Profitable YouTube Ads Tutorial 2024 (What’s Working NOW)

YouTube advertising has completely changed and if you're currently running ads and they're not working like they used to I know why and I'm going to share it with you in this video but if you are yet to run an ad and you've been thinking about it stop right now and don't launch an ad until you watch the rest of this video I run a company called adclients. com and we spend over a hundred thousand dollars every single month running YouTube ads we are out there on the front lines we know what is working and so much has changed in fact there's some massive shifts and if you're not aware of them no wonder you're launching an ad you're hitting the button and it's not working and you're losing money I have an amazing guy here in my company he's my head of marketing his name's Aaron and he's the one responsible for spending a hundred thousand dollars of my money every single month I trust him with that money he gets an amazing return and I've managed to pull him out of his office and have him come here into the studio and do a training session for you teaching you how YouTube is working right now all of the changes and how you can launch a profitable YouTube ad campaign to to grow your business hey everyone it is Aaron here John's already introduced me so we're going to just crack straight on with the tutorial section of this video now you may have tried to run YouTube ads before maybe you've even had a look at some of the tutorials that you see online but likely the reason that you're looking at this video is that you've tried to run YouTube ads and it hasn't worked for you or hasn't worked for your business or you're just trying to find out about YouTube ads because you know the power that YouTube holds and how it can send the most targeted traffic to your offers online now there is a bit of a problem with some of the tutorials that you would have seen online there are for sure some good ones out there but they're very very tricky to find or they don't give you the whole picture but with the other ones what you tend to find is that people teach you outdated strategies they don't teach you the fundamentals and so when you run your ads they are already set up for failure so that you can go and buy their whiz-bang marketing course that teaches you exactly how to do that we are not going to be doing that we're going to be taking a look at some of the core principles of running YouTube ads some of the audiences that you can be targeting and then we're going to dive into the laptop and go with the click here click there tutorial setup but please please please don't skip this section because this is the absolute fundamentals for profitable YouTube ads it's all about the setup that you do before you even go into the laptop that is why your YouTube ads may have been failing before and how you can get them working so there have been some big changes over on the YouTube ads platform previously we used to use a targeting type called keywords that meant that when you go to youtube. com and you search something in the search bar let's say marketing education or something like that or how to run Facebook ads or how to lose weight in my belly then any of the videos that pop up after that your ads were eligible to show ads on them when someone viewed that video however the platform has changed a lot now and we rely on a different type of targeting to find out our ideal customers we can Target People based on what they're searching for on Google we can Target People based on the URLs that they're visiting it's super super powerful so we're going to be diving in to actually doing some of that research in this next section okay so step one to a profitable YouTube ads campaign is your audience research this isn't something that you're going to be diving into a laptop click here click there and setting anything up this is the groundwork of what we're going to be doing on YouTube because we need to be showing our ads in front of the right people at the right time where they need the service or the offer that we are providing if you're showing your ads to the wrong people doesn't matter how good your video ad is it doesn't matter how good your sales funnel is or your sales process or whatever it is people are not going to feel compelled to opt in because they're not even the Right audience so there are two types of targeting that we use when we're running our YouTube ads the first is custom Google audiences and the second are customer URL audiences custom Google audiences are is an audience or a group of people who are made up based on what they've been searching for on Google and on YouTube if you didn't know Google owns YouTube so that means that the two softwares can pass their uh their data between each other so Google can see who's searching for stuff on YouTube and YouTube can see who's searching for stuff on Google as well so we build up an audience of people based on something that they are searching for on Google then when they go over and they go to YouTube