Have you paid to promote channel?

jnet

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So I know there are many free ways to promote your channel, like social media. But I'm wondering if anyone has paid to do ads or stuff in real life to promote it and what your results were. How much did you spend and did it work?
 

BrettMikaluk

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I had one of my videos set to promote but I don't actually know if anything happened with it.... I would say it probably isn't worth it if you're below about 10,000 subscribers
 
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Brandon

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Hey! I'm currently running a paid advertisement on the video in my signature since yesterday through Google Adwords for Video with a spending cap of $35 at $4.50/day. I am going to make a more complete in-depth analysis thread about it whenever my promotion ends, but so far:

Since yesterday evening around 5pm when it started, I've received around 240ish views a day since I ran it (not counting the views I had before I ran the promotion) and gained 9 earned views. Meaning, only 9 people watched the ad and then watched more of my videos after. I've gained 4 subscribers yesterday and some today, but they havent' calculated yet in analytics. Hence why I said I'll create a more complete analysis when all of the data is correct. I'm kind of guessing a bit since it's all being calculated still and I'm doing it manually for you. :)

I had one of my videos set to promote but I don't actually know if anything happened with it.... I would say it probably isn't worth it if you're below about 10,000 subscribers
That is how it seems so far.
 
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Annie's Vegan Journey

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No, I haven't. I've only recently heard about this too and I'm also curious about what other people have experienced on this topic. :D
 

BrettMikaluk

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Hey! I'm currently running a paid advertisement on the video in my signature since yesterday through Google Adwords for Video with a spending cap of $35 at $4.50/day. I am going to make a more complete in-depth analysis thread about it whenever my promotion ends, but so far:

Since yesterday evening around 5pm when it started, I've received around 240ish views a day since I ran it (not counting the views I had before I ran the promotion) and gained 9 earned views. Meaning, only 9 people watched the ad and then watched more of my videos after. I've gained 4 subscribers yesterday and some today, but they havent' calculated yet in analytics. Hence why I said I'll create a more complete analysis when all of the data is correct. I'm kind of guessing a bit since it's all being calculated still and I'm doing it manually for you. :)



That is how it seems so far.

Very interested in seeing the results of this, keep us posted!
 

Iain

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Facebook ads with targetting could / should work very well, but I think it would work better with some types of content and in some niches than others.

For example, a general vlogging channel probably wouldn't do as well as say a sports car/racing/motorsport channel with a video being promoted on track days to people that have listed track days or motorsport or X/Y/Z of track day cars in their interests...
 

Philip Jensen

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Hey! I'm currently running a paid advertisement on the video in my signature since yesterday through Google Adwords for Video with a spending cap of $35 at $4.50/day. I am going to make a more complete in-depth analysis thread about it whenever my promotion ends, but so far:

Since yesterday evening around 5pm when it started, I've received around 240ish views a day since I ran it (not counting the views I had before I ran the promotion) and gained 9 earned views. Meaning, only 9 people watched the ad and then watched more of my videos after. I've gained 4 subscribers yesterday and some today, but they havent' calculated yet in analytics. Hence why I said I'll create a more complete analysis when all of the data is correct. I'm kind of guessing a bit since it's all being calculated still and I'm doing it manually for you. :)



That is how it seems so far.
4 subscribers for 4.5 $?
Then you just need to flesh out a couple of thousands and you're rolling. :O Looking forward to hear how it all went!
 
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The thing about Adwords campaigns is the thumbnail matters so very much to get the traffic. No one's searching for your video, so all they have to go on is the thumbnail. This is why that "Disney Channel" kid got so many views... the thumbnail was "clickbait" for lack of a better term.

2 Examples:

I ran a campaign last month against a video where I show how to wall-mount triple monitors.
Budget: $20 or $3.something a day (stopped it part of the way through)
Spent: CDN $12.97
Impressions: 23,151
Views: 347
View Rate: 1.50% (this is an important metric)
Average Cost per View: CDN $0.04
Earned Views: 7 (this is the most important metric)
Cost per Earned View: $1.85 earned view

I ran a campaign this week (it ended this morning) against my new channel trailer. Because I'm working on a star trek fan film and wanted to showcase that as "upcoming" content, my thumbnail is me wearing a captain's red-shirt uniform along with some vulcan ears. This had an interesting result.

Budget: $100 or $14.xx/day (I extended it part of the way through to $20/day)
Spent: CDN $156.71
Impressions: 54,108
Views:11,782
View Rate: 21.77% (this is almost unheard of... I kept getting daily emails from google adwords saying my campaign was excessively popular)
Average Cost per View: CDN $0.01
Earned Views: 124
Cost per Earned View: $1.26 earned view

Ultimately not really worth the investment, but still interesting results.

Seems like my "clickbait" (I guess but not really?) thumbnail grasped a lot of attention, but that my channel trailer wasn't as convincing as I would have liked. My cost per earned view was better but not significantly better compared to my first campaign.

Edit: I just viewed my results "per Ad group" and "In-display" ads (those that show in the right-hand column) had a 2.62% view rate. My "in-stream" results (the videos shown at the start of another video) had a %38.92 view rate!!! That's cool.. almost half of the people bothered to watch my trailer that saw my goofy star trek getup.
 
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EVO

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I used Google Adwords a few times. I see some extra views / extra subs but not enough to warrant the extra cost.
Who knows down the line if it had an after effect?
Personally I would just concenrate on making the best videos within your genre and the views will naturally come.
 

Digital Beast

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I've seriously considered doing it :V. I really have.

Although everyone on this thread is pretty helpful so I think I'll wait until I hopefully have more subs DX