We Spent Money on YouTube Ads for Our Podcast… Here’s What Happened!

[00:00:04] Hey guys, welcome back to Content Is Profit. Today we're going to be talking about a very specific and tactical topic when it comes to podcasting and content in general, specifically inside of YouTube. So my question to you is like, have you run any paid ads or paid promotions inside of your YouTube channel? And the answer specifically for us until last week was no.

[00:00:28] And we did some digging. We had a couple of calls, not because of that, but those calls kind of enlightened us to try something new for the growth of the show. And I'm here to share some of those results. And they've been pretty incredible, to be completely honest. And I think it opened the floodgates to something. And, you know, the call that triggered this is about a couple of weeks ago, we hop on a call with somebody that referred us, be like, hey guys, we have these customers.

[00:00:57] They're incredible. They, you know, they make millions of dollars every single year in their specific niche. They have a podcast, they have a local studio that they record on, they have high quality content, they do shorts, they've done anything, everything organically. They have more than 600 episodes. So at this point, we're like, we're talking about a very seasoned podcaster, right, or platform, but they've been stagnant. So we jump on the call, we start asking questions, and we discover that they've tried a lot of the organic things that we see online, you know, every single day.

[00:01:26] And we get to a point about 40 minutes into the call that I asked him, hey, have you guys tried any paid advertising? And they said, no, we have not tried that. So maybe that's the thing. And, you know, we continue the conversation. And there's a few ways to do paid advertising for podcasting or content in general. But again, I'm going to keep it under the frame of video podcasting for the sake of the episode.

[00:01:51] And they went, you know, maybe that's something that we asked the current company that we're working on and see what we can do. So a light bulb came up because in our specific case, little context, our main platform is Audio Platform. Thank you for those listening. And thank you for those coming into our world because of video as well. But our main platform has always been Audio. And we've done everything organically there. We joined a big network. We've done exchanges. We've done, you know, we've done paid ads on audio platforms.

[00:02:20] We've received shout outs from incredible podcasts like with Jenna Kutcher and My First Million. So all these things that happen, and those are things that have helped grow the show in those platforms. And so far, what we've done on YouTube, which is, you know, if you're watching right now, we are basically grabbing the video format of that episode and we put it on there to make sure that we're present. You know, little by little, you see, you know, some videos resonate more than others, but it was not really significant when it comes to growing the show.

[00:02:48] Right. And the face value of the channel, that was something that we were like, hey, you know, we're putting the content out here. Hopefully people will discover it. And we were, you know, putting a lot of intention, I guess, behind the promotion of the YouTube content. Or maybe the SEO of the YouTube content, right? We've been like you guys have been learning, you know, all these years to do that. We're mainly a production company. And then we have these conversations with incredible entrepreneurs asking them, how are they winning content?

[00:03:15] You know, we've been very blessed that we found the formula to winning at content with the relationships that we built throughout the show. So if you want to know more, there's an episode called Publishing Pyramid and the Six Figure Platform and the Pipeline Platform that will help you kind of understand how we monetize our podcast. But we've never really monetized the part of the audience and growing. And up to this point, we've been in a place where we haven't really needed to advertise. But the calls like the one on Friday kept happening.

[00:03:45] And over the last two years, we had several conversations with big, big producers, producers from the Alex Hormosi podcast, like The Game, from producers from Ed Milet, that has contacts with the platforms from Mel Robbins, for example. So like all these big podcasters. And literally, I went on Tableface, you know, moment and I was like, hey, how are you guys growing these shows to be top 10 in your industry, in the podcasting world, right?

[00:04:15] Because I've had these conversations with decent podcasters. They've had experience. They've tried a ton of stuff, but they seem to hit a plateau, right? And I think a lot of people listening, maybe that they're producing content, they experience that at some point in their creation life, I guess. And we get discouraged, right? Maybe because we're not trying, we're not getting to new audiences. We're not receiving feedback fast enough.

