How to Structure YouTube Ad Campaigns for Leads

YouTube ads run through Google Ads, and the defaults are not set up to protect your budget. Josh walks through the campaign architecture his team uses for lead generation on YouTube, from bidding to the exclusion list that keeps ads off channels that will never convert.

Key takeaways

• Start with a leads campaign and the video type. Pick your conversion goals, then choose video as the campaign type.
• Use target CPA, set on the low end. Josh's experience is that a lower target keeps Google from spending faster than it needs to. Set it at the campaign level, not the ad group level.
• Keep ads on YouTube videos. Where you can, turn off YouTube search results and video partners on the Display Network. The in stream ads before videos are where his team sees the best conversions. Some newer campaign types do not allow opting out of partners.
• One campaign per audience, five ad groups by age. Keep targeting identical inside a campaign and split ad groups by age bracket, plus an "unknown" group. Duplicate the campaign to test other audiences.
• Run several ads per group. Upload ads as unlisted videos on your channel and run around four to eight per ad group, with plain headlines and a clear call to action.
• Exclude kids channels at the account level. Josh adds a list of roughly a thousand children's channels as placement exclusions so budget is not spent where buyers are not watching.

Apply it to your business

If you are running YouTube ads, check where your ads actually served in the placement report and exclude anything irrelevant at the account level. Split your audience by age so you can see which brackets book calls, not just which get views. Make sure every lead that comes in from the ads is contacted within minutes, because ad spend is only as good as your follow up.