and they watch their dog videos or their cat videos or whatever it is then your ads pop up because they've been searching for something over on Google the second type of audience is a custom URL audience this is very very similar but it's based on the URLs that people are searching for instead so if someone visits a certain website and you think that person is part of my target market then you can create an audience of people who visit that website and similar websites to it and then show your ads to them when they go over and watch their cat videos or their dog videos over on YouTube so the first exercise that I want you to do is literally take a pen and paper or take your phone or whatever laptop it doesn't really matter anything to take notes and literally just think about what would people be searching for in my industry what are some of the pain points that they're feeling in my industry so for example let's say we've got a weight loss course we teach people how to lose weight in 30 days in their belly now what we need to be doing is we need to be thinking about how to pain points that people will be typing into Google and on YouTube so for example people on Google and YouTube will be looking at how to lose weight in my belly they might be looking for quick weight loss tips they might be looking for something like diet plans for weight loss now these are three different pain points that people are feeling you know that if someone was to be typing that into Google if they were going to be typing that into YouTube that when your ad pops up offering a weight loss course or a webinar that talks about how to lose weight in 30 days or something like that they are going to feel compelled to opt in because you are meeting them right in their pain point so what I want you to do is spend some time pause this video spend some time and come up with five to ten different Search terms that someone will be finding uh will be searching for on Google or on YouTube that really hones in on their pain points then we'll come back and we'll do audience number two right so as you can see I've just added a couple of extra keywords we've got five that's absolutely fine and I'm just going to forget about them for a while we're going to move on to audience number two which is URLs that people visit now this might take a little bit of research because you might need to go onto Google you might go and have to find some different URLs that people visit but a lot of the times you can do it off the top of your head what you want to be thinking about is specific URLs that people visit when they are trying to alleviate any of their pain points so for people who are in the weight loss course or people who are in the weight loss industry I should say you want to be using a website that people go to specifically to lose weight that might be different diet websites where they're finding out about diets it might be maybe some workout plans that you find online on different websites or anything like that so as a practical example if I don't know too much about the websites that people are visiting what I do is I'd literally go to Google and I'd go how to lose weight so literally enter in one of the your uh one of the Search terms that we're using that we've already found and already thought of ourselves and then all we have to do is scroll down past the ads and click on one of the links that pops up that seems appropriate that you know that someone who visits that URL will be finding the pain point that they can't lose weight or that they lose looking at losing weight fast so let's say we go for for this link over here 20 free tips for weight loss that actually works now what I suggest is you just have a quick scan of the page make sure there is actually talking about weight loss and that your ideal client will be visiting that URL and then what I want you to do is take the URL exactly as it is copy it and then paste it into your notes so paste it into your notes document now I want you to repeat that process and find three to five URLs that you can be using that you know people who visit that website will be interested in your weight loss or whatever your course is okay so off camera I've got a couple of extra URLs some for diet plans and some for just general weight loss now again we're going to set this aside we don't need to worry about the audiences we don't need to worry about how to actually create them we're going to be going through that in the tutorial where it's going to be click here click there but you've done the research you've done one of the most key parts of YouTube ads so now what we can do is just dive straight into the Google ads dashboard set up a Google ads account and actually run some YouTube ads so the first thing that you need to do is you need to go to ads.

google. com if you missed it the reason that we run our ads from Google you know from the Google ads platform is because Google owns YouTube which means to show our ads on YouTube we need to go to the Google ads platform so that's ads. google.

