For the love of the game

MOUNT POCONO — Gamers, grab your controllers and get ready for action.This Saturday, All Gen Video Games in Mount Pocono will be offering a free game to every customer who walks through the door.That’s right. Free.“Saturday is Free Video Game Day. It’s not something that I’ve made up, it’s an actual thing,” All Gen Video Games owner Paul Haynes said with a laugh. “It’s really meant to bring the gaming [...]

Source Business - poconorecord.com http://bit.ly/2YiBnRC

Tired of Debt Collectors’ Harassing Calls? You Could Get Texts and Emails

Tired of debt collectors’ harassing calls? Their newest tactics could involve pestering you through texts and emails — maybe even on Facebook.

If a recently proposed update to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) is approved, collectors would be limited to calling you seven times a week per debt, but they could send you unlimited emails and texts.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking to update the law that was passed in 1977.

The FTC enforces the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which was originally passed to provide consumers with legal protection from abusive, unfair or deceptive debt collection practices.

Both consumer advocates and debt collection companies say the law is out of date, particularly since digital communications weren’t an option when the law was created, according to Bruce McClary, vice president of communications for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling in Washington, D.C.

However, based on his early analysis and discussions with others in the industry, McClary actually laughed when asked how the updates would help consumers more than the current law.

“I think a lot of consumer advocates are very concerned that there is less in here for the consumer and more in these rules for the debt collection agencies,” McClary said.

How FDCPA Updates Could Affect Debt Collections

We should start by emphasizing the proposed change was only released on Tuesday, so the experts are still sifting through the text and discussing how it could affect debt collection practices, according to McClary.

“But there are some things that people need to be aware that could actually make it a little bit more difficult for those who owe a debt and are being contacted by debt collectors,” he said.

Here’s how the changes could affect you.

How Many Calls From a Debt Collector Is Considered Harassment?

According to the proposed rule, anything over seven in one week in regards to a specific debt is considered harassment. And once the collector has spoken with the consumer, the collection agency must wait a week before calling the consumer again in regards to the debt.

That may seem reasonable, but many people who are overdue on debts rarely owe on only one account, McClary points out.  

“If you think about it, a person might not just owe one debt — they may have three debts in collections, so that’s 21 attempted contacts per week that would be allowed,” he said. “It’s easy to understand how this might add a little more stress than some of the regulations that are currently in place.”

How Debt Collectors Could Utilize Electronic Communications

The next part in the proposed law opens up options for other communications from debt collectors, including via email and text.

You’d have the option to unsubscribe from future communications via these methods, the proposed law states. It is designed to modernize communication options for consumers more used to using inboxes than mailboxes.

However, one of the protections within the current FDCPA is the right to demand a debt validation letter, which third-party debt collectors are required to send to you upon request.

Pro Tip

A debt validation letter must include how much you owe, who you owe it to and what action you can take. It is one of the main tools to catch mistakes or frauds.

If debt collectors send you an email, they could use it as an opportunity to start collecting payments without clearly explaining information you have the right to know, according to McClary.

“There’s the possibility that they could include DocuSign elements in these emails that allow for people to request validation of debt — or to enter into agreements to repay the debt,” he said.

And unlike phone calls, there’s no mention on a limit for the number of contacts when it comes to electronic communications.

Social Media Options for Debt Collection

The proposed change also left the door open for social media exchanges, which could offer new opportunities for collection agencies to reach consumers where they are.

However, the current law prohibits debt collectors from disclosing any information about the debt — or even the reason for the contact — to anyone other than the person who owes the debt, according to McClary. That discretion becomes more challenging in the world of social media.

“There’s one debt collector that even suggested that if some of the changes… go into effect, they’ll be able to use social media tools like WhatsApp to contact people,” McClary said. “That’s a little more alarming. There are privacy issues when you start talking about social media as a communications tool for debt collectors.”

What You Can Do to Protect Yourself

For now, the changes to the FDCPA are only proposals, so you can still rely on mail communication options like debt validation letters and debt verification letters You can also demand that debt collectors stop contacting you at certain times or places (like your work), according to McClary.

He also notes that some states provide consumer protection above and beyond the FDCPA, which you can find out about by heading to your state’s attorney general website.

“These states are already looking at ways to update their own regulations once changes are put in place on a national level,” he said.

