Despite the devastation that COVID-19 has wrought on businesses, some have successfully adapted to changing conditions and opened up new revenue streams. 

Many of the winners are capitalizing on lockdown by providing services that make our homebound lives easier or more interesting. This requires successfully leveraging the internet and its burgeoning captive audience.

Here are some examples of growing niches:

  • Self-improvement via the web, including counseling, one-on-one fitness coaching, or learning a foreign language. 
  • Delivery and meal prep services
  • Platforms that teach newbies how to invest or trade almost any asset.
  • Coffee subscription companies
  • Home improvement products including furniture and gardening supplies 

There’s also been a boom in podcasting. This has played out not only in sales (and shortages) of equipment) but also in significant audience growth. Many successful podcasts are available on multiple channels including YouTube.

It’s unclear whether a majority of remote workers will return to offices post-pandemic. Regardless, this internet-intensive period is an excellent time to review your video advertising options. 

Projected US digital advertising spend

Video content constituted approximately 69% of online traffic by 2017 and 80% by 2019. Moreover, in 2020, over 40% of desktop display ad spending was on video advertising. Clearly, the role that video plays in marketing will only increase over time, making the only question remaining: where is the best place online to advertise with video?

Facebook has taken its video streaming capabilities increasingly seriously over recent years, leading many web marketers to question whether Facebook could ultimately replace YouTube as their primary video advertising platform. Whether or not Facebook can yet replace YouTube for your video ad campaigns depends on several factors regarding your needs.

About Video Advertising

Though the web started out primarily as a text-based communications system, the first video was streamed online in 1993. By the end of that decade, numerous apps permeated the internet offering video streaming services, including RealPlayer, QuickTime, and ActiveMovie. YouTube was launched shortly thereafter, in 2005, with the posting of the video Me at the Zoo.

Since then, audio and video streaming has grown to constitute upwards of 70% of North American internet network activity, with YouTube contributing to 18% of that. This demonstrates that more video content is being delivered now than ever before, including in the form of video advertising.

Technical Factors to Consider

There are several technical factors to consider when determining which platform or platforms to utilize for your online video advertising. Key factors include supported file types, file size limits, and video sharing.

Supported File Types

Facebook supports more video file types than YouTube, though the differences between the various file types options are minimal. You can advertise on either platform as long as you use one of the following file types:

  • .AVI
  • .FLV
  • .MP4
  • .MOV
  • .WMV

File Size Limits

You can post much longer videos on YouTube than you can on Facebook. Facebook offers up to two-hour videos compared with approximately 10 hours on YouTube.

Video Sharing

Facebook shares native videos (those posted originally on Facebook) approximately 10 times more than it shares YouTube videos. But this is in contrast to YouTube, which only shares native YouTube videos. This means your Facebook video ad won’t get any airplay at all on YouTube.

Top 5 most used media platforms

Facebook vs YouTube

YouTube might be the website, app, and company most commonly associated with online videos and video advertising. But it’s not the only one. Companies have increasingly relied upon Facebook for its unparalleled access to consumers. In fact, for many companies, their Facebook page gets more views than their own website or blog. How does Facebook compare to YouTube in the realm of video advertising?

Viewing Time

Already by early 2017, people were spending one billion hours each day watching YouTube videos compared with only 100 million hours daily of Facebook videos.

A recent study looked at the two platforms. The total viewing time of Facebook ads was 19.9 hours, while the total viewing time of YouTube ads was 17.7 hours.

People watched YouTube ads all the way through more often, however, with YouTube providing 7.3 hours of videos of which people watched at least 20 seconds, deemed “quality watched time.” The videos only got 4.6 hours of quality watched time.

Cost

As a YouTube advertiser, you are only charged when someone views your video ad for at least 30 seconds, or the whole video if it is shorter than that. Facebook advertisers, however, are charged for any video ads seen for at least three seconds.

YouTube video ads tend to cost more per second of viewing time, however. This is because YouTube automatically plays video ads whereas Facebook only plays them when someone clicks one or if autoplay is enabled. The result of this is that YouTube ads can cost 4.4 times more per thousand impressions (CPM) than Facebook ads.

Advertising Goals

Based on the differences in how people view video ads on Facebook and YouTube, which platform is best for your purposes depends on your specific advertising goals. If you are a new company looking to gain maximum engagement with your ads, it may be worth running a campaign on YouTube. If you are an existing company looking to remind your audience you’re still around, you may get a lot more for your money with Facebook video ads.

The following offers a closer look at how, exactly, you may target and position video ads on each of these platforms.

YouTube Ad Targeting and Positioning

On YouTube, you have two choices of video advertising: in-display and in-stream. In-display ads are located outside of the video a person views, and only play if the user clicks on them. In-stream ads play before or in the middle of a video. The user may opt-out of it after approximately the first 5 seconds of viewing.

If audio is a major component of your product or advertising, consider that, as people more frequently visit YouTube than Facebook with the sound turned on. So the audio in your ad is more likely to be heard on YouTube than on Facebook. YouTube does, however, collect less information about users than Facebook, making it less effective at targeting ads to interested viewers.

Facebook Ad Targeting and Positioning

Facebook ads typically appear either in the middle of the video a person views or at set checkpoints during the video. This way, if a person wants to continue viewing a particular video, they must watch at least part of an ad.

Facebook also inserts video ads in members’ timelines to play the moment the user scrolls over them. This ensures your ads get at least a minimal degree of viewing as a person scrolls through their timeline.

Because Facebook collects and tracks so much information about every visitor, Facebook video ads can be highly targeted.

10 most used social media platforms

Summary

Ultimately, the best place for you to post your video advertising content is the place where your biggest and most devoted audience resides. If you have significant audiences on multiple platforms, consider running video ad campaigns on more than one of them. If so, do A/B testing to see which platform works best for you.

When running ads on different platforms, do your best to tailor the advertising content to the specific type of audience member most likely to view it and interact it with it. The more finely you target your video ads according to a platform’s unique audience and attributes, the more you can maximize your video advertising dollar regardless of which platform or platforms you run your video advertisements.


About the Author: Toni Allen is a contributor and editor at Commodity.com, a leading resource on commodities markets and trading. She enjoys sharing insights that help new investors save money and avoid common pitfalls. In her spare time Toni enjoys spending time with her family and exploring the outdoors.