How Much Does YouTube Advertising Cost in 2024?
methodology:
- We asked 270 marketers about their YouTube advertising costs. Keep reading to learn how much their companies spend on YouTube ads!
Key Takeaways
- 75% of businesses are happy with the return on investment (ROI) they receive from YouTube ads
- 53% of businesses spend $101 – $1000 per month on YouTube advertising
- 48% of businesses allocate 6% – 30% of their overall advertising budget to YouTube ads
- 43% of businesses spend $0.11 – $0.40 per view on YouTube ads
How much does YouTube advertising cost?
On average, YouTube advertising costs $0.11 – $0.50 per view, with businesses typically setting a daily budget of $10. YouTube doesn’t require a minimum spend for your ad campaign, so how much you spend depends on the daily budget you set for your campaign.
[Summary] YouTube ad pricing
Get a quick summary of YouTube advertising costs with this handy graphic:
It’s important to note that these numbers are only averages, and your costs could be higher or lower depending on several factors, like your bid, budget amount, ad type, and targeting options.
How does YouTube ad pricing work?
YouTube follows a cost-per-click and cost-per-view pricing model, which is similar to its parent company, Google. This pricing model means your YouTube advertising rates depend on user actions.
If someone watches the entirety of your ad or clicks on your ad, for example, you will be charged for that action. Whether you pay for views or clicks is dependent upon the type of ad you create.
What determines my YouTube ad costs?
A few factors determine how much YouTube ads cost, including:
- Your ad type
- Your bid
- Your bidding selection
- Your targeting options
These factors will generally influence your YouTube advertising rate in different ways. For example, your bid will likely have more of a direct impact on your YouTube ad costs than your bid selection because you’re setting a definitive number for what you’re willing to pay for a click or view.
Data roundup
Are you satisfied with your return on investment (ROI) from advertisement on YouTube?
52%
Yes
Source: WebFX
17%
No
Source: WebFX
31%
Not applicable
Source: WebFX
How different YouTube ads influence your YouTube ad costs
The format of a video will influence the cost of your YouTube ad campaigns. In general, you’ll pay more for bigger ad space and increased ad exposure. Here are the different types of YouTube ad formats you can use:
- Display ads: These are ads that appear to the right of the feature video. Display ads appear above the video suggestions list.
- Overlay ads: These are semi-transparent ads that overlay a video. They appear on the lower 20 percent portion of your video. Overlay ads give you the option to “X” them out when they pop up.
- Skippable or TrueView in-stream ads: Skippable ads appear before, during, and after video content. These ads take up the entirety of the video box but have a countdown timer that generates a button you can click to skip the ad. The button typically appears after the ad plays for 5 seconds.
- Non-skippable ads: Viewers must watch these video ads before the content can be viewed. These videos are short and typically only last a few seconds.
- Long, non-skippable ads: These ads cannot be skipped and must be fully played. They can last 30 seconds or longer.
- Bumper ads: These ads last up to six seconds in duration. They must be watched before someone can view the video content. These video ads get straight to the point and get the message across quickly.
- Sponsored cards: These cards display information that may be relevant to your videos. You can run ads to feature products that are about to appear in your video content. It gives your audience a teaser card of the product for a few seconds, which can get them to engage longer.
These different ad formats influence the cost of YouTube ads.
Some of these ads have different payment options based on the actions your audience takes. In some cases, you may pay for them viewing your video, and in other cases, you’ll pay after they watch 30 seconds of your ad.
The audience you target also influences your YouTube ads pricing. If you’re targeting an audience that many of your competitors are targeting, you’ll end up paying more because there is more competition for the ad spot.
You will never pay over your maximum bid, however. Depending upon who wins the best spot, you may pay one cent more than your competitor, but it will never go above your maximum bid.
For instance, let’s say you have a maximum bid of $1 and your competitor bids $0.65 for each click. You can expect to pay no more than $0.66 per click and it’s still within your $1 maximum bid.
Is YouTube advertising worth the cost?
The answer is yes! In fact, 75% of businesses say they are happy with the ROI they receive from their YouTube ad campaign.
With an effective campaign, ad creatives, and audience targeting settings, you can grow your online visibility while generating a positive return for your business that leads to more sales and revenue.
WebFX helps companies like yours reach their business goals.
See Case Study“WebFX has always worked hard to make sure that we’re getting what we need out of the partnership, not just what may seem like the best result.”
How to set up a YouTube ad that makes the most of your budget
YouTube advertising can have a powerful impact on helping your audience learn more about your business. Here are the steps you can take to create a more powerful YouTube ad and optimize the cost of your YouTube ads.