com and press enter so if you already have an existing Google ads account you can just click the sign in button I'm going to do that in just a second but if you haven't got a Google ads account and you need to create one all you have to do is press the start now button and just follow through their steps on how to create a Google ads account it's really really simple you just need to follow through their steps on actually creating an account just put in all your details nice and easy what I'm going to do is I'm going to press the sign in button because we've already got an account so I'll be back in just a second okay so if you've created a brand new Google ads account the first thing that you need to do is press the tools and settings button at the top and there should be an option to switch to expert mode so there should be an option that you're seeing in your dashboard to switch to expert mode that will help you get a dashboard that looks something like the dashboard I'm seeing obviously you won't have created any campaign so you won't have any campaigns there or you might have created one just make sure that that one is paused so the first techie thing that we need to do is we need to link up Google ads and our YouTube account the reason being is we need the two platforms to talk to each other to effectively work and communicate so what I want you to do is go to youtube. com in a new window or new tab if you haven't signed in you can just press the sign in button at the top and sign in with the same details you've used to create your Google ads account okay so once you've signed in what you need to do is you need to click the Avatar at the top right and you need to go to the YouTube studio so if you haven't created a YouTube channel before you've never been to the YouTube studio in this particular account so in most cases that's going to be people who've created a new Google account and therefore a new YouTube account there might be some um prompts when you click on the YouTube Studio to go through certain steps to create a channel so you have to give your channel a name add some art all of that kind of awesome stuff for this we're going to assume that you've already created that and then what we're going to do is we're going to go to settings on the left hand side so you go to settings and then you go to channel so go to channel and click on advanced settings now scroll down and go to the Google ads account linking what you want to do is you want to press the button that says Link account nice and simple enter a link name so you can just call it ad account doesn't need to be anything crazy and then it's going to ask you for a Google ads customer ID to get this you need to go back to your Google ads dashboard and your customer ID is in the top right of the screen what I want you to do is copy that 10 digit code go back to YouTube and paste it in the customer ID now you see ours has gone red that's because this is already Linked UP but for you it should turn green the next section is the permissions that you give to Google ads and you want all of them selected so view counts remarketing and engagement all need to be selected and once it is all selected press done now that's done on YouTube site what you need to do is you need to go back to Google ads and Link it the other way around so that they talk to each other on both sides to do that go to Google ads and in the top of your screen in the top bar click on tools and settings now once you click on tools and settings what you want to do is go to your linked accounts click the button there and then there should be a prompt from YouTube saying that there is an account that needs to be linked if not you can literally just scroll down and select YouTube and press managing link or details when you do that you'll see in this top bar we don't have one because we didn't link it that you'll have a link request from your YouTube channel so the same YouTube channel that you just linked on the YouTube side of it all you need to do is accept the permissions and Link the account so follow the steps to link the two accounts okay so now we've linked up YouTube and uh Google ads there's just one more bit of tech that we need to go through before we can actually create the campaigns and it's something called conversion tracking now Google when we run our ads we want to see in Google ads how successful are ads are going and we want to be seeing how many people are either registering for one of our trainings or a webinar or booking phone calls or purchasing our products on Google ads what they do is they use a conversion snippet which is a little bit of code that fires when someone visits a key page after taking an action on your page so what I want you to do is go into tools and settings and go to conversions and you'll be taken to a screen that looks a little bit like this again as with most things in this tutorial we've obviously run our ads for ages so we have a ton of different conversions we have a ton of different campaigns yours will be looking slightly different but the general concept is exactly the same all you need to do is press the button that says new conversion action and we're just going to pause there what I want you to do in this time is think what would a key action that someone be taking actually be so for example we measured key actions as when someone Parts with some of their information whether that be a name and an email address when they're registering for a webinar whether that be a name email address and a phone number when they're booking a call with with us to see if they want to become a private client or whether it be when they're giving their credit card information and actually purchasing a product of ours so we need to think what is a key step that someone takes when they are going through your sales process is it that you go straight to book a call and they're giving you their their um their name email address and number well we need to create a conversion event for that is it that you are running webinars where you've got free training and it's when somebody gives you their name and email address we need to create a quick conversion event for that let's say in our funnel we are just trying to get people registered for a free training so we're just trying to get their name and email address so what you need to do is you need to click on website and it would