YouTube Bumper Ads

These days, advertisements on the internet have to be shining stars in order to get the attention of the fast-paced internet user.

One of the most creative and quickest ways for businesses to reach a potential audience comes in the form of bumper ads on YouTube.

Let’s take a look at how YouTube advertising works, how to create an effective bumper ad, and how much the average bumper ad will cost.

What is a Bumper Ad on YouTube?

YouTube has several different advertising formats for businesses and brands to generate reach.

When a business looks to YouTube in order to create an advertising campaign, they’re given several different options.

For example, they can create skippable in-stream ads, overlay ads, where their ad is at the top of a YouTube page, or non-skippable ads that play in the middle of a video.

How Long Are YouTube Bumper Ads?

A bumper ad is a 6-second video placed right at the beginning or in the middle of YouTube videos. Because these ads are so short in length, they have to be quick and to the point in order to be effective.

Bumper ads can run as standalone ad campaigns, or as part of a larger campaign focused on increasing reach and potential clients.

Can You Skip Bumper Ads on YouTube?

One of the perks in utilizing YouTube bumper ads is that the user cannot skip these advertisements.

For your average internet user, being faced with an unskippable video ad can cause some minor annoyance. In order to get past this reaction, the shorter and more to the point your ad is, the better.

That’s why using YouTube bumper ads can be a better option than longer, TrueView ads (a video ad that gives the viewer the option to skip after 5 seconds).

There’s no way for a user to skip a bumper ad unless they’re subscribed to YouTube’s premium subscription service, where the user pays $11.99/month in order to watch videos without advertisements.

However, this doesn’t mean that YouTube bumper ads aren’t worth it. YouTube boasts an average of 2 billion active users, with only 2.5% of those users subscribed to YouTube premium.

When you focus your creativity and energy on YouTube bumper ads, you’re reaching a potential client base of hundreds of millions, if not billions.

What Makes An Effective YouTube Bumper Ad?

The goal of any advertisement is to drive engagement, create action, and build a new audience or client base. In order to effectively do that, it’s important to know the ins and outs of the ad formats that you choose.

Because YouTube bumper ads are only a few seconds long, creating compelling videos is paramount to their success.

Effective bumper ads are going to increase brand awareness, and have good ad recall. You want people to be thinking about your bumper ads after they’ve already started watching their intended video!

Keep an Eye on the Big Picture

Because of the short format, getting everything that you need to say into a 6-second format is probably not going to work. When looking at running bumper ad campaigns, keep in mind the big picture.

These smaller YouTube bumper ads can build up to something bigger.

Running several 6-second advertisements that build up the information can be just as effective as running 30-second TrueView ads, especially since the longer ads are usually skippable at 5 seconds.

Be Aware of Your Audience

After someone clicks on a YouTube video, their main focus is not always going to be on the ad that plays before it. When your ad plays, you want to make sure it immediately grabs the user’s attention.

Don’t try to fit too much into your time frame, and don’t use too many visuals. Start with simple visuals that will encourage ad recall, and end with a call to action.

Focus on the Brand Awareness

Unlike 30-second YouTube ads, bumper ads can’t focus on every aspect of your brand at once. In order to increase brand awareness, you’re going to want to take those 6 seconds and really narrow down your focus.

Once you’ve narrowed that focus to a single aspect of your brand, you can work to make the best use of your 6 seconds. This is why running multiple bumper ads at once is optimal for creating brand awareness.

Flex Your Creativity

More than just used to reach a target audience or expand your brand awareness, bumper ads are an amazing creative tool for storytelling.

Because of the short format, the creativity that can blossom is unmatched in longer advertisements.

Think outside the box, and you’ll be sure to build that brand awareness and reach that you’re looking for. Some of the most effective YouTube bumper ads use the short format to be clever and compelling.

Remember the Big Three

When creating your bumper ads, you want to remember the three most important things that come with video ads:

1. Brand Logo;
2. Call-to-Action;
3. Eye-Catching Video.

Your bumper ads should always include your brand logo, as well as a simple and easy call to action for the audience to follow, and an eye-catching and compelling video to catch their attention.

Remember these “big three”, and your ad will do all the work for you.