[00:04:40] And every single one of them, except one producer, told me that they're investing heavily on ads and promotions on YouTube. So, light bulb moment, and I was like, okay, well, let's try something new here. You know, we continue. If you've missed the last few episodes about the publishing pyramid and how to manage those resources, I highly recommend it because this will fit right in there. So, the approach that we have with our content is an approach, a scientific approach.

[00:05:07] Like, we have a theory, we're going to test it out, we'll see what happens, and then we debrief with the results, right? And the context here for us, our podcasts, our conversations that happen very organically. We don't do any SEO research. You know, before that, we document our journey. So, it's purely almost based on things that are happening today in this world and literally our point of view of, you know, what's happening. So, there's no any kind of optimization. We have shows in the studio that do that as a little bit of a different process.

[00:05:36] So, what we did here is like, okay, let's use the promotion tab on YouTube, which is if you go to your YouTube studio under the video category, scroll to the right, you're going to see there a promotion tab. And you click there and it's going to help you run a promotion. So, I have a list here next to me and we're going to go across. We're going to mention a few things, right? Like, obviously, you know, what is a YouTube promotion tab?

[00:05:58] You know, an overview, a super over, you know, simplify is a simplified ad tool within YouTube studio for boosting your video visibility, right? So, it's almost like a boost button on Instagram, for example, if you've tried that. So, up to this point, we've tried Instagram ads, not only for a podcast but for different projects. We've tried Facebook ads for the live show when we did the live show. And it's not a – excuse me. And it's not a super in-depth ad tool.

[00:06:28] It's not like Google ads but you have to connect that – your Google ads account to be able to run these ads, right? It is available for channels with advanced features, normally more than 1,000 subscribers. When we started this, we didn't have 1,000 subscribers. So, I highly encourage you go check it out and see what happens, right? And surprisingly, I did some research and we found a ton of massive creators that are using this tool to promote their videos, right?

[00:06:53] So, obviously, you grow views, you grow subscribers, and then you also reached new audiences. So, how do you set this up, right? I'm going to give you like a quick list on how do you set up the YouTube promotion. And then at the end of this, by the way, I'm going to share a little bit of our results which are really, really exciting. But obviously, you know, you access the promotion tab. You link it with your Google ad account if you don't have one. So, when we did it, I had one that was kind of dormant. It was very simple, a couple of steps. You choose your goal. Very simple. Is it am I going to grow my audience?

[00:07:23] Do I want more video views or do I want more website clicks? I encourage try each one and see what happens. Obviously, you have to select a video that goes in there and you have to target your audience. Now, this targeting is super wide and we're going to go a little bit into it in just a second. But, you know, basic targeting options like location and language. Those are literally two things. So, we have like the top five countries where people listen to our podcast.

[00:07:50] So, I went to our audio analytics and I found those five. And those are the countries that we're putting there and we're putting people that speak English. I don't want to show my ads to people that don't understand English. So, and then you review that, you assign a budget and then you launch it. So, super simple. The promotion tab is going to walk you through all that stuff, right? Now, here are some best practices when it comes to do this. So, this is a cool part.

[00:08:15] Let YouTube AI kind of help you promote this and do the heavy lifting when selecting the audiences. So, this is what happens when you start reading the data that comes through, right? Over targeting, like if you select like very, very specific, you know, countries, for example, or the language side or if you go to the ads manager and you like go super granular,

[00:08:37] it might actually hurt it because what you're trying to do is cast this white net so YouTube can show your content a little bit more if you don't have any traction there, which is what was happening with our conversations. And then from there, people that might be interested because they consume that same type of content, then they'll flock to your channel and then they're either going to like it, they're going to subscribe, they're going to watch it, or they're going to bounce off. And now that's the data that you're going to collect and you're going to see, okay, what was my click-through rate, right?

[00:09:05] What's the amount of traffic that's coming from this YouTube ad? And are people actually listening or watching my show, right? So, those are the things. Now, when it comes to budget, a lot of people, when we talk to the people in our studio, if they have advertised or have done things like that, they get really, really paranoid when the word advertising comes on. It might be intimidating for a lot of people. It certainly was for us for a long time. And, you know, we've done very specific advertising campaigns from very specific projects.