And as far as what the future may hold, “it’s really too soon to tell,” McClary said. “Exercise your right to control the conversation as the act is written in its present form.”

Tiffany Wendeln Connors is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. Read her bio and other work here, then say hi to her on Twitter @TiffanyWendeln.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2JuZA35

How to Create Predictably Popular Link Bait Posts

Link building can become a time-consuming process. Sometimes you spend hours exhausting all of your strategies and still fall short of your benchmark target.

This can be extremely frustrating.

Yet other times, certain pieces of content seem to effortlessly attract links. Before you know it, you might have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of backlinks for one post without even putting in too much effort.

Wouldn’t it be great if that was the case for all of your content? Fortunately, the possibility is more realistic than you might realize. That’s why you need to learn how to create link bait posts.

What is link bait?

Some of you might have created link bait in the past by accident, without fully understanding what you were doing. Don’t worry; this is a good thing.

In short, link bait is content that’s specifically designed to build links. The idea here is that any blogger, journalist, or influencer in your industry would feel obligated to share your link because the information is so valuable.

Creating link bait content will do wonders for your website.

First of all, this will benefit your website visitors by providing them with high-quality content. But once you start building links at scale with link bait, your site traffic will continue to rise and your search ranking will skyrocket as well.

Here’s something else to keep in mind. If you spend more time creating link bait content, you can spend less time trying to build links. All of your links will start to come organically.

This is much better than producing mediocre or sub-par content and then wasting your efforts trying to build links that nobody wants. I’ll show you everything you need to know about creating predictably popular link bait posts in this guide.

Link bait best practices

In my experience, all link bait content typically has certain characteristics in common.

With that said, you don’t necessarily need to apply all of these best practices to each post. But you can use these elements as a reference to help you come up with ideas and decide which direction you’re going to take whenever you produce new content.

Provide value

Why should someone view or read your post?

If it’s nothing but fluff and long blocks of text that’s stuffed with keywords and designed strictly for SEO purposes, it’s not actually providing value to anyone. This type of content won’t go viral or become link bait.

Instead, you need to ask yourself two questions before you create anything.

• Who benefits from this content?
• How will this content help those people?

If you’re unable to answer these questions, then it’s probably not worth continuing in that direction. But when you’re able to use these questions to guide you throughout the process, it adds great value to the audience.

Value means going the extra mile. Don’t just tell someone why a certain idea works. Show them by using a case study with statistics and examples.

Then other websites will be able to use those figures a reference. Here’s an example to show you what I’m talking about.

Here’s a backlink for Quick Sprout.

The article above talks about the best times to post on Facebook. So the author used a study from one of my old posts to validate their point.

My original content was valuable because it included statistics and research. If I just said, “I think you should post to Facebook on Wednesdays,” it doesn’t provide any value.

But since I took the time to create a link bait post, other sites used it as a reference without me having to go out and ask for the link.

This is common with the majority of the posts here at Quick Sprout. Just look at what happens when you search the web for “according to Quick Sprout.”

I get links like this all of the time.

For those of you who are still unconvinced, just take a look at these metrics from the backlink checker tool at Ahrefs.

Quick Sprout has more than 2.2 million backlinks from over 24,000 referring domains.

Trust me, I didn’t go out there and ask webmasters for backlinks 2 million times. The majority of this happened organically with link bait because all of the content on our blog provides so much value.

Add visuals

Even if you’re a blogger and a master with words, you still need to use visuals to spice up your content.

Here’s the thing. Large blocks of text in paragraph form just won’t get read. In fact, 73% of readers skim through articles as opposed to thoroughly reading them.

So if your posts aren’t reader-friendly, nobody has a reason to link to them.

But adding visuals breaks up the content and makes it easier for people to skim. Plus, visuals grab attention and add value.

Take a look at this research about blog posts from Orbit Media.

Images ranked highest as the most common element found in blog posts for the past five years in a row.

That’s because people are more drawn to visuals.

According to HubSpot, 32% of marketing professionals say that visuals are the most important type of content for their brands, which was the number one response in the survey.

Furthermore, content with visuals gets up to 94% more views compared to posts with just text.

This is definitely a recipe for increasing your chances of creating content that will ultimately turn into link bait. There are plenty of ways to add visuals to your posts.