take you to a screen that looks a little bit like this you've got to put in a website domain now you can just put in your domain if you've already got a sales funnel created or a website or anything like that if you don't there's absolutely no problem you can literally just type in google. com and Press scan it's not going to affect your um your results at all you can also select either one of these two addresses and just press apply now this isn't going to stop your ads from running it's not going to keep your ads from running or anything like that so don't worry about it after that we're going to scroll down and we're going to go past the section that says create conversion actions automatically and we're going to go to a section that says create conversion actions manually using Code now that sounds scary but don't worry we're literally going to walk you through with this tutorial so it's not going to be anything you need to worry about okay so what we're going to do is we're going to press the button that says add a conversion action manually and we're taken to a screen that looks a little bit like this we've got a goal and action optimization and it gives you a few different categories now like I mentioned we're going to be you uh using a conversion event for people who give us their name and email address and they sign up for some free training so what I'm going to do is I'm going to select submit lead form if you are going straight for a call or anything like that or you're setting this up to track your calls um or your tracking purchases you can use any of these other options that they've given you for calls I would probably use something like contact or book appointment and for purchases obviously use something like purchases the next section is the conversion name so I'm just going to call it um let's call it free training lead so free training lead this is just something that helps with your own naming strategy so if you want a webinar registration you can have a webinar registration if not you can have booked call anything like that really really doesn't matter it's just internal naming so I'm going to call it free training lead the next section is the value now if you um if you're not taking any payments specifically for that action so someone's signing up for a free training or booking a call Select don't use a value if you are taking um a payment so it's a purchase then pop in the value of the purchase if you've got a couple of different payment options just put in the higher higher version that's totally fine for the count we select one and then we leave everything else the same apart from the attribution model which we switch from data driven to last click you will or you may get an error from Google saying that it's not the most accurate I tend not to listen to those because I actually do find it to be way more accurate press done and then press save and continue okay so there are two key components for getting this tag to fire correctly and actually record conversions you need something called the Google tag that is effectively a bit of code that's like Google's break and you need something called a conversion event we've just created the conversion event so before we can actually put the conversion snippet on our page on the relevant page we need to grab the Google tag so what I want you to do is click on where it says Google tag I've got a button that says try again you might say see something that says activate or set up or anything like that and what you're going to do is you're going to flick the switch from user Google tag that you already have to install a Google tag and press next we're going to forget about the installing with a website builder we're going to go for installing manually and we're going to grab the code so you can either press this copy button up at the top or you can select the whole thing and copy it so now we need to paste it on our actual sales funnel I'm using a software called click funnels you might be using any of the other softwares you might have a website on WordPress or anything like that what you need to do is you need to just navigate to your website now the global site code or also the Google tag literally the bit of code that we've just copied needs to go on every single page inside of your sales funnel so um on click funnels it's really nice and easy all you have to do is press the settings Cog at the top right and then in the body tracking code you can just paste in your Global site tag or your Google tag they're one in the same thing sometimes the names are quite interchangeable then scroll down to the bottom and press save and update settings for those of you who aren't using click funnels or using another software what you will need to do you just need to make sure it's pasted on all of the pages that you're using inside of your funnel either in the body or the footer section now before we move away from click funnels in our page I just wanted to show you the type of funnel that we've got we've got a capture page it's also known as a registration page or an opt-in page um or a a lead magnet page anything like that we've got a bridge page which is where our free training is hosted we got a book a call and then someone can fill out the form to confirm their call with us and submit an application to work with us what we do with conversion events is we need to think about what is the page after someone takes the action that they that we're tracking for that they land on because that way we know that anyone who learns on that page they would have had to have taken the action to have landed on that page so let's say um we've got this basic funnel here we've got our capture page our Bridge page our book a call Page and then they can fill out a form to submit an application now we take the name and email address on the capture page if I launch it here you'll be able to see we take the name and email address here but the page that they land on afterwards this bridge page is the only way that they're going onto that page is if they have seen if they have the only way that they're landing on that page is if they've given us their name and email address so that means the code has to fire on that page because then Google knows when someone lands on that page oh they must have given our name and email address so we navigate back to Google click on done and then we've got