[00:09:34] Like I said, our podcast has grown organically up to this point and we never really felt the need to do that. But now, testing this stuff and we're like, well, maybe we can do something, right? And before, you had to spend thousands of dollars to maybe show something. And, you know, when it comes to ads, we've always preferred to run it to where like, okay, if I put a dollar in, is there a system that we can follow as in like, where's the landing page, opt-in page, what are they buying, right? Where we can be like, okay, if we put one dollar in, can we actually break even?

[00:10:03] Now, with the podcast and the type of product that we offer, which is a service, right? It was like really challenging to track that. And we decided to kind of hold off and kind of invest in the relationships and doing that. So, there's both ways work. It's just for us, we decided to do that. Now, if we're now interested in growing the viewership and viewing the subscribers of the face value of the channel, and I'll give you a case study in just a second about like a friend's company that they've also tried to do this. Maybe this is a great way.

[00:10:33] Maybe you go and find some sponsors to finance the growth of the platform, right? And what we're testing now is like, okay, how much money do we actually have to put in place in these like promotion campaigns inside of YouTube to create almost like this like mass of initial subscribers and views to then we can start seeing data coming at a more rapid pace and see if organically we can get better at create as a creator, at creating the content, giving the message.

[00:11:02] So, then that content kind of goes on its own without the help of the advertising, right? So, here's a couple of optimization tips. You know, how much do you actually spend? They recommend a daily budget between five to ten bucks a day, right? So, you stop drinking your coffee, you put it in there, right? So, here's what we've done on our side. We've tested three main videos of the long-form content for about, we put in $20 each video.

[00:11:29] So, if you go to our channel right now, this is coming out, you know, real time. You can go see and you can actually see if you go to click the videos, you're going to see the difference on those. There's the ones that we put advertising. Some of them had gone 5,000 views, 3,000 views versus maybe the hundreds or the 50-ish views that we get normally with the video podcast. So, we're like, okay, first of all, vanity metric, 100%. I don't care. Like, I'm okay with like one view.

[00:11:57] But this is pretty interesting because it's accelerating the process of discovering the real audience and who's actually listening. And it's helping us identify maybe situations that we've identified in audio. But for the visual consumer, we can see, okay, what's the click-to-the-reads? Are thumbnails working? Are they not working? Are the titles resonating? Are we delivering on the promise? Of this episode, right? And then they recommend at least seven-day campaign.

[00:12:25] I am literally trying to get it as fast as possible. So, when you set the campaign, you put, okay, I invest today. And then they give you an option of like minimum days. I'm always putting the minimum days, see what happens. I just want faster feedback. And then you can adjust your budget, right? I think in our specific dashboard, they tell us about $100. We'll get better results. I'm okay testing very small budgets right now. So, I think we're going to be spending this month about $200 just on the show and see what happens.

[00:12:51] But we also went from 200 subscribers, super grateful for those that found us organically, to almost now 2,000 subscribers, right? And a very good mix from the U.S., which is super exciting. So, new people now are going to be seeing the content that we produce coming out. And hopefully, that translates into organic content. You know, maybe I can do an episode about a few months later. So, you know, how do you measure the success of your campaign, right?

[00:13:18] For me, that's a big win because $200 a month might not be super relevant, but it's giving me some data and resources. And now I have something that I can go be and parlay some ads maybe with new sponsors of the show. If you're listening and you're interested, let us know. But we can maybe dump some of that money into advertising to grow the show together with a paid promotion, right? So, obviously, you know, views and view rate. That's a thing like how long are they watching my videos? That to me is a very important data point.

[00:13:48] You know, subscribers and engagement. Are people commenting on the videos? Are they liking the videos? You know, we had one video specifically that a lot of people like really, really like. So, that was exciting, right? To see that feedback. And then, obviously, you can go more into detail with your Google Ads reports if you are familiar with those. So, a couple of takeaways that we wrote in here. YouTube Studio, right?

