How to Advertise with YouTube Masthead

Over the years, the concept of outbound marketing has proven to be greatly beneficial to marketers. It has not only helped brands establish a stronger digital impression but has also helped secured conversions.

However, if there is any outbound marketing practice that has helped brands create an impression that stands out, it through YouTube Masthead. If you are not familiar with YouTube Masthead, simply imagine that you get the chance to take your business or service to 60 million people in 24 hours. YouTube Masthead is a digital billboard that is found at the top of the YouTube homepage. It gives you the chance to interact with millions of monthly users who can be turned to be your next business opportunity.

YouTube Masthead is an ad containing Call to Actions (CTAs), Social media sharing options, and videos on the homepage. This is what makes YouTube Masthead extraordinary. This ad is meant to target the masses and contains both your targeted and non-targeted audience. It is best suited for brands that have the finances to sponsor these ads in search of brand exposure.

In the next few minutes, you will get a detailed tour of YouTube Masthead Ads while we will break down the benefits it can bring to your business, including the costs, the expected results, and more.

Exploring YouTube as a Platform to Showcase Your Business

YouTube is a perfect platform to share stories, learn something new, experience things through another’s eyes, or just spend time being amused. With over 2 billion users across the globe, YouTube not only offers amazing content to watch but serves as a platform that can help businesses stand out from their counterparts.

As of now, YouTube Masthead has mostly been adopted by big brands that are either not concerned with or have a large budget. Though small or medium brands also tend to use YouTube ads, they avail themselves of other adoptions to meet their needs for a client building.

Though most businesses rely on advertising practices with Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or other social media platforms, YouTube can also be an effective option for those who need to make an impression using organic practices.

However, this only demands sharing the right content with the right message to the right audience at the right time. And if you are a big brand that has large funds for advertising, YouTube Masthead is the key to get all eyes on your business.

Understanding YouTube Masthead

As we have already said, YouTube Masthead is the digital billboard that you find on top of YouTube’s homepage that stays for 24 hours. Though it may seem to be an irrelevant option for your brand advertising needs, reaching over 30 million people in a day is something that puts the pieces in place.

With multiple videos, effective use of sharing buttons, and a compelling call to actions, you can simply drive your goals related to brand exposure on YouTube Masthead. Now that you are a bit more familiar with YouTube Masthead ads, let’s dig deeper.

What is Masthead in Marketing?

In Digital Marketing, a Masthead in an image or text on the top of the webpage. For a user, it can help a person recognize the brand or explore services that may be of interest to them. On the other hand, the brand to which the Masthead belongs could showcase important navigational links, product images, or compelling text that can add to the brand value as well as sales.

However, when it comes to YouTube Masthead Ads, these Ads are different from the usual Mastheads.  Though entire control of YouTube Masthead ads is done from the Google Ads team just like Google ads, these Ads are reserved by a single advertiser for a period of 24 hours for a single country.

In 2019, YouTube made it easier for advertisers to run Masthead Ads by allowing them to reserve or purchase these ads based on a Cost-per-Thousand basis. Since the watch time for content available on the home page of YouTube has multiplied by 10 times, the chances of better targeting have also improved.

In other words, if your ads are creative and persuasive enough to capture the attention of users, it improves the chances that users would click on the Masthead ad playing without sound to both turn on the sound and reach your YouTube channel.

If you are a first-time user of YouTube Masthead Ads, know that you can customize your video ad with other content, such as:

·        A Catchy Headline

·        A Call to Action that Calls for Clicks

·        A Precise yet convincing Description to Support the Video.

In addition, YouTube also allows you to edit the primary layout of the video by defining the time for auto-play using quick editing options.

YouTube Masthead is not device restricted; these ads are able to run on both mobile devices, desktop and laptop computers, and TVs that support the YouTube App. All you need to do as an advertiser is to create ads to grab the attention of the user to entice them to visit the content. However, when it comes to smaller mobile devices such as Android or iOS devices, users may see a different design for the masthead.

According to Google, content with a longer duration tends could make a user lose their interest leading them to click other videos on the channel. Therefore when creating the ad, make sure you don’t create uninteresting and lengthy ads. Keep them short and visually pleasing, which is the key to hold the user’s attention so that they watch the complete content. As these videos are more about exposure, your content should be designed to lead the user towards your products or services instead of chase immediate clicks with a direct call to action.

Though many brands and advertising agencies tend to have a great interest in the YouTube Masthead ads the only thing that refrains brands from commercial advertisements is the budget. This is the reason why big brands seem to be more inclined to use YouTube Masthead Ads since they have the essential budget required to meet their advertising needs.

What Makes YouTube Masthead Different?

