October 20 , 2009

New YouTube advertising format
leverages keywords for Canadian market
Promoted videos offer 'huge opportunity' for Canadian businesses

By Amy Bostock, Editor

As of last week, YouTube is offering promted video as a powerful new advertising option for Canadian marketers. First rolled out in the U.S. in January of last year, promoted videos give advertisers the opportunity to have their videos discovered on YouTube through the use of targeted keywords.

"It's something our Canadian clients have been asking for for quite awhile," says Chantal Rossi, Group Industry Manager. "There are so many videos on YouTube that it's hard to get noticed so they were looking for a solution."

Canada is the YouTube capital of the world, with ComScore numbers putting its reach in Canada at 70 per cent - significantly ahead of the UK at 56 per cent and the U.S. at 42 per cent. YouTube actually represented about 20 per cent of searches last month in Canada, according to ComScore, with over 700M searches on YouTube, second only to Google.

The easy-to-use promoted video format will allow advertisers to upload their video and type in their keywords. They can also add in a thumbnail of the video. Clients pay on a cost-per-click basis and, similar to the existing AdWords program, set the maximum CPC rate.

"This is a format that works for every single industry," says Rossi. "It allows advertisers to pick and choose the ad format and offers them a huge opportunity to get noticed by the extremely savvy video market in Canada. I think this is one of the most important opportunties in Canada for advertisers right now."