Are you running Ads on YouTube? Wondering how to interpret the performance metrics in your Ads? In this article, we will show you how to measure and track YouTube Ad Performance through 4 different types of Ads, so you can review and choose the right form of advertising, creating effective results for your business.

Why use YouTube Ads?

Investing in advertising always comes with some risks. However, paid advertising is still the mainstay of online marketing. Up to 70% of YouTube viewers say the platform helps them learn more about new brands, and they are four times more likely to use YouTube to research a brand, product, or service. Additionally, consumers say they are twice as likely to buy a product after viewing it on YouTube. Creating powerful YouTube Ads starts with knowing who your audience is, understanding the people you want to reach, and customizing your ad for that target group. Advertising data will help you with this.

3 Tools to analyze YouTube ad performance

By linking Google Ads to your YouTube channel, you can run YouTube campaigns and get valuable analytics on who’s watching your Ads, how long they’re watching, and where you can improve. Improve advertising performance on Youtube. The three measurement tools below will help you analyze your YouTube ad performance.

Video Analysis in YouTube Studio

In YouTube Studio, view your video analytics to see how your video Ads are performing. Start by opening the YouTube Studio dashboard and clicking on Content in the left navigation. Find your video and then click the Analytics icon.

In your video analytics, you’ll find all the relevant information about how your YouTube video Ads are performing. When you upload a video ad to YouTube, it will show up as an ad on other videos or of the ad itself in someone’s search. You can watch both video analytics separately to see which method has better results. Analytics for each ad will show you how long people watched the video, how many people interacted with the ad through clicks and likes, and the percentage of viewers per video compared to the total of all your Ads. If you find your audience retention is dropping, try to create more engaging creatives to extend the time viewers stay.

Engagement information tells you how people react to your Ads and when people are most likely to respond. Another area to analyze in your video analytics is the end screen element. Be it an image or a CTA at the end of the ad. This data shows how many people clicked on your end screen image in response to your ad.

Google Ads video advertising metrics

Here are some key metrics you’ll find in your Google Ads dashboard to help you analyze your YouTube ad performance:

• Core Performance: Look at how many people viewed or engaged with your Ads, view rate, and average cost-per-view.
• Click Performance: Determines how many people clicked on your Ads and click-through rate (CTR).
• Engagement Performance: If your ad has any clickable elements, Google will report the number of interactions with those elements and calculate the engagement rate.
• Reach and Frequency: Discover how many unique viewers your Ads have.
• Video Viewers: See how many people watched 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of your video Ads.
• YouTube Engagement: Learn how viewers interact with other content after an ad. This interaction includes actions taken, views, subscriptions, likes, and shares.

This data helps you determine how many people responded to your most effective Ads, how much you spent on Ads, and how much revenue you earned from your YouTube Ads.

Enhancing the Google Ads brand

Brand Lift is a unique analytics tool that Google offers for free. If you’re promoting your brand or product, Google gives you the option to create a short survey that will show to viewers who may have viewed your ad. Viewer responses to surveys help you understand how people feel about your brand. You can then use that information to customize future Ads. Now let’s look at four specific types of YouTube Ads and how you can analyze their data through your YouTube measurement tools.

Performance analysis of 4 different types of YouTube Ads

Analyze Skippable YouTube Ad Performance

Skippable YouTube video Ads play alongside another video. They can appear before the video starts playing, in the middle of the video, or after the video ends. As the name suggests, these videos allow viewers to skip Ads after 5 seconds of watch time. The benefit of skippable Ads is that you don’t have to pay for the ad unless the viewer watches at least 30 seconds of it. That means you need to focus on the first 5 seconds of the ad to grab the audience’s attention so they keep watching.

The most important data to analyze from skippable Ads is the number of people who skipped the ad at the 5-second mark compared to the number of people who continued to watch. You can view this information in your video analytics in YouTube Studio. The retention chart shows the number of points at which viewers left the video and the percentage of people still watching after that important 5-second mark. Aim to extend your audience retention for skippable Ads.

Analyze non-skippable YouTube ad performance

Non-skippable YouTube video Ads also appear before, during, or after the video. What makes them different is that the ad can’t be skipped by viewers. Also, since they are required to watch, they have a time limit of 15 seconds. For non-skippable Ads, you pay based on the number of impressions you get from the ad. You can view video performance data in YouTube Studio. Navigate to your video analytics and you’ll find a helpful chart that tells you how many people watched or viewed your ad through their search. To further analyze your Ads, scroll down to see the previously shown retention graph to see how many people have left the video. You will have a higher retention rate for non-skippable Ads because most people will be sitting through the ad to watch their videos.

The key piece of information for non-skippable Ads is the number of people who clicked on the ad. An important metric to track is CTR. To find your CTR, analyze video ad metrics and reporting data in Google Ads.

Click data tells you how many people clicked on your YouTube ad after viewing it. Compare this number with your views data to see a full breakdown of views with clicks.

YouTube bumper ad performance analysis

YouTube bumper Ads are like non-skippable Ads but much shorter. They only last 6 seconds or less. The benefit of this type of advertising is that you are more likely to capture the attention of your audience. Because bumper Ads are also videos, you can view your bumper ad analytics in the video analytics section of YouTube Studio. The effectiveness of bumper Ads will also be evaluated based on the number of ad impressions.

YouTube overlay ad performance analysis

When an image or video plays in a corner or at the end of a YouTube video, it’s considered an overlay ad. These Ads give viewers the option to close the window or click on a banner to take the viewer to your website. Since these Ads are not videos, they won’t be available in YouTube Studio. Instead, you can access all of these metrics in Google Ads reports.

YouTube offers four main types of Ads that play with videos. These Ads are matched to a relevant audience to maximize your rate of return. Understanding how to use YouTube ad performance analytics will help you customize these Ads for the best results.