1. Choose who is running your campaign
A video advertising campaign takes time and effort. If you want to drive the best results with your YouTube campaign, you must ensure that you have the right people working on it.
You can opt to create ads in-house and run them. If you have a marketing team, you can create and run ads for your business.
If you choose to run your campaign in-house, you’ll want to budget based on how you decide to run your ads. For instance, if you’re running ads that are a minute long and you pay for someone watching 30 seconds of your ad, you must determine how much that is worth to your company. It may be worth $1 a click or $0.50 a click to your business, but you must decide.
Some companies will opt to let a video marketing company handle their campaign. This is an excellent option if you don’t have experience running a video marketing campaign or if you’re too busy running your business.
When you hire a video marketing company, you can expect to pay several hundred to several thousand dollars.
The cost for your video varies, depending upon its length, words in the script, number of camera angles, and more.
2. Set your target audience
Your target audience is who you are trying to reach with your ad campaign. If you want to have an effective advertising campaign, you must know who you are targeting.
There are different ways you can target your ideal audience. Here are a few:
- Demographic groups: This includes attributes such as age, gender, income, or parental status.
- Interests: Topics and information your audience is interested in watching through videos on YouTube.
- Remarketing: Marketing to people based on their past interactions with your video content.
- Topics: You target people based on specific topics they look for while searching on YouTube.
- Keywords: Showing YouTube ads based on keywords and phrases your audience searches on YouTube.
These are all the options available to your business. You can choose which format is best for your business based on your budget and your goals.
3. Make quality video ads
If you want to see the best results with your YouTube ad, you must create high-quality content. You want people to watch your ad and engage with your content. For that to happen, you must invest in your video’s quality.
First, you must produce a high-quality video. You don’t want your audience to view a video that is poorly filmed and has low resolution. With the advancement in film technology, it is expected that you produce high-quality video advertisements.
You also want your YouTube ad to provide value for your audience. If you aren’t showing them the value in choosing your business, you won’t have an impact on your audience.
If you’re going to run a YouTube ad campaign, you must plan your ad’s content to ensure that it provides your audience with valuable information. Set a goal you want to achieve with your YouTube ad and convey an advertisement that helps you effectively pass on your message.
4. Keep your ads short
If your ad is too long, you will deter people away or discourage them from watching. This often happens with non-skippable videos. If you have a long, non-skippable video, people will lose focus and may not watch it.
Creating short and effective videos will drive better results for your campaign. As a rule of thumb, your video should be 45 seconds or less. This will give you time to create a quality video without it running too long.
You should get your point across quickly. If someone can skip your video in five seconds, you must ensure you get your message across in those few moments. It’s important to be succinct and get to the point.
5. Create relevant landing pages
Whenever you run an advertising campaign, it’s crucial that you direct your audience to relevant information. You want to connect them with a landing page that expands upon the information in your ad.
Using effective advertising campaigns will allow you to direct leads to a specific page.
That helps them learn more about your product, services, and business. You’ll want to create a specific landing page for your campaign so you can customize it with relevant information to your YouTube ad.
If someone likes the information they see in your ad, they can visit the landing page to learn more about your product or service. It’s a great way to direct relevant leads to your page.
6. Monitor your campaigns
If you want to understand your campaign’s effectiveness, you must monitor its performance. Pushing out quality ad content will help your business continue to grow.
When you run a YouTube ad, you have access to metrics that allow you to see how your campaign is performing. You can monitor metrics like views, likes, shares, and subscriptions. You can also see real-time insights about your campaign to understand it better.
By monitoring your campaign, you’ll produce better results for your business. You will have a more effective YouTube ad that drives results and helps your business grow.
Data roundup
Do you plan on increasing or decreasing your advertising spend on YouTube?
38%
Increasing
Source: WebFX
15%
Decreasing
Source: WebFX
20%
No Change
Source: WebFX
27%
Not Applicable
Source: WebFX
Why advertise on YouTube?
Even though you know the answer to the question, “How much does it cost to advertise on YouTube?”, as well as how to set up a cost-efficient YouTube ad campaign, you may have doubts about advertising on YouTube.
Advertising on YouTube offers several benefits and advantages:
- Massive audience: A large audience size makes it easier for you to reach your target audience via YouTube’s targeting options. In comparison, advertising on a smaller platform limits your access to valuable audience members.
- Targeting options: YouTube advertising means you get access to a variety of ad targeting featurs, allowing you to create relevant ads for users. You can use targeting to reach users at the perfect moment (like when they’re researching a purchase) to increase your chances of a conversion.
- Increased SERP visibility: YouTube videos appear on search engine results pages (SERPs). That means when you create video content for YouTube, you’re also creating content that has the potential to appear in search results and increase your online visibility.
