Is promoting your videos with Google Adwords worth it?

[MyBigBrain]

Hi there,

how has it been going so far, have you had any positive experience with the ad?

It's too early to say.

Each day I am tweaking something, then waiting to see if that has any impact, and then tweaking something else the next day. One day I block the ad from showing on mobile phones, the next day I am setting the ad to display in all world languages, the next day I suspect Argentina and Egypt to be click farms so block them, the next day I set the ad to display in English only.

I think that I've read somewhere that adwords needs at least 3 months of tweaking and monitoring to get a good return on investment. Adwords allows a lot more control than Adwords Express (almost zero control), but this makes Adwords very complex. However, I am getting much better results with Adwords than Adwords Express.

One thing I've come to realise - as someone alludes to in the post above this one - is that Adwords is more suited to a website selling something for profit. If paying 10 cents for a visitor who is looking for something specific come to the website and buying something, then spending $5000 a month to make $25,000 profit makes total sense. But spending as low as 5 cents for a visitor to view a YT video (or subscribe) results in no direct profit, therefore visitor could view the video for 5 seconds or 30 minutes, and there is no direct profit, even if they end up viewing more videos. Viewing a video is different from buying a product - one results in no tangible profit, and the other results in tangible profit.

In total I've spend about $6 on Adsense so far, and I've got a budget of $100/month, so I am happy to play with Adsense for at least 3 months to see what, if anything will result.

I will give another update in another month or so, when I have more data.

 

[MyBigBrain]

I've decided to stop using Adwords. It has not been effective for my channel.

 

[MZ-101]

I think, since you’re getting 100 - 200 views, AdWords promotion is okay. The risk with promotion is the content you’re promoting. If it is b******t, people won’t care. The added risk with online promotion, and especially YouTube is people have the ability to click over them, so you gotta’ ensure you have a short, and interesting video for people, so people won’t click over as much. However, knowing this, I still haven’t answered your question. Merely stated the pros and cons.

To answer, it’s up to you, and your financial status. You’ll definitely get a return from advertising, but the more you put into it, the more success you’ll see. Start small, and build up on it.

 

[DIY Reid]

I've used AdWords for a few videos to try and get them going. You will get more views. For $10 you'll get about 1,500 views. I have found that spending $5 on Fivver.com you'll get more than 1,500 views. The only issue with this is these views are very short most likely and most people that clicked on the ad or link have to either be hooked right after the get-go or they leave the video. So views you'll get but time retention you most likely won't get.

 

[sanitary103]

Adwords will of course get you views but like others mentioned, it could kill your retention rate on a video, unless it's something very intriguing. Now, no one knows 100% sure what the current Youtube algorithm is but high retention rate seems to be the consensus when it comes to what Youtube currently values.

Not sure if anyone mentioned this b/c I did not go through the entire thread but be sure if you're going to use Adwords to look at the "earned views" column. If you're spending a grip on an ad campaign, getting poor retention rates on that video and are not getting any earned views, then it might be time to reassess. For people that don't know, earned views are views that show proof that person clicked on at least 1 other video from your channel if I'm not mistaken. If they click on multiple videos, it will still show up as "1 earned view". So at 50 earned views, you are getting 50 different people clicking on at least 1 other video if not more, especially if you find someone who's hooked on your channel. If you start converting these people into subscribers, then to me, some of your money spent on ads may be worth it.

 

[throwaway-s]

I've used AdWords for a few videos to try and get them going. You will get more views. For $10 you'll get about 1,500 views. I have found that spending $5 on Fivver.com you'll get more than 1,500 views. The only issue with this is these views are very short most likely and most people that clicked on the ad or link have to either be hooked right after the get-go or they leave the video. So views you'll get but time retention you most likely won't get.

What do you mean by spending 5$ on Fiver you'll get views?

I'm just curious, not familiar with the site.

 

[DIY Reid]

What do you mean by spending 5$ on Fiver you'll get views?

I'm just curious, not familiar with the site.

For instance, this Fiverr job posting says for $5 they will share your video with an audience size of 80000 which potentially will net you 1,000 or so views.

EDIT: won't let me post a link, either way, go to fiverr.com and type in Youtube Promotion