• Screenshots
• Original photos
• Infographics
• Graphs
• Charts
• Videos
• GIFs

These are a handful of ideas to get you started in the right direction. You can check out my full guide on how to use visual elements to enhance your blogs for more information on this.

Invoke emotion

Create content that will make people feel a certain type of way.

Write a “feel good” post that will make readers jump for joy. Or go the other way and tell a sad story of pain and agony.

Create content funny. Share something sexy. Be inspirational. Make a claim that raises some eyebrows.

Don’t be afraid to bring up topics that are controversial. Just make sure that you’re not offending anyone or doing something that will damage your brand image.

I usually recommend staying away from topics that involve politics, religion, race, and things of that nature.

But with that said, controversial content tends to go viral. Just look at this research from Backlinko.

These are some analytics from a post about racial tolerance in America. The article has been linked to more than 6,000 times.

This is a great example because the post itself doesn’t make any racist claims or anything like that.

Instead, it analyzes data, which refers back to one of our previous points about adding value. The study examined derogatory language from state to state based on Twitter locations. All of the data is shown in graphs, which adds visuals to the piece.

Based on everything we’ve discussed so far, this is a recipe for a predictably popular post.

If you want to learn more about the right emotions to invoke when you’re creating content, I recommend this post on how to guide people’s emotions to drive sales. The same concepts can be applied to link bait content.

Keep it relevant

Link bait needs to be relevant in two ways.

First and foremost, every piece of content that you produce needs to related to your niche. If you’re a fashion blogger, you shouldn’t be posting video tutorials about how to surf.

The timing of your posts needs to be relevant as well. Nobody is interested in hearing the same news story that broke six months ago. If you’re too late to the party, then sites won’t have a reason to use your link as a reference unless you find some type of new and valuable information.

On the flip side, if you’re the first to report something, then you essentially become the source. This is one of the best ways to create link bait.

Here’s an example from Forbes Magazine.

On March 5, 2019, Forbes announced that Kylie Jenner became the youngest self-made billionaire in the world.

The content is relevant to their site, but more importantly, the timing was everything.

They were the first major publication to report this story. Since Kylie Jenner is such a well-known public figure, everyone seemed to have an opinion on the topic.

Bloggers and journalists needed to weigh in. But it would be an injustice to readers if they didn’t cite their sources.

So what did they do? Everyone used Forbes as a reference.

That’s why this link has more than 34,000 backlinks in just two months. This is a great example of how to create timely content that’s highly relevant.

Types of link bait content

Now that you know what your link bait posts should include, it’s time to show you some examples of the types of posts you can create using this formula.

• Lists
• Guides
• Infographics
• Videos and images
• Interactive content

We’ll go through each one of these to give you a better grasp on how these posts can attract links.

List posts

One of the reasons why list posts can be great for link bait is because they provide value.

Lists give you the opportunity to outperform everyone else on the web who has covered a certain topic.

Plus, headlines with numbers are preferred over other types of posts.

Check out my guide on tips for getting more conversions with headlines.

To get the most value out of your list posts, you can curate content from other sources. Let’s say you want to create a list of the best software for something in your industry.

Google that term and see how long other lists are. You might see lists of five, eight, ten, or twelve. This is your chance to create something that’s better than all of them.

Your list post can be the top 25 or 30 software systems. This can become the ultimate reference for people, which will quickly turn into link bait.

Comprehensive guides

Comprehensive guides are popular link bait sources because they are so thorough.

Take this post you’re reading right now as an example. I could have just defined link bait and then used bullet points for best practices and wrapped up the whole thing in less than 500 words.

But that doesn’t add any value, and nobody is going to read it. Instead, I go into lots of detail in each section, using plenty of visuals and statistics to back up my claims.

So teach people how to do something.

Here’s another example of the beginner’s guide to online marketing that was previously published on Quick Sprout.

As you can see, this post is approaching 4,000 backlinks.

Comprehensive guides will always perform well because it’s easier for you to include all of the common features in a link bait post.

In addition to the value and visuals, you can also find ways to stimulate certain emotions while prioritizing relevance and timing.

Infographics

We briefly talked about infographics earlier when we covered visual content. But it’s definitely worth mentioning again on its own.

As we previously discussed, images are the most popular element included in blog posts.

