good tip or tricks or are you not using it at all when growing your channel?

If you would like a video on the matter, going through the campaign results and looking into the results in detail let me know! Would be happy to do one.

Hope someone will find this usefull. All the best!
J.T.


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## Markrs (Apr 2, 2022)

Really fascinating break down of using ads and shows how important it is to target them well. Whilst not cheap, I think it can help to get initial subscriber numbers up especially if the youtube channel is relatively new.


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## Jrides (Apr 2, 2022)

Markrs said:


> Really fascinating break down of using ads and shows how important it is to target them well. Whilst not cheap, I think it can help to get initial subscriber numbers up especially if the youtube channel is relatively new.


Agree with everything said here.


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## JyTy (Apr 2, 2022)

Markrs said:


> Really fascinating break down of using ads and shows how important it is to target them well. Whilst not cheap, I think it can help to get initial subscriber numbers up especially if the youtube channel is relatively new.


Yes completely agree! If I would have put all the time I invest in making the videos to the hours that make my paycheck I would be able to grow the channel 20-30x time more effective by investing the money back… BUT all of this doesn’t make sense if you don’t have any quality content. So mix of both is the best way to go in my opinion as well.


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## Soundbed (Apr 2, 2022)

What are your goals?

Earn back the money with ad rev by getting 2k subscribers and 1000 watch hours, then monetizing your own channel?

Earn money by gaining “superfans” and converting them to a paid fans, buying (other) products (not sold on YouTube)?

Landing “clients” for pro work of some sort?

Get your videos onto larger channels and earning $€£ via ContentID?

Pure hobby / exploration?

Others?

I can think of ways to target audiences based on goals, but would need to better understand your direction.

Cool post.


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## JyTy (Apr 2, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> What are your goals?
> 
> Earn back the money with ad rev by getting 2k subscribers and 1000 watch hours, then monetizing your own channel?
> 
> ...


Thnx, well at this point it is still exploration, I have some ideas but not nearly there yet (but I do have the next step in mind and already working on it). I've done a lot of paid campaigns through various platforms with clear conversions but promoting my own video was and still is a new landscape for me, that I wanted to start exploring a bit.

And since I did not find a lot of posts or practically none in here on the specific topic I just thought it would be cool to share it here so that I could contribute a small but hopefully meaningful thing to this great community as well...

btw @Soundbed I checked your YT channel (still watching MSS videos right now - damn pls don't make me buy this... but they do sound great!) and your music on your website! Awesome work! I subscribed right away!


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## Macrawn (Apr 2, 2022)

Thanks for posting. I had no idea you could do targeted ads like that so I'm glad to see you explain it and show how it was a big improvement over just buying random add time.


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## cedricm (Apr 2, 2022)

Where did you get the background animation for your video?


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## Arbee (Apr 2, 2022)

I've been using YouTube and paid ads for a few years and agree totally about the importance of targeting your audience effectively. I only have a small monthly budget ($50 - $100) that I spend on paid YouTube ads, but my learnings so far:

If you don't target your audience effectively, not only will you waste money on folk who have no interest in what you do, but you'll trigger dislikes and negative comments from folk who find that you're not what they were expecting.

I've found ads to be much more effective if I can "theme" my tracks to translate into clear target keywords/phrases that people search and identify with. For example, I've found "classical crossover" to be really effective in promoting tracks that do fit that description. Cover tracks can also be a really good way to attract people, as you can use the title as a search keyword/phrase. Using similar artists as a keyword/phrase is another way to successfully attract viewers, though I'm not particularly comfortable with that tactic tbh. Some devoted fans of the other artists can get a little snarky!

Don't be afraid to explore different geographic regions and languages. I've discovered that my music is noticeably more popular in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian speaking countries (and Japan) than it is in the US or UK.

I've found Sundays to be the best day of the week to pay for ads, when folk are chilling, surfing the web with key search terms and perhaps more open to taking a listen. While this might be true if you're looking for a public audience, perhaps not so much if you're looking for industry attention.

Ads are a good way to monitor the "viral potential" of your music. While I've resisted the urge to throw buckets of money at any one track, some tracks have definitely triggered a more immediate positive response than others.

Getting a bit deep here, but tapping into current social topics associated with your music titles and themes can also help ads to resonate.

Branding is as important here as it is for any advertising. Give visitors a clear idea of what you're about and don't mix the message too much. Are you a composer or artist? Epic or intimate? etc etc. I still really struggle with this given my very eclectic and broad musical taste and background, but I'm working on it.

Overall though, while paid ads on YouTube do drive likes, subscribers and some very encouraging feedback, the audience seems to be quite transitory and the return on investment is not compelling. The effect on traffic to my web site, Spotify, Apple, Amazon is very noticeable for about a week after I advertise, but generally (though not always) it drops off quite quickly after that. I've been tempted to fund some intensive long running advertising for a couple of my most popular tracks to see what happens, but haven't taken that step. I might once I've assembled an album to sell that might recover some costs. 

Anyway, I hope there is something of value in that rambling. I do find the process really useful and enjoyable.


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## jazzman7 (Apr 2, 2022)

Agreed! Appreciate the input and info on this thread. Well done!


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## Jett Hitt (Apr 2, 2022)

Phil did a really nice job on that mix for you.


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## JyTy (Apr 2, 2022)

cedricm said:


> Where did you get the background animation for your video?


All thanx goes to @Akarin and his awesome post https://vi-control.net/community/th...ated-background-for-your-music-videos.121404/

Used the site for free videos and instructions in the video he posted to build it up in Adobe Premiere. Awesome stuff!



Arbee said:


> I've been using YouTube and paid ads for a few years and agree totally about the importance of targeting your audience effectively. I only have a small monthly budget ($50 - $100) that I spend on paid YouTube ads, but my learnings so far:
> 
> If you don't target your audience effectively, not only will you waste money on folk who have no interest in what you do, but you'll trigger dislikes and negative comments from folk who find that you're not what they were expecting.
> 
> ...


That is some great feedback @Arbee! Thnx for adding value to the thread.



Jett Hitt said:


> Phil did a really nice job on that mix for you.


Agreed! I'm super glad I've meet @Philip Vasta - he is an awesome engineer! This is his website if somebody is in need for some good mixing: https://www.philvasta.com - hit him up!


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## el-bo (Apr 3, 2022)

JyTy said:


> The video has 10k views atm


In 2022, on a 'random', independent artist's music video, and with your subscriber count, I think that's huge. If you can 'strike while the iron is hot' and upload more music, it'll be interesting to see how this initial success translates into ongoing views. 

Enjoyed the piece. Liked, commented and subscribed


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## osterdamus (Apr 3, 2022)

JyTy said:


> Hi fellow composers!


Not sure I saw this mentioned: What was the actual content of your ad? A 15 second segment (or so) from the video above or the like? If yes, from the beginning or are there any varying results based on what part?


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## JyTy (Apr 3, 2022)

osterdamus said:


> Not sure I saw this mentioned: What was the actual content of your ad? A 15 second segment (or so) from the video above or the like? If yes, from the beginning or are there any varying results based on what part?


No, I assumed it would not work... but now that you have mentioned seems like a good thing to test as well. Will do that with the next video I'm working on, that has a much more specific targeting group in mind and will update the results here.

The ads I was running were video suggestions on the right of the video player or ads in YouTube search results. So nothing was played automatically before any videos, user had to click the add and play the video.


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