Why Your YouTube Ads Are Showing on Kids Channels
You run a precisely designed YouTube advertising campaign geared towards techies or homeowners. A few days after running the campaign, you look at your placement reports and get frustrated because your fancy video ads start to play before nursery rhymes, toy unboxing videos, and bright cartoon clips. We hear this from many businesses who fail to figure out why YouTube ads are showing on kids’ channels and why their well-targeted campaigns suddenly started to target toddlers.
Advertising a corporate solution or service to a kid doesn’t make much sense since they cannot purchase the product nor sign up for a service. Five-year-olds just sit waiting until the “Skip Ad” button appears. We realize that it is annoying for media buyers to achieve their ROI goals while dealing with such low-quality ad placements.
In this article, we will explain what makes the algorithm direct the video ads to the little eyes. Most importantly, we will walk you through the process of reclaiming your budget so that only your audience sees the advertisement.
The Advertiser’s Dilemma: Why Do Ads Leach into Kids Content?
In order to explain the issue, it is crucial to comprehend how the algorithm works. It takes into consideration engagement rate, click-through rates, and view rates. Toddlers are famous for watching video ads to the end while interacting with colorful screens. In other words, by making sure a toddler watches the entire video, the algorithm starts to serve your video ads even more, making it harder to avoid kids content in YouTube ads campaigns.
The first and foremost reason behind the problem is the wide target audience setup. By selecting broad demographic or topic filters, you let the algorithm know that any cheap inventory will be accepted. Kids’ YouTube channels generate billions of views per day; thus, their ad spots are inexpensive and plentiful. As soon as the algorithm detects this, your ad spots start to appear.
Device sharing adds fuel to the fire. For example, one may use an iPad during work, perform online business research, log out, and give the iPad to their kid who will watch some entertainment. In such cases, the algorithm still considers the user to be a businessman due to the earlier search behavior.
Consequences of Advertising in the Wrong Place
The most evident problem that emerges due to the appearance of your video ads in inappropriate places is pure wastage of budget. Indeed, the money you spend on displaying your ads to toddlers should go to those users who are going to become clients. Campaigns can lose more than half of the total ad budget by letting the wrong people see it, which is why many advertisers look for ways to fix YouTube ads showing on wrong videos.
Another problem is the breach of brand safety. Indeed, placing your product-related ad before a silly cartoon clip is not good. You lose the professionalism of your brand and ruin your reputation in case the kid talks about it with parents.
There is an additional risk of generating negative public opinion. Indeed, parents may get upset at seeing your advertisement pop up when they are entertaining their kids. This negative attitude will be transferred to the company itself.
How to Stop Your Ads from Appearing Before Toddlers
The easiest way to protect your marketing campaign from being shown on inappropriate channels is through using a comprehensive exclusion list. Exclude Kid Channels provides top-notch exclusion lists so that you could be guaranteed to stop showing your ad spots to toddlers. Applying our exclusion list to your Google Ads account will eliminate the issue instantly.
Apart from our exclusion list service, we suggest setting specific content type exclusions. It is important to exclude family-friendly content along with content for young people. Also, do not forget to apply video exclusions such as embedded YouTube video and livestreaming video.
Lastly, we suggest narrowing down your advanced targeting options. Instead of focusing on broad topics and interests, try to rely more on intent audiences and customer match lists. This way, you can be assured that you target the users that entered the relevant search terms recently.
FAQs
Why Does Google Fail to Filter Them Out Automatically?
Indeed, there are automatic filtering processes on Google; however, they are not perfect since millions of hours of video are posted to the platform each day. Additionally, Google has interest in selling this abundance of inventory; hence, it is the responsibility of an advertiser to ensure brand safety on the platform.
How Often Should I Update Exclusions?
New kids channels start to gain popularity every week. Hence, your exclusion list will quickly become obsolete. We strongly recommend doing updates once a month. This is why so many advertisers choose our continuous lists to avoid having to update them.
Is It Possible to Reduce Overall Campaign Impressions?
This is unavoidable because of the necessity to target the right users. However, the quality of impressions is bound to improve drastically; hence, your ads should be shown more frequently to the target group. Overall, reaching fewer people is the right thing to do when they don’t intend to purchase your product or use your service.
Summary
You cannot waste your ad budget by allowing the algorithm to show your ads to the wrong audience. Device sharing and the algorithm’s tendency to save money can lead to your video ads appearing in wrong places. It is vital to exclude all channels related to children’s content and set advanced filters in your ad campaigns.
If you wish to stop wasting money and protect your campaign from appearing before toddlers, check out Exclude Kid Channels now. We can assist you in applying our top-notch exclusion lists and boost your ROI in minutes!