The very first thing that makes YouTube Masthead different from other ad platforms is that it does not target users based on the user search history. YouTube Masthead ads always run on the homepage, unlike other ads that may appear as a layer on other videos or in corners of the webpage.

However, if you need to have targeted ads on YouTube, simply use for Overlay ads, TrueView ads, Pre-roll ads, or Display Advertising. These ads allow you to target your audience based on their subscriptions, video interests, and demographics.

Though YouTube Masthead does not offer targeting options, it does allow you to pick the country where the ad plays. Advertising using YouTube Masthead ads requires that you follow certain extra rules, including completing an application with Google Ads.

How to Create Great YouTube Masthead Ads

While YouTube Masthead does not allow you to decide your target audience, it is more of a trend that catches the attention of most big-budget marketers. Nevertheless, the idea of creating great Masthead Ads requires frequent interaction with YouTube to understand the type of content that goes viral or is viewed millions of times. Also, the Masthead content should be designed in a way so that it is relatable to people of all age groups.

It is necessary that the content you share on Masthead be entertaining and immediately capture the attention of viewers, even if they opened YouTube for another purpose.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind to create content that causes visitors to become curious.

·        Make it Easy and Welcoming: The first thing which you need to understand is that the content you choose for your video must be easy to understand, meaningful, and welcoming at the same time. It is necessary to ensure that your audience never finds it boring or difficult to understand.

·       Keep it Short & Catchy: Always keep your content short and to the point. It should always contain a powerful message, even if it is compressed.

·        Create Options for Viewers: It is very important that your advertisement never force the user to perform an action. You can try creating options for viewers by skipping a CTA and rather have the option to watch similar content or to share the content on other social media channels for an extended reach.

How Much Does a YouTube Masthead Cost?

Let us quickly jump to the hot topic that many advertisers are curious about regarding YouTube Masthead.

That is - the price!

If you are planning to advertise your business by placing your product or service on YouTube Masthead, you will spend a whopping $300,000 to $400,000. However, these prices may vary from country to country and day to day and could even reach $1 million if you choose to showcase your brand on special events, festivals, or Super Bowl Sundays. In addition, you may even need to spend money on the template you think is more suitable for your advertising goals, either custom not.

Since the exact price you need to pay for running YouTube Masthead depends on many factors, the prices shared are still just estimates. If you are planning to run an ad soon, reach out to the YouTube Marketing teams to help you with prices.

If you the costs aren’t in the way and you have planned for a quick blast of exposure for your brand, you should know where a YouTube masthead ad unit runs.

YouTube Masthead ads are different from the other forms of ad you find on YouTube. These ads are not layered and are never found running in a corner. They appear at the top of the Homepage in the form of the banner with call to action buttons.

If you are more concerned about the aspect ratio which you may find with the YouTube Masthead ads, they have 16:9 and widescreen versions.

Though the specifications for the YouTube Masthead ad may vary for different devices, the standard features, such as aspect ratio and other technical features, are the same for all desktop users. These include:

·        The auto-play video used in the ad must be no more than 30 seconds and is always public.

·        16:9 aspect ratio must be preferred for the best experience

·        YouTube Masthead does not allow 0-second auto-play

·        The advertiser can crop thumbnails on the left or right of the video while the style and color of CTA’s remains to be the default

·        Once the video auto-play finishes, the video thumbnails appear on the Masthead.

However, the exact specs related to Masthead ads on YouTube could be found on the support page.

Some Quick Examples of Successful YouTube Masthead Ads

Over the years, the bar has been raised for creating YouTube Masthead ads. Whether it is innovation or driving impressions, brands are investing more in their marketing process, resulting in more creativity and serious strategic planning. Here are a few examples of brands that have made the best use of their creativity with YouTube Ads to capture the hearts of the millions.

1.     Maybelline New York’s “Go Nude” campaign

It was one of the most successful campaigns in the history of YouTube advertising for a new product launch was by one of the biggest YouTube beauty communities, Maybelline New York. Maybelline used 13 of the most recognized beauty vloggers that post how-to-videos on their channel for great exposure and awareness.

However, to ensure that content reached the right audience, Maybelline New York also took advantage of other YouTube’s ad tools and services in addition to using a YouTube Masthead ad to have a gigantic single-day awareness response. They also made it to TrueView ads with their ad to give the advantage of viewing content with a longer duration. They made use of other advertising options to have a 15-second spot for their content in the most popular videos to further increase their reach. Overall, Maybelline built a solid marketing plan using the best of YouTube Masthead to drive over 15M impressions, giving a massive lift to their brand awareness goals.

