NEW YouTube Ads Targeting Guide for 2025

YouTube Ads Removes Targeting Options

In this video, the speaker discusses how YouTube has removed keyword targeting, placement targeting, topic targeting, and similar audiences from Google ads accounts. This means that users can no longer target specific keywords, videos, channels or topics of content on YouTube with YouTube ads.

The Impact of the Update

• Bryce reports that YouTube is removing keyword targeting next year.

• Users will no longer be able to target specific types of content.

• Custom intent or more broad targeting may be used instead.

Targeting Options

• Interest-based targeting targets people based on their interests.

• Intent-based targeting targets people based on what they are searching for.

• The "Targeting Timeline" shows different types of available targeting options and what to use if you want to scale your campaigns.

Scaling Campaigns

• A lot of people fail to realize that when they double their budgets, their messaging isn't broad enough to reach more people.

• If an offer is too niche, it may not be possible to scale campaigns on YouTube.

• YouTube ads is a scaling platform meaning that it's a very broad ads platform.

Targeting Strategies for YouTube Ads

In this section, the speaker discusses different targeting strategies for YouTube ads.

Website Visitors

• Create a data segment in Audience Manager to target people based on the pages they've visited on your website.

• This is low-hanging fruit and easier to remarket to.

YouTube Audiences

• Create an audience based on your YouTube channel or client's channel.

• Target people who have viewed certain videos or subscribed to your channel.

Custom Segment Audiences

• Custom segment audiences are broken down into three categories.

• These are the most powerful targeting strategies with Google's new update.

• You need keywords to create custom segment audiences.

Custom Segment Search

• The most specific type of custom segment audience is custom search campaigns.

• Use at least 10 to 15 keywords in each campaign.

• Create multiple campaigns with different sets of keywords.

Custom Segment Affinity

• This type of audience targets people who have shown interest in topics related to your product or service.

Custom Segment Intent

• This type of audience targets people who are actively searching for products or services similar to yours.

Custom Segment Audiences

In this section, the speaker discusses three types of custom segment audiences for YouTube ads targeting. These include custom search, interests, and websites.

Custom Search

• Bunch together different keywords to create 10-15 of them.

• Put them in one audience and create 10 more of those.

• This creates 10 custom search right audiences that you can test with your YouTube ads.

Interests

• Click on people with any of these interests or purchase intentions.

• Enter keywords describing your ideal customers' interests or products and services they are actively researching to buy.

• Create a much broader type of audience by adding 5 to 10 keywords in here.

• Create at least 10 custom affinity audiences and start testing those.

Websites

• Enter URLs that your ideal customer might visit into the "people who've browsed similar websites" segment.

• Add five to ten websites for each custom segment audience created.

• This creates much broader audiences because they're going to say these people are similar interested in this website because browsing other websites that are similar.

Optimized Targeting

In this section, the speaker discusses optimized targeting as a way to expand an audience after finding profitable campaigns.

• Once you have some winners in your campaigns where you have a campaign that's profitable then you want to add optimized targeting optimize targeting allows you to be able to expand that audience and easily find more people that are also interested in that similar type of content so that's the next one on the scale.

Focus on Creative

In this section, the speaker emphasizes the importance of focusing on creative when it comes to YouTube ads success.

• The creative is still 80% of your success when it comes to YouTube ads.

• The focus for you needs to be on your creative and your strategy, meaning the messaging of your ad has to be really good.

• The broader you go on this scale timeline, the more important it is that the messaging of your offer has to be broad enough to really scale.

• The media buying is more automated; you're going to be entering these inputs into these custom segment audiences telling Google who you want to find but it's becoming more AI.

The Importance of Focusing on Creative in YouTube Ads

In this section, the speaker emphasizes the importance of focusing on creative strategies for YouTube ads as opposed to relying solely on targeting and placements.

Adapting to Changes in YouTube Ads

• Advertisers who don't adapt to changes in YouTube ads or don't focus on creative strategies will get left behind.

• With YouTube ads becoming more automated and Google broadening its targeting, marketers need to focus on strategy and creativity.

• Those who rely solely on old ways of targeting with placements will not be able to adapt.

Opportunities for Marketers

• These changes present a huge opportunity for marketers who can adapt and improve their creative strategies.

• The speaker offers a Master Class presentation that provides step-by-step guidance for creating high-converting YouTube ads, including frameworks and advanced strategies.

Conclusion

• Viewers are encouraged to take notes during the training as it is very tactical.