How Much do Bumper Ads Cost on YouTube?

Now, let’s take a look at the cost breakdown of running a YouTube bumper ad. Like most advertising formats, the cost is going to vary based on what you’re looking to run, the length of the campaign, and how much time, effort, and production go into it.

How Much Does it Cost to Produce An Ad?

Producing your own advertisements doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. There are plenty of ad creation tools that will help you create an interesting and dynamic ad to jumpstart your new campaign.

If you’re running a small business or are just starting out, you might not have all the resources yet to build your own ads.

Ad-Builder Tools

Billo.app is an affordable ad creation tool that can really help you step into the world of YouTube bumper ads. Creators on Billo bid for your project.

Then, you can send them all of the information they need, ship the products, and sit back while they come up with a creative and engaging ad for you to display.

All of the creators on Billo are skilled and vetted, which means that you know you’re getting the best of the best.

And it doesn’t have to break the bank. Billo is an affordable ad creation tool, with no hidden costs. You’ll be able to get started for as little as $59 per video.

How Much Do YouTube Bumper Ads Cost?

Once you’ve got your YouTube bumper ad ready to go, the next thing you’re going to want to look at is the cost of actually running the ad on YouTube.

Running a YouTube bumper ad is definitely going to be the most cost-efficient in terms of advertising.

For a YouTuber bumper ad, you’re only going to be paying the CPM, or the cost per mille. This means that you’ll only be charged for every thousand views your bumper has, rather than paying for every time that it’s run.

Generally, YouTube bumper ads will run you about $1 to $4 per one thousand views.

And while this isn’t exact pricing, it can help you determine what your budget is going to be. However, if you’re going to be running multiple video ads at the same time, be aware that this cost can add up.

How To Set Up YouTube Bumper Ads

Setting up an ad campaign to run you bumper ads is not as daunting of a task as one might expect.

Let’s look into all the steps that actually go into setting up YouTube ads after the video ad has already been created, edited, and produced.

• Create a Google Ads Account

The first thing you’re going to want to do is create an account with Google Ads. This is where all of your YouTube ad campaigns will be run, including all the different types of video ads that YouTube offers.

You can also keep an eye out on detailed demographics with regards to who is being shown your ads.

• Start a New Campaigns

From your account, you’re going to want to create a new campaign. Click the Campaign button that will take you to your campaigns page, and then click the + button and select “New Campaign”.

• Select Your Goal

For bumper ads, you’re going to want to choose “brand awareness and reach” as your ad goal. This will ensure that your ad is shown to the right people on the right videos.

• Video Campaign Type

Now, it’s time to select you type of video campaign. In this case, you’re going to select video as your campaign type, and then select Bumper.

• Fill Out the Information

Next, you’re going to fill out your campaign name. After that, you’ll find a list of information that you’ll need to fill out in order to make sure that your bumper ads are shown to your target audiences.

Here, you can choose your networks, set your budget, your audience’s language, and any other advanced settings.

You’re going to enter your ad group name, as well as your target CPM.

• Create Your Video Ad

Here, you’ll put the URL of your YouTube video that has your ad. Remember, bumper ads must be 6 seconds or shorter. Under the video format section, select Bumper ad.

Next, you can enter the video’s final URL, the display URL, and customize the URL options.

• Banner Options

Almost done! The next step is to choose whether you’d like YouTube to auto-generate a banner to go with your ad, or if you want to upload your own image. Both options have their perks.

If you already have a companion banner designed, go ahead and upload it.

• Save Your Ad

The last step is to enter your ad name, hit save, and then continue. The next page will take you to upload your new ad campaign.

Let’s Recap

Bumper ads are a great way to showcase your business, product, or service to your target audience. YouTube viewers will be shown your ad for 6 seconds before their selected video.

It’s a creative way to get your information out there and expand your brand reach.

Since these bumper ads are unskippable and only allow for 6 seconds, you’re going to want to showcase the best parts of your brand before the ad ends.

Keep your ad simple, focus on your campaign goal, and try to include the best part of your product features.

Setting up your ad campaign is as easy as a few steps. Now that you have all the information you need to create compelling, exciting, and memorable 6-second ads, you’ll be able to explore the world of YouTube bumper ads.