2.     P&G’s Gillette Body

P & G’s Gillette Body also made a creative move with their video content. They took aim at all the millennial men in the United States. Although they knew that advertising through YouTube Masthead brings the content to all audiences in their chosen regions rather than just millennial men, they created campaign sharing content based on their “100 Years of Hair” campaign. Taking advantage of YouTube advertising, the brand managed to have 13.5 million views and a total of 54 million impressions.

Overall, the advertising helped the brand secure more than 500k clicks-to-buy, which surpassed the expected number of sales by 4 times across seven global markets. The campaign also helped them grow their number of searches for Gillette by 211% and added to their clicks by 111%, accounting for the biggest increase any brand has ever witnessed.

3.     Walt Disney

Since many users look for entertainment on YouTube, Walt Disney, one of the most prominent film studios, looked for ways to promote their movies using YouTube Masthead. Disney used this platform to promote its popular Disney movie, “The Jungle Book,” along with using various other promotional tools available on YouTube.

To help capture the attention of users for more than just that movie, Disney created gave users the chance to explore other similar videos available on the right side of the webpage once they finished watching the primary video. They also made use of interactive media to create a stronger impression on users in addition to using two unique call to action buttons called “Explore the Jungle” and “Get Tickets.”

4.     Watch Dogs 2 for PS 4

Another good example of a YouTube Masthead promotion was for the launch of the popular PS4 video game, Watch Dogs 2. The marketing team of Watch Dogs 2 took advantage of the game’s graphics to capture the attention of the users. The interactive graphics were coupled with two calls to actions, which included “Watch the Trailer” and “Pre-Order Now.”

Even though the game was anticipated within the gamer’s community, the compelling trailer button caused even non-gamers to watch the video, helping the brand see a greater impact on views and purchases.

5.     Jurassic Park

Last but not least, we have another popular movie series that used YouTube Masthead promotions and had a great impression on users. The movie advertisers created the YouTube Masthead campaign in France along with other advertising options on YouTube. Some of the features that were incorporated in the ad included the Buy Tickets button, Photo Gallery, Search bar, Social Sharing button, and Similar Videos link.

Overall, it helped the movie have massive exposure on YouTube by reaching a large audience. Though advertisers had to pay a large price, it drove engagement and impressions by spreading the word of the movie and securing success in the country.

From the above examples, you can see that YouTube Masthead ads can be a real advantage when you need to drive engagement and impression within a span of 24 hours. The ad gives marketers a great reach and awareness by using the homepage advantage on YouTube. Moreover, the ease in choosing from 2 different formats makes it convenient for advertisers.

Ø Cross-screen Rich Media Masthead, which is also known as a custom masthead, needs the advertiser to create the ad using DoubleClick studio.

Ø Cross-screen Universal Video Masthead may be best if you are looking for easier access to the ad as it is more of a template masthead that only needs the advertiser to upload content to the given template.

It is entirely on the advertiser to pick custom or default options depending on their needs to get expandable options. In other words, YouTube Masthead offers complete freedom when it comes to generating pleasing content for YouTube audiences.

Studies have also found that the entertainment industry has witnessed the largest number of impressions and exposure from YouTube Masthead Ads, which account for almost a 340 percent increase in website visits. This simply shows the potential YouTube Masthead ads can have, which adds value to a business even if there is no defined audience or targeted user base.

“How is this relevant for my business” or “Do I really need to choose a Masthead Ad?”

When it comes to the relevance of YouTube Masthead to a business, it can be valuable to brands that have a massive budget for their marketing needs. For instance, if you are a brand which is already recognized in your country, YouTube Masthead could be a perfect choice for your advertisement goals that involve:

·        Showcasing your brand in a high placement platform to drive greater visibility

·        Creating awareness of a new product to generate better sales

·        Gathering a large number of audiences around tentpole events.

Should You Choose a Masthead Ad?

Though it comes with a steep budget, there is no other advertisement option other than YouTube Masthead that could bring you visibility to 60 million users, even if they don’t take time to click and view your video ads.

If you are a brand that can allocate a large amount of money to your video ads in order to have a wide reach, YouTube Masthead help you in the shortest span of time. Therefore, if you are looking for some unbelievable potential to reach quickly, this is the way to do it. After all, YouTube is a powerful platform for those who need to promote their brand or need to give their brand the greatest reach.

YouTube is a perfect source to drive your results when you need to create a meaningful and pleasing buyer’s journey. Plus, if you are not able to use YouTube Masthead, other ad formats on YouTube can prove to be a satisfying solution to your advertising goals.

Concluding it all, when you need to reach audiences across the country, YouTube Masthead is very handy. As per reports, YouTube Mastheads could drive strong ad recall with an average lift of 92 percent, leading to an increase in purchase intent by nearly 46 percent. If you are a brand that needs immediate brand exposure and reach, YouTube Masthead could have you trending within a day.

Don't forget to share your experience in the comments.