YouTube is a beast of a website to try and advertise on effectively. It’s a huge site with constantly updated content and an audience that spans nearly every demographic category you can think of. But with all that traffic, there must be a way to effectively leverage those eyeballs and get your ads in front of the right people…right? Plus there are a variety of ad formats to run, so where do you start?

The easiest way to dip your toes into the water is to use Google’s content network. Chances are most advertisers who would consider running ads on YouTube are already using Google for some advertising. The Content network is pretty straightforward and easy to set up, and since YouTube is a partner, it’s all yours to advertise on.

Except, you probably don’t want to just advertise anywhere on YouTube. Don’t freak out, you can handle this, I promise.

Optimizing the YouTube/Google AdWords Content Network:

Step 1: Create a separate Campaign or AdGroup (depending on what existing campaigns you’re already running and those targeting options) just for YouTube.  If you create a brand new campaign, you can set your ads to run in limited locations through AdWord’s geo-targeting options. Of course, if you don’t have a specific location in mind, you don’t have to do this. But you may want to experiment in some test markets if you have a limited budget.

Step 2: Add YouTube as your only placement in a YouTube specific AdGroup.

Step 3: Next you’re going to add keywords to this same AdGroup. This will ensure your ads show only on pages with those keywords and you’re not getting a million unqualified impressions a day.

And this is where I sat and stared at my computer blankly.

For a lot of advertisers you may not want to pick product specific keywords to advertise on. If I’m a college, I want to target high school students, and chances are they aren’t watching many vidoes about education in their free time. Or if you’re a hotel or a destination you’re not going to add keywords based on your city, that is boring. You want to figure out what your audience is already watching.

Now the magic happens.

I’m guilty of not knowing how long this feature has been around because it’s pretty hidden in YouTube’s navigation. YouTube has a TestTube section for all their beta products. These are mostly video related, but they also have this nifty thing called Insights for Audience, and I was intrigued.

Rightfully so because this tool allows you to put in demographic data and it spits out not only top videos that this group is watching, but a list of the most frequently used keywords searched on in YouTube by that group! And voila! you have keywords to add to your AdGroup. Let’s do an example, shall we.

I’m going to target Females age 25-34 who live in the US and like Cooking & Recipes.  Click to enlarge.

And here is what you get back:

Videos to explore and a giant list of keywords to pick through and decide what makes sense for you. And if you were KitchenAid, well, I just told you how to do your job 🙂