Buying YouTube ads from bloggers for a crypto exchange

Work on the project

The main advantage of opinion leaders is that they have already gathered your target audience. They have an established relationship of trust with this audience and are ready to share this trust with your product.

Thanks to advertising, the trust from the blogger is transferred to your product, creating the effect of high-quality word of mouth. It is also important that bloggers carefully choose the advertisers they work with, which further increases the level of trust in your campaign.

When a business decides to buy advertising from bloggers, it usually has two main goals. The first is to redirect traffic to external sources and the second is to promote your own YouTube channel.

In this case, the client asked us to manage traffic to external sources, which he tracked from the description to the video.

Pros and cons of this solution

There are pros and cons to working with bloggers that you should consider before deciding to buy advertising.

Advantages:

• The ability to easily find a target audience that is already interested in your product.
• Quickly attract new customers and increase sales.
• Flexible cooperation formats that can be adapted to your needs.
• Word of mouth effect due to the trust of the blogger’s audience.
• Increased loyalty to your brand.

Disadvantages:

• It is difficult to predict the exact result of an advertising campaign.
• High cost of placement, which can sometimes exceed expectations.
• A long process of agreeing on the details of cooperation.
• The risk that the invested funds will not pay off.
• There may be disagreements about the format or terms of advertising placement.

General scheme of working with YouTube bloggers

Working with YouTube bloggers requires clear planning and several important steps that will help you achieve the desired results.

1. Determine the purpose of the placement: First, decide whether you want to increase traffic or promote your YouTube channel.
2. Find the right bloggers: select those whose audience matches your target group.
3. Evaluate YouTube channels manually:
   • Check how active the channel is (how often videos are posted).
   • Check the average number of views for the last 20 videos.
   • Evaluate the number of likes and comments, as well as their quality.
   • Find the blogger’s contact information for communication.
4. Add bloggers to the general table: organize all the information for further analysis.
5. Analyze channels through SocialBlade: This will allow you to evaluate channel statistics and weed out less promising options.
6. Write to bloggers:
   • Introduce yourself, tell them what you want (specify the format of advertising).
   • Ask for channel statistics, options for advertising formats, cost, and terms of cooperation.
   • Specify the available dates of placement.
7. Get a response from the blogger: then compare statistics, advertising formats, and terms of cooperation from several bloggers.
8. Select the best channels: based on target audience data and statistics relevance, choose the most promising options.
9. Additional verification through advertising: run a test campaign to make sure the selected channels are effective.
10. Final choice: After analyzing the test ads, compare the results and choose the best solution.
11. Write to the blogger to confirm placement: agree on the ad format and placement details.
12. Pay for the placement: after the agreement, make the payment.
13. Write a task for placement: create a clear TOR and an advertising script
14. Add a UTM tag:  prepare a link through an abbreviation that will allow you to track performance.
15. Ask for video approval:  preview the video before publishing it.
16. Reminder a day before publication:  contact the blogger and specify the exact time of the video release
17. After publication: On the day of the video release, check all the details again.
18. Agree to the terms of placement: Agree that the link will be permanent and will not be removed.
19. Track performance: Check the results of your ad campaign after 48 hours, 5 days, and 14 days.
20. Evaluate the result:Calculate the effectiveness based on targeted actions to determine the success of the placement.

Advertising formats on bloggers’ youtubes

There are a lot of options when it comes to advertising formats on bloggers:

We always recommend two main approaches to our clients:

• The first one is a pre-roll (a short commercial lasting from 30 seconds to a minute that is released on a blogger’s channel).

A pre-roll is shown before, during (mid-roll), or after (post-roll) the main content on YouTube or other video platforms. It can also be used as separate advertising content.

How to implement a pre-roll?

In your video, you can talk about another blogger, insert highlights from their video, and add a link to their channel or a new video. Your partner blogger does the same. This helps subscribers of both channels to get to know new authors, and it helps you to attract mutual traffic.

