DON'T use Google Ads to Grow Your Youtube Channel 🚫

So you've just started a brand new YouTube channel and you want to start a Google Ads campaign so that you can grow your channel subscribers and increase the amount of views on your YouTube channel. So the easiest solution is just to start a Google Ads campaign, right? Well, in fact, that's 100% wrong. And the reason for that is because using a YouTube campaign to grow your Google Ads channel won't actually have the desired effects in that it won't increase the number of subscribers. And all that will end up happening is that you will be wasting money on a useless Google Ads campaign. Now many people believe that because of my background in Google Ads that I've used Google Ads to grow my own YouTube channel, the one that you're watching right now. But in fact that is not true at all. And I haven't used Google Ads to grow my YouTube channel. Now, right back at the very start of this journey that I'm on now of growing my YouTube channel, I did create a Google Ads campaign in December of 2021 to launch the first three videos that are put up on on this channel. Now not only were those videos probably not some of my finest work, but the campaign. So the video campaign was also a complete flop. So it got no success at all. That's zero subscribers and zero purchases of my course. Now previously I had used YouTube video campaigns for great success for many, many businesses. So I knew that the reason for why I was not seeing success with my video campaign promoting my YouTube channel had nothing to do with the structure that I was using in the Google Ads campaign or the effectiveness of my ads. Because I'd seen time and time again that I was able to create successful video campaigns that provided profitable results for the businesses. And right now I want to show you the difference in my YouTube channel from when I was using a video campaign to when I turned off that video campaign and just focused on creating content on YouTube. Now just in case we haven't met yet, my my name is Aaron Young and I'm from Define Digital Academy and I'm your 15,000 hour Google Ads master. And the reason for why I know the issue was not the setup of my video campaigns is because I've been running successful and profitable Google Ads campaigns since 2010. So right now let's jump into a screen share so I can show you what was happening behind the scenes in my YouTube channel. So firstly, what I want to show you is that this is all of the views since when I first started putting in some videos on YouTube. And you can see Right here is where I launched and started that YouTube video campaign. And let's go over to this other section. So you can see from here is that I ran about a three or four week campaign and we just weren't getting any cut through. Now it was successful in that it did give us some initial views. So you can see from here where we were running that YouTube campaign, we did get some subscribers come through on this date. But when we look at the actual source, it was this period in here, it was all through the YouTube watch page. So nothing came through from, from the Google Ads YouTube campaign. Now I do want to show you that especially in terms of the views, it did take us some months to get this up. So when we were running this campaign it did peak a thousand views on a single day. That happened in December. It did take us up to about June until we got past that mark. But then when I changed the dates to what we're seeing now, you can see that this little YouTube campaign that we're running piled in the significance of what we're getting now just through running our normal content with no ads running to our YouTube channel. So now that you've seen the results, I want to be very clear on why I'm saying that you don't want to use YouTube ads to grow your YouTube channel. And the reason for that is this. Because the metrics that you need for successful video campaign are highly different. In fact, they're completely different to the metrics that you need to get to get a successful YouTube channel. Let me break that down. Remember that for a video ad, what you're wanting to do is you want to generate interest in a really, really short period of time and get that user to click off the ad. So click off the video that they're watching right now to go to your webpage in order to complete a sale versus when you're looking at growing a YouTube channel, what you're wanting is you're wanting a higher engagement. And ideally what you're looking for is you're looking for a click through ratio on your thumbnail of. I found personally I, I need over 10% in that first 12 hours to get a video generating a high level of views. You also need an average duration of 50%. But importantly, you need an average watch time of at least four minutes. And that's where it breaks down for video ads. Because it's going to be really, really hard for you to be able to get someone to watch an ad for four minutes. In fact, most of the successful ads are somewhere between 30 seconds through to 90 seconds. And that one metric there is just going to be a killer for, for your YouTube channel. So you can see, because video campaigns and your YouTube channel videos have completely different metrics, it's never going to work for the two. And the reason for why those goals are aligned, because remember how I said for a successful video, so a successful video ad with a YouTube campaign, what you need to be able to do is you first need to grab their attention, you need to then create fear or I need or a want for your product and then you want to give them a really good call to action so that they're actioning that right now. And that means that they're leaving YouTube and generally going over to your website to complete a sale or sign up to an email source, whatever the end conversion you're looking for. But generally it means taking them off YouTube and to your website. And that's the complete opposite for what YouTube is wanting when they're deciding how to promote your videos. Because remember that for a video to go viral or to get more views on your YouTube channel, what you're wanting is you're wanting it to be in the YouTube recommendations, feedback, or you're wanting it to be on that YouTube homepage. And for that to happen, remember what we said is you need that high click through ratio, you need that average watch duration of at least 50% with a minimum of a four minute watch time. And when you look at it like that, it makes sense as to why some of the biggest youtubers like Mr. Beast run their videos which run for around about 8 to 12 minutes. Because they know those metrics and that's what they're trying to achieve. And think about it, when was the last time you saw a successful video ad that runs for 10 minutes? And that's why I say very, very clear, don't use a YouTube campaign to grow your YouTube channel. So what is the solution here? Because I still do use video campaigns, but I don't use them to grow my YouTube channel. So when it comes to your YouTube channel, you do what all successful YouTubers say, and this is nothing new where they say that just focus on creating better content. So every time you release new videos, just get better in making better videos, whether that be through your video editing, whether that be through your content, whether that be through delivery, and then also continually to go into YouTube studio and look at the different videos which are creating greater interest or greater engagement levels and really focus on those videos or those video topics. And I know that's just scratching the surface of what needs to be done for a successful YouTube channel. But that's not the hundred percent of this video priority. Because what I wanted to do here is I just want to make it very, very clear to you from wasting your money on trying to create an unsuccessful video campaign thinking that it will grow your YouTube channel. So that then brings us to when should you use video campaigns? And I use video campaigns to promote all different types of products. So I'm using video campaigns for e commerce brands and I'm also using video campaigns for this brand. But the difference being is that I record different batches of videos which do not appear on my YouTube channel. So they're a shorter style video generally running from anywhere from 90 seconds through to about three, three and a half minutes. And the goal there is to not to promote my YouTube channel. The goal there is to promote some of my Google Ads resources. So that's generating extra sales or people signing up to my email database. So yes, I do run video campaigns, but the goal of those campaigns is not to grow my YouTube channel. So what I want you to really take away from this is that don't look at the easy options. So don't think that we're just going to start a campaign for five to ten dollars a day and that's going to instantly grow your YouTube channel. For success with YouTube, you need to focus on creating high level of content that's really relevant to your users and your audience. So now that we've made that very, very clear, I want to help you in two really practical ways. The first thing is that if you're serious about learning Google Ads and you want to be able to create and optimize profitable Google Ads campaigns for your business, I want to give you access to my Google Ads optimization checklist. Now this is a checklist which is perfect for search campaigns or if you're an E commerce brand or you're running Google Ads campaigns for E commerce brands. I want to give you access to my Google Ads e Commerce optimization checklist which is perfect for performance max and shopping campaigns. And the beauty of these checklists is that they don't only let you know what optimization tasks you need to complete, but they also let you know when you need to complete these tasks, whether it's every week, every month, or every 90 days. And then secondly, if you want to know how to create video ads that convert along with video campaigns that convert and on your YouTube ads, what you need to do is you need to go through and watch this video right here. Once again, thank you for joining me. My name is Aaron Young for Define Digital Academy, and I look forward to seeing you in this video real soon. See ya.