YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine in the world, with over a 1 billion users and people that are watching 50% more video on the platform year over year.

For marketers and advertisers, this represents a huge opportunity to get in front of their target audience. And YouTube video advertising has evolved dramatically over the last several years.

This year, Google is on a mission to convince advertisers to use more relevant video ads with new tools and updates that can help you target a very specific audience.  

From the new tools introduced recently by YouTube, Director Mix is one of the most notable. This technology allows you to create multiple video ads tailored for different audiences using a single creative asset.  According to Tara Walpert Levy- Google vice president of agency and media solutions- Director Mix is built to let you upload multiple ad building blocks, like different cuts of commercial video footage, voiceovers, and copy variations.

Brands like McDonald’s and  Campbell’s Soup are already using this new tool in order to create more personalized, targeted ads.

In order to let you target a very precise audience, Google is expanding the capabilities of its Custom Affinity Audiences offering.  With the new features, you will be able to use data from other parts of the web Google touches-such as Google Maps- for this ad targeting option. You can also create multiple ad variations using Google's data and tools to strategically sequence different ads.  For creating a complete story, you can also show a person ads in a particular order.

If you want to measure the impact of your ads in terms of offline sales, Google introduced another new tool- Nielsen’s Matched Panel Analysis.

Youtube offers you a lot of tools to target the perfect audience. But, for a successful campaign, you also need to deliver the perfect video content. We present you the “Novopleco on shaky ground - Roadtrip to ‘De Danske Sydhavskyster’” case study, a perfect example of creating relevant content for your audience.

Vizeum launched the Novopleco on shaky ground - Roadtrip to ‘De Danske Sydhavskyster’”campaign in order to drive more visitors to the southern coast of Denmark.

Anton and Albert, who were the boys behind the Youtube channel, were sent on a road trip to the attractions of the area and were asked to document their experiences through a series of challenges. Based on the insight of the target group’s interests and behaviors on YouTube, it was essential to keep the content entertaining and not coming off as an advertisement.

The output was a mini-series of five sections of approximately 10 minutes duration each Sunday in April to May and published on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat in an orchestrated and integrated flow.

The campaign was distributed as webisodes during a period of six weeks. Every video-launch was supported by social media channels before, during and after the post. The campaign got more than 1.8 million organic views on YouTube and Facebook with a view through rate of almost 60% on the 5 x 10 minute videos.

The campaign got more than 1.8 million organic views on YouTube and Facebook with a view through rate of almost 60% on the 5 x 10-minute videos. The content generated more than 128,000 likes, comments and shares across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Momio.