- Cost-effectiveness: YouTube advertising follows a pay-per-click (PPC) model, meaning you choose how much you’re willing to pay for ad placements and you only pay when a user clicks on your ad. If you feel like you’re overspending, simply end your campaign, or set spending limits to avoid reaching that point.
Still don’t believe us? Check out some YouTube marketing statistics that show how popular the platform is for marketers, and the results it can bring to your business:
- 2.5 billion people use YouTube each month, giving you access to a large global audience
- 240 million people make up the U.S.’s active YouTube audience alone
- 90% of marketers use YouTube for their video marketing efforts, meaning you could be falling behind if you’re not using the platform for your video marketing campaign
- 84% is how much more likely a paid YouTube mobile ad can grab a users attention than traditional TV advertising
Earn a better ROI from your YouTube advertising
YouTube is an excellent platform for your business to expand its reach. With YouTube’s advertising options, you will garner more leads for your business. At WebFX, we know how to create YouTube advertising campaigns that help your business grow.
In the past five years, we’ve driven over $10 billion in sales for our clients through our various digital marketing services. We know how to create custom online marketing campaigns that drive meaningful results for your business.
If you’re ready to start advertising on YouTube and making the most of your YouTube advertising costs, contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist.
An Inside Look at WebFX YouTube Advertising Pricing
🔎 Full-funnel ROI tracking Our YouTube advertising specialists are ready to help you drive revenue with YouTube ads through proven strategies and cutting-edge expertise.
WebFX Expertise
Highlights
🎯 Audience targeting
📈 Campaign performance monitoring and optimization
📝 Professional ad copywriting and design
🎥 Video production
Join the 2,000+ trusting WebFX to drive revenue through YouTube ads
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Browse YouTube advertising packages from WebFX
An experienced YouTube advertising agency like WebFX can help you implement an effective campaign that drives revenue for your business and grows your bottom line. Get a closer look at our YouTube advertising services below and then contact us to get started!
| Features | Pro Most Popular | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| Investment | ||
| Ad Spend Limit | $5,000 – $30,000/month ad spend (paid to networks) | $30,001+/monthly ad spend (paid to networks) |
| Initial Optimization | $2,250 (First Month’s Management, including Campaign Restructure, Creative Development) | $5,800 (First Month’s Management, including Campaign Restructure, Creative Development) |
| Progressive monthly management cost: | $975 or 15% of spend, whichever is higher | 12% of ad spend +$250/mo. platform fee |
| Included Networks | ||
| Google PPC Network | ||
| Google Local Services Ads | ||
| Bing PPC Networks | ||
| Google Text Ad Remarketing & Banner Remarketing (if banner ads are included, provided by the client, or creative banner design is paid for) | ||
| Google customer match & audience match | ||
| Google Shopping Management | ||
| AdTechFX Programmatic Advertising powered by MarketingCloudFX | ||
| – 3rd Party Audience Targeting | ||
| – Account-Based Retargeting | ||
| – CRM Pipeline Retargeting | ||
| Management Deliverables | ||
| 500+ SMEs behind campaign driving results | ||
| Initial campaign development & strategy | ||
| Advanced keyword research and selection | 10,000 Keywords | 10,000 Keywords |
| Industry analysis | Yes | |
| Ad campaign copywriting | ||
| Ad copy performance testing | ||
| Ongoing keyword development and tweaking | ||
| Dynamic keyword insertion into ads | ||
| Google analytics integration & goal tracking | ||
| Strategic bid management | ||
| PPC account settings monitoring (Ex. Geotargeting) | ||
| Campaigns will be managed through client’s SEM accounts for (client will retain Admin/owner access of all campaigns created) | ||
| Up to two personal consultations per month | ||
| Monitoring clicks, conversions and click fraud activity | ||
| Setup and management of rule based bidding | ||
| International PPC campaign management (Addtl. fees may apply) | ||
| Creative Deliverables | ||
| Setup of 1 FunnelsFX Landing Page template | ||
| Lite Display Ad Creative | 2 sets rapid display ads – 16 ads total (8 images per set) | 2 sets of custom layout display ads – 16 ads total (8 images per set) |
