Lesson: Making advertiser-friendly content Part-2/2

• How can you help your content monetize better?

  
  

  Content

  Even if a video is approved for monetization, some advertisers may choose not to show their ads on particular content types that don’t match their brand, especially content that deals with controversial or challenging subject areas. For example, advertisers often choose to exclude these types of content from their campaigns:

  • Sensitive social issues: Discrimination and identity relations, scandals and investigations, reproductive rights, firearms and weapons, and more.
  • Tragedy and conflict: Obituaries, bereavement services, violence, war, missing persons, and more.
  • Sensational and shocking: Content that creates shock value, including sensational, gross, and crude content.

  Some advertisers may also choose to avoid content that features:

  • Profanity and rough language: Moderate or heavy use of profane language and curse words.
  • Sexually suggestive content: Provocative pictures, text, and more.

  If you want to maximize your potential to appeal to a broad range of advertisers, consider the following:

  • Keep profanity to a minimum - Consider limiting or bleeping out profanity.
  • Review your content mix - Balance videos that deal with more mature topics with others that might focus on more widely appealing topics.
  • Put on your advertiser hat - Think about what type of advertiser would be comfortable showing up alongside your content.

  Thumbnails

  Thumbnails should accurately represent the content and be enticing to potential viewers, but you may also want to think about thumbnails in the context of whether many brands would be comfortable showing up alongside them. For example, thumbnails that are shocking or overly graphic can also cause some advertisers to exclude that content from a particular campaign.

  To ensure advertisers are comfortable with your thumbnails:

  • Choose accurate thumbnails - Thumbnails should, first and foremost, be an accurate depiction of the content of your video
  • Avoid sexually suggestive, graphic, or shocking - Shocking, graphic, or sexually suggestive thumbnails - even if the video itself is not - may result in certain brands choosing to not advertise against that particular video.
  • Appeal to a broad audience - Choose a thumbnail that you think accurately reflects your video but still appeals to the broadest audience. If it does, it will may appeal to a broad set of brands as well.

  Example: Graphic	Example: Shocking

  Metadata: titles, descriptions, and tags

  Advertisers can choose to target videos that contain particular terms and keywords in their titles, descriptions, or tags, in order to reach the audiences they value.

  Advertisers can also use terms and keywords to opt-out of content that doesn’t align to their brand as well. For example, videos that contain profane, controversial, or sexually suggestive terms (even if they are being used in a comedic, ironic, or otherwise non-offensive context) can result in some advertisers excluding your video from their campaigns. Advertisers also sometimes opt out of keywords that are not controversial, but in their own may not align with their brand or advertising campaign goals.

  Tips to ensure advertisers are comfortable with your metadata:

  • Make accurate titles, tags, and descriptions - Most importantly, metadata should accurately describe the content of your video
  • Every word matters - Videos that contain profane, controversial, or sexually suggestive terms can result in some advertisers excluding your video from their campaigns.
  • Words can be taken out of context - Advertisers will often opt out of certain words or phrases - consider how your titles, tags, and descriptions can be interpreted.