As you’re reading this, there’s probably a YouTube video playing in the background, or maybe you have just closed a tutorial or watched a movie trailer a while ago. YouTube usage has become so embedded in our daily routine these days that it’s almost impossible not to consider it as an avenue for advertising businesses and products.

What about you? Have you considered using YouTube as a marketing channel too? If you have, then you’re probably wondering about its pros and cons as a marketing platform. Keep on reading as we walk you through the pros and cons of YouTube Ads.

Pros

• It has a wide reach

YouTube has such a wide reach that it ranks second only to Google in popularity worldwide. With over 1.9 billion monthly active users, whatever you may offer to your consumers, you will always find an audience for it on YouTube. Plenty of advertisers are joining the “Watch Now” bandwagon, and maybe you should too.

• You can create highly targeted ad campaigns

Your goal as an advertiser is to reach the right people by using the right medium. With YouTube Ads, you can find your desired demographics (based on YouTube’s past searches). This means that, out of the billions of users, you can narrow down your market by their location or interests.

These days, businesses are clamoring to remain relevant to their consumers. With YouTube’s targeted advertising, you can make sure that your message reaches the people who will likely interact with your business or company and be interested in what it has to offer.

Cons

• You need to capture the audience’s attention in 5 seconds or less

The notorious “skip” button is a challenge that every YouTube advertiser must face. So the question now is this – how can you hook your target audience with just 5 seconds or less? This is where a solid understanding of their preferences and issues (i.e., their problems and the desired solutions they’re looking for) will play a role. This is a matter of creating excellent and to-the-point content that will catch the viewer’s eyes extremely fast with an irresistible offer or message.

• You can’t choose the video that accompanies your ad

YouTube has made it impossible to choose the videos that your ad will appear with. This means that you might get paired with videos on violence, hate speech, and other radical beliefs that you probably don’t want to be related to. If this is something that you feel strongly about, then there might be other avenues that you would want to explore. Otherwise, you can take the risk and rake in the results by advertising alongside this Internet giant.

Depending on your goals, YouTube can open a world of possibilities for your advertising campaigns. Sure, it may challenge your content creation and delivery skills, but there’s always the option of also working with digital advertising platforms such as Ads-supply.com, Taboola, etc. for this purpose. It is a matter of weighing what truly matters to your business and considering if you are up for the challenge that seems to come with this popular online video-sharing platform.