| Connected TV Commercial Ads | 1 15-second rapid ConnectedTV ad | 1 set of Custom TV ads 15-30 seconds with voiceover (2 videos total) |
| Audio Commercial – Coming Soon! | 1-3 FuelFX Assets or Bring Your Own | 1-3 FuelFX Assets or Bring Your Own |
| International Campaigns (SEM Only) – Each additional language monthly management cost: | $275 | $275 |
| Performance Reporting | ||
| Monthly performance & analysis reporting | ||
| Website conversion analysis reporting | ||
| Omni-channel customer journey tracking and reporting | ||
| Federated Ad CLID Pool for tracking calls to specific paid ad campaign | Shared pool (Up to 25 concurrent Paid Advertising visitors) | Shared pool (Up to 50 concurrent Paid Advertising visitors) |
| IntegrationsFX: Conversion Based Smart Bidding | Included with  License | Included with License |
| IntegrationsFX: Lookalike + Custom Audiences | Included with License | Included with License |
| Add Ons | ||
| Dedicated Federated Ad CLID Pool of 25 dedicated numbers and 25 concurrent visitors | $100/month | $100/month |
| Dedicated Federated Ad CLID Pool of 100 dedicated numbers and 100 concurrent visitors | $400/month | $400/month |
| Display Ads: Rapid CTA Layout – 4 Variation Sets for A/B Testing of 8 Sizes Each (32 Display Ads Total) & No Client Edits Included | $600/month | $600/month |
| Display Ads: Rapid CTA Layout – 6 Demographic / Age Cohort Sets of 8 Display Sizes (48 Display Ads Total) & No Client Edits Included | $750/month | $750/month |
| B2B Display Ads: Rapid CTA Layout – 10 Industry Ad Sets of 8 Display Sizes (80 Display Ads Total) & No Client Edits Included | $1,200/month | $1,200/month |
| Display Ads: Custom Layout – 1 Set of 8 Sizes & Up to 2 round of client edits | $900/month | $900/month |
| ConnectedTV – Rapid CTA Layout Video Ad – 15 seconds | $150/month | $150/month |
| ConnectedTV – Rapid CTA Layout Video Ad – 15 seconds – 2 CTV Ad Variants for A/B Performance Testing | $300/month | $300/month |
| ConnectedTV – Rapid CTA Layout Video Ad – 30 seconds | $200/month | $200/month |
| ConnectedTV – Rapid CTA Layout Video Ad for 15 + 30 seconds | $300/month | $300/month |
| Social Media PPC Advertising | $900/month | $900/month |
| Landing page performance testing | $1,500/month | $1,500/month |
| Translation Services | By Quote | By Quote |
| Website conversion analysis implementation | By Quote | By Quote |
Need more information? Call Us: 888-601-5359 | GET STARTED | GET STARTED |
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FAQs about YouTube advertising costs
Get answers to common questions about the cost of YouTube advertising below!
How much does YouTube advertising cost per month?
On average, YouTube advertising costs $101 – $1000 per month (53% of respondents). How much you spend each month on YouTube ads will vary, depending on your ad type, competition, and budget amount.
Source Data
| MONTHLY YOUTUBE ADVERTISING COST | % OF MARKETERS |
| $0 – $100 | 14.97% |
| $101 – $500 | 25.17% |
| $501 – $1000 | 28.57% |
| $1001 – $5000 | 14.29% |
| $5001 – $10,000 | 8.84% |
| More than $10,000 | 8.16% |
How much does YouTube advertising cost per view?
On average, YouTube advertising costs $0.11 – $0.40 per view (43% of respondents). How much you pay per view will depend on your chosen ad type, like display ads or skippable video ads, along with your bid amount and targeting options.
Source Data
| COST PER VIEW | % OF MARKETERS |
| $0 – $0.10 | 11.56% |
| $0.11 – $0.20 | 13.61% |
| $0.21 – $0.30 | 12.93% |
| $0.31 – $0.40 | 17.01% |
| $0.41 – $0.50 | 11.56% |
| $0.51 – $0.70 | 14.97% |
| $0.71 – $1.00 | 10.20% |
| More than $1.00 | 8.16% |
What percentage of your overall advertising budget should be allocated to YouTube ads?
On average, businesses typically allocate 6% – 30% of their overall advertising budget to YouTube ads (48% of respondents). Your company may allocate more or less of your advertising budget to YouTube ads depending on your business’s unique needs and goals, along with the return you receive from your ad campaign.
Source Data
| PERCENTAGE OF OVERALL ADVERTISING BUDGET | % OF MARKETERS |
| 0% – 5% | 12.24% |
| 6% – 10% | 15.65% |
| 11% – 20% | 17.69% |
| 21% – 30% | 15.65% |
| 31% – 40% | 8.16% |
| 41% – 50% | 6.80% |
| 51% – 60% | 9.52% |
| 61% – 70% | 6.12% |
| 71% – 80% | 4.76% |
| More than 80% | 3.40% |
ROI satisfaction from YouTube advertising
| SATISFIED WITH YOUTUBE ADVERTISING ROI | % OF MARKETERS |
| Yes | 75% |
| No | 25% |