this submit lead form section we just press see event snippet and then we copy the snippet here you can highlight it and copy if you want or just press the copy button so then we navigate over to click funnels we press the edit page button and we paste in our tracking code in the tracking code section now on click funnels there's only a header and a footer code so we just paste the conversion snippet in the footer code if you've got a body code that's totally fine to paste in the body or if you would prefer the footer works just as well the key thing is make sure that the event snippet is pasted below the global or the Google ads tag so the Google ads tag that we pasted on all of the pages beforehand make sure that the conversion snippet is below that because it needs to fire second and then press save and you're done okay so that's all the setup done now we can get to actually launching our first YouTube ads campaign so I'm going to go over to the Google ads dashboard I'm going to close this down I'm going to press the Google ads logo at the top left when I press that it takes me to the campaign section if you're seeing something like an overview over here or it's taking you to that screen just click on campaigns on the left hand side and you'll be seeing a screen that looks similar to this click on the plus button to create a new campaign and press the button that says new campaign and you will be taken to a window that looks a little bit like this okay first of all we're going to click on website traffic now it doesn't really matter whether you use sales leads or website traffic I just found that with new accounts it just gets the ad started a little bit easier and then we do not need to worry about these conversion goals we've already set them up you should actually really only be seeing one or two we've obviously created tons in the past so that's why we're seeing so many um but just leave them all to be selected and press continue we are running YouTube ads so we only want to be showing on video so reach viewers on YouTube and get conversions and there's only one goal and that is to drive conversions press continue okay so we're into the campaign settings now it's split up into three different parts you've got the general settings you've got the ad group settings and you've got the ad settings the general settings is literally everything about the campaign as a whole so everything within the campaign they follow these settings that's stuff like locations it's stuff like the languages or anything else that your customers speak the next section is the ad group section that's everything to do with targeting and then the ad section is to do with the video ads that we are running so campaign name what you want to do is you want to call your campaign either custom Google audiences or custom URLs so when we run our ads we only use one type of targeting so we did some research uh earlier where we found custom Google audiences so that was what people are searching for on Google and YouTube literally the stuff they're typing in and we did another one based on the websites that they are visiting we just want to split them into two different campaigns so select one or the other so you can either go with your websites one and then repeat this tutorial and do the custom Google audiences or you can do vice versa and follow along with me and go for the custom Google audiences but what you want to do is you want to put the topic in so that's going to be weight loss it's about completely wrong and then CGA to be custom Google audiences or anything that will help you remember that it's a custom Google audience campaign the next section is your locations Now by default it will either be set to all countries and territories or um the the place that your ad account is in what we tend to do is we use the big five so if you have a global audience then we target the United States Australia Canada New Zealand and the United Kingdom those um other five locations that we found work really really well if you've got a local business or you only want to be targeting people in the United Kingdom or the US and Canada obviously just enter in the correct locations not really rocket science so I'm going to pop in the big five that we're going to be using look how quick I type the next section is languages nice and easy it's just the language that you speak in your ads if you speak French obviously you put in French if you speak English but in English now you're taken to Australia a section that talks about the bid strategy there's two different strategies that Google recommends either maximize conversions or Target CPA maximize conversions is good for beginner accounts so if you're just starting out your account and you haven't got any data I would recommend using maximized conversions with low budgets if you have got conversion data in your account you've run YouTube ads before switch to Target CPA click on the the window where you can put in or the section where you can put in the CPA and Google will give you a suggested one I tend to go in the middle of the two suggestions so I'm going to go for 35 pounds as a Target CPA just bear in mind your budget can be lower than the target CPA this is just a Target that we're giving um Google so we say to Google I want you to be getting in registrants or conversions so that's people signing up for the free um training that we've got sorted for 35 pounds and under now it's not a guarantee that Google will hit those numbers they might find that it's not possible to get those numbers with the funnel that you've created and you need to take an internal look and think okay is there something going wrong with my ads is the messaging off or anything like that or they might absolutely smash it out the park and we find this a lot of the times with the ads we run but we'd set a relatively High Target CPA and still get low lead costs the next section is your budget and dates I don't even worry about the dates I just run my ads and pause them when I want to pause them um but your budget is important now this is something to consider you don't want to be spending more than what you can afford over the course of a month so when I'm working out my budgets for our YouTube ads campaign I think what is my monthly budget so how much do I want to be spending on Google ads or on YouTube ads over the month and then I divide that by 30.