[00:14:14] The promotion tab is a very simple but also a very powerful tool for you to test your content. And here's the cool part. Here's the cool part. It's like when we tested this thing in these three videos, the second day we saw a crazy spike in our audio downloads. So, my theory, and we've seen this across the whole week. My theory is that we're putting this advertising dollars into YouTube. People understand that that's a podcast.

[00:14:41] They might consume on YouTube, but then they go to their favorite podcasting platform and listen there. So, that to me is exciting. That's one of the theories that we're testing and see what happens, right? You know, you focus on choosing the right video. That's very important, right? Targeting effectively as in like countries and the language, right? And then manage your budget wisely. Don't go super crazy. Start with like very small amounts and see what happens. But the right video is super important.

[00:15:07] You know, in our specific case, I do believe that what we create here is like it's super authentic. And these are thoughts. That was the main goal of the podcast between the conversations and our solo content. So, any video that we put in there, we'll get feedback and we'll get it faster. If people are clicking but they're not watching, why they're not watching? We start asking these questions so we can get better creators. But at the same time, through that process, we're getting subscribers and we're getting people into our channel to start experimenting with our content, right?

[00:15:37] Obviously, encourage your listeners to try, you know, to your subscribers. Sorry. Obviously, encourage your subscribers and the people in their YouTube channel to continue to share those videos and so on if they were valuable. So, these are my initial thoughts on this. We've invested in three videos, 20 bucks each. We've gained over 1,500 subscribers.

[00:16:01] The views, I think there were like something like 20,000 views, which, by the way, they don't count towards your eligibility if you want to qualify for like a creator that earns money from YouTube. But it does raise the channel and those new subscribers, your content is going to be present on their screens. In our specific case, we've seen the ads show up a lot in TV. So, that helps us.

[00:16:25] Okay, well, can we record content in better quality and, you know, make it a lot better for the consumer that is actually watching this video? So, super interesting. The case study that we saw is this company that they've been trying to run. I cannot say their name is super confidential, but they work with gamers all around the country and they've been looking for very big, big sponsors. They have live events all over the country.

[00:16:50] And the big unlock for them was with the money that they were investing for a couple of influencer posts outside to try to bring that audience into YouTube. They've quadrupled the amount of traffic inside of YouTube without having to deal with the other creators and the control. They have full control over the content and they've been able to quadruple that. And then with that, they can go get new sponsors for not only the events, but also for their channel. So, it's been a big win as well.

[00:17:18] We've been collaborating with them and it's been fun. So, if you have tried promotion tabs or ads for your video podcasting, I would like to hear from you to share the results. Maybe we come on to the show and we do an interview. But these are, again, my initial thoughts about this whole strategy and tactic. And we're going to continue testing probably about 20 bucks a video and see what happens, see where we end up as far as like the channel growth. And if people actually enjoy the content that we're putting out.

[00:17:47] Like I said, priority, like our main priority is developing relationships with the guests that come to the show and our audio platform. So, for that, it's something different. But we're probably going to be writing something a little bit more into this because obviously a lot of creators are going into YouTube to be discovered. So, super exciting times. And thank you for listening. If you have any questions, send it out on social media at BizRoseCo. I'm happy to check out with that. You can also find us on Facebook and every platform.

[00:18:17] You can find me at LuisThatCreates on Instagram. And don't forget, we have businesscreator.club. If you want to come join. Fonzie just had a kid. Yay! He's a new dad. So, that's why you hear my voice a little bit more than his. And we're going to be probably starting Business Creator Club when he gets a hold of life and can make it back to the studio. But in the meantime, you have access to resources that are there and Q&As.

[00:18:44] And we jump on with the people in the studio and kind of help each other out when it comes to content. So, with that said, guys, thank you so much for tuning into the Content is Profit podcast. And I will see you on the next one. Take care. Bye.