How to do a preroll effectively?

Choose a suitable reason for the mention, emphasize the strengths of the blogger’s channel, which audience is interested in it, and why it is worth subscribing. Add a link to the blogger in the description below the video and on the end screensavers. If the blogger also does the same for your channel, it will ensure the flow of audience between both channels.

Prepare the text

You need to prepare three versions of the text for 15, 20, and 30 seconds. To do this, you can use the hronomer.ru service to measure the length of the text

What to talk about in the preview?

Your text should emphasize the key trigger that motivates the user to subscribe to your channel. There are several options for PR:

1. Channel story is a presentation preroll where you integrate interesting points and describe the channel. It is important to add a call to action: subscribe to the channel, click the link below the video.
2. Contest or giveaway – announce a product giveaway. In this case, you also need a call to action: follow the link, subscribe to the channel, take part in the drawing.

Examples of formulas for creating a pre-roll:

Formula #1:

• First 5 seconds: state the key idea.
• Next 20 seconds: explain the idea.
• Last 5 seconds: repeat the main point and call to action.

Formula #2:

• The first 5 seconds: attract attention with a relevant question or provocation.
• Next 5 seconds: announce the name of the video, brand, slogan.
• Next 15 seconds: tell how your product solves the viewer’s problem. Add compelling arguments and a call to action.
• Last 5 seconds: summarize the main point and include a product or link.

Formula #3:

• Offer the viewer to skip the ad if they are not interested.
• Describe the product and the problems it solves.
• Product benefits and results that can be obtained.
• Call to action: follow the link and subscribe.

Text for the description below the video

In the description below the video, it’s important to include a call-to-action with clear instructions: follow the link and subscribe. If it’s a giveaway, be sure to describe its terms in detail. For analytics, add the subscription parameter ?sub_confirmation=1 to the link (for example: http://www.youtube.com/user/вашлогин/videos?sub_confirmation=1), after which it can be shortened via bit.ly.

Preparing the video

Create a 15-, 20-, and 30-second cut from the most interesting moments of the video. The video should have a combination of close-ups, medium shots, and general shots, and be consistent with the text and visuals. Contact a cameraman or editor for high-quality video preparation.

Examples of prerolls:

• Service preroll: example 1, example 2.
• Course preroll: example 1, example 2.
• Mobile application preroll: example.
• Service preroll: example 1, example 2.

How to post the video?

For better results, you can inform your audience about the collaboration in a video or shoot a separate segment where you recommend the partner’s channel. Placement formats:

• Full-screen video of the partner.
• Mention of the channel/product with the insertion of a video about the collaboration.
• Demonstrate the blogger’s channel to your subscribers through a screencast.

How to promote a collaborative video?

Announce the project on all platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram. Prepare a trailer or post the day before the video is released. Post photos and stories from the shoot to engage your audience.

• The second format is a collaboration or exclusive, where the entire video is dedicated to the client’s product or service. The blogger talks about the client in a more personal, detailed form, which contributes to greater audience engagement.

What is a collaboration?

These are joint projects of several bloggers on YouTube that help increase the number of subscribers, views, and brand awareness. Collaboration formats can be different:

• Shared videos: example here.
• Contests: example here.
• Challenges: example here.
• Video mention or pre-roll: example here.

The most effective format is a joint video. You appear on the blogger’s channel at least three times: the joint video is released in two parts, one part is published on the blogger’s channel, and the other part is published on yours. It is advisable to repeat this format several times for maximum effect.

Examples of collaboration formats:

• If you have a furniture factory, a blogger comes and shows the production process from start to finish.
• If you run English courses, the blogger goes through the stages of learning from basic knowledge to fluency.
• If you run a car dealership, you tune up the blogger’s car.
• If you have a cooking blog, the blogger cooks according to your recipe, even online.

The video released on your channel can be additionally used to advertise to the blogger’s audience. A successful collaboration can result in 5 to 30% of viewers who watched the video going to your channel and becoming subscribers. To enhance the result, you can run video ads to the audience of the blogger’s channel.

Online interview format: If you choose this format, it’s important to think about how to film your guest: You can install an additional camera, ask your guest to film themselves with their phone, or hire a cameraman in the city where they are.

Examples of online interviews:

• Example 1
• Example 2
• Example 3
• Example 4

Blogger database

The first step in working with bloggers is to build a database of relevant channels.

The process can be broken down into several key stages:

The first thing we do is select a database of bloggers. You can create a database for several countries. First, we define the country, add the channel name, a link to it, the average number of subscribers, and the average number of views. To do this, we take the last 20 videos on the channel and analyze their views to get an average. This is important because the data for the last three months gives a more accurate picture of what you can expect.

Next, we evaluate the engagement rate, which is an engagement rate calculated as a percentage of the number of views to the number of subscribers. It is optimal to find channels where this indicator is 20%, which indicates an active audience that regularly watches content. This is a basic indicator to consider, as 20% is considered a good result for YouTube.

Additionally, we introduce our own indicator, which we call the “blogger coefficient”. No one in the market conducts such an assessment, but we have developed it to better evaluate the effectiveness. This coefficient takes into account the blogger’s trust and its impact on the cost of advertising. For example, if an ad is launched by a blogger, his or her credibility increases the effectiveness of the ad, so this coefficient ranges from 3 to 7.

We have two formats for working with bloggers:

1. Direct advertising: this is buying ads directly on the blogger’s channel
2. YouTube advertising: we can run ads through YouTube Ads that will be shown to the blogger’s audience We also know how much native advertising in YouTube recommendations costs approximately.

By clicks: the average click-through rate for a 30-second video is about 0.7%, but for high-quality placements, this figure can be much higher – from 10 to 15%. For collaborations, this figure is even higher.

Another important tool is the Social Blade service. We use it to determine whether a channel is growing or declining.

An example of proper channel growth:

An example of a declining channel:

Buttstock nakruchenogo canalu:

When we have collected all the information, we create a table: channel indicators, niche, blogger’s contacts. Next, we specify the client’s niche that they work with (for example, online earnings, cryptocurrency, business, marketing). This allows us to select both direct channels (which are constantly talking about these topics) and indirect channels, which sometimes have relevant videos. By collecting the blogger base, we find out who are the users of the client’s services to better understand who can order these products or services.

Finally, we collect all bloggers’ contacts (email, social networks), because sometimes it is necessary to contact them several times to establish cooperation.

Purchase of advertising

So, after we have formed a blogger base, we start working with the client in the format of buying advertising. Our payment is on average 15-20% of the budget. Why this format? The thing is that it can take 2-4 weeks between the moment of collecting the database and the first purchases. Imagine that you have paid and nothing has happened in a month – it’s disappointing.

The reason for this time is that the process of correspondence and coordination with bloggers can be quite lengthy. We are working to agree on all the terms of cooperation and advertising placement, which takes time. That is why we provide for a certain timeout, during which we actively communicate with bloggers based on the collected database, clarifying all the details and terms of placement.

First, we send bloggers an email.

If there is no response, we contact them via social media. It is important to be prepared for the fact that bloggers have to write through all possible channels and even several times – usually 3-4 messages to different platforms.

The first message is an introduction. We express our respect for the blogger, emphasize his or her advantages, and note that we would like to buy advertising. We also ask them what formats they offer and what the cost of each is. We go through this stage after we have started working with the client.

To avoid any misunderstandings, we ask the client to make a deposit, for example, $400. This is a guarantee that the client really intends to buy advertising, and we will not have to face a situation where the advertising has already been purchased and the client has “disappeared”. The deposit serves as a guarantee of our mutual cooperation.

After that, we collect all the necessary data into a single database and start working with bloggers based on this information.