This means that bloggers and journalists need to find images on the web. Most of them aren’t going to take the time to create original content. It’s much easier to just find an infographic online and cite the source with a backlink.

So if you can create infographics that people will use to enhance their own content, you’ll be able to build tons of backlinks at scale.

Just make sure that your information is always accurate and up to date, which is when the relevancy factor comes into play.

If you’re using a study from 2011 to create an infographic in 2019, it’s not going to become link bait. But if you update your study and infographics each year, you’ll become an authoritative source for information.

Videos, images, and gifs

Again, these are more examples of visual content.

Depending on the type of website you have, some of these formats will be more beneficial to you than others.

For example, if you’re a photographer, you’ll definitely want to share your original photos. Then other sites can use them as a reference (similar to infographics) which will build backlinks.

Some of you could use humor to your advantage and create viral GIFs.

But that’s not necessarily a winning strategy for everyone.

Let’s say your website is more serious and professional, you’d be better off creating video tutorials of how to do something that’s related to your niche.

Interactive content

This isn’t necessarily the most common type of link bait, and it won’t be something that’s relevant for all of you.

But with that said, you can build tons of backlinks with interactive posts like a quiz or calculator.

For example, let’s say your website is in the real estate industry. You could create a home mortgage calculator tool. Now other websites can use your tool as a reference since it’s much easier than building their own.

Here’s another example of an emotional intelligence test.

Any post discussing emotional intelligence can link to the test for people to take. That’s why this particular test has over 1,800 backlinks.

Conclusion

Creating link bait content is arguably the best way to build backlinks. As discussed earlier, we’ve built more than 2.2 million backlinks here at Quick Sprout using this strategy.

While link bait usually sells itself, it doesn’t mean you should sit back and do absolutely nothing once your content has been published.

You still need to take steps to increase its exposure and boost the chances of it going viral.

Email the post to your email subscribers. Share it on social media. Incorporate it with your other link building strategies.

If you follow the best practices that I’ve outlined above, it will much easier for you to create link bait posts.

Source Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2H8z7W7

Capital One Auto Loans Review

Capital One is a Fortune 500 company and one of the 10 largest financial institutions in the United States based on deposit amounts. The bank services over 45 million customers across their banking and credit card verticals, and they’re well known for popular financial products like their Capital One 360 checking account.

While Capital One’s banking products and rewards credit cards probably come to mind first, the company also boasts a robust selection of auto loans for consumers who want to purchase a vehicle or refinance a car loan they already have. Capital One even lets you get pre-qualified for an auto loan without an impact to your credit score, and you can use your new auto loan at over 12,000 dealerships around the U.S.

Capital One Auto Loans: Key Takeaways

• Interest rates start at 3.79% for new car loans.
• Refinance your current auto loan with a new rate between 4.33% and 24.99%.
• New car loans start at $4,000, and you can qualify for a refinance loan between $7,500 and $50,000.
• Repay your auto loan with a repayment term of your choosing between 36 and 72 months.
• Auto Navigator loan program lets you get pre-qualified and shop at participating dealerships.

Capital One Auto Finance: Affordable Loans for New and Used Cars

Capital One offers affordable auto loans for consumers with nearly all tiers of credit, although there are some restrictions.

For starters, the Capital One Auto Navigator loan for car purchases is only good at about 12,000 participating dealers nationwide — as in, you cannot use this loan to purchase a car from an individual. Once you’re pre-qualified with Capital One, you can shop around for a car on their website or look up participating dealers and shop for a new or used car in person. Pre-qualification doesn’t guarantee you’ll receive financing or any specific terms; it is only meant to provide you with an idea of whether you can qualify, the amount you can qualify for, and the interest rate you may end up with.

When it comes to the type of cars these loans work for, Capital One only offers new or used car financing on autos up to 12 years old depending on the state. Maximum vehicle mileage is also set at 120,000 miles, and purchase loan amounts start at $4,000.

You can also refinance an auto loan you already have with Capital One — a move they say could save you up to $50 per month compared to your current payment.

To qualify for a refinance, the vehicle must be seven years old or newer and you must be up to date on payments. You can borrow between $7,500 and $50,000 with a refinance, and you can only use these loans for new and used cars, light trucks, SUVs, and minivans for personal use.

• Related: Should You Refinance Your Auto Loan?

What to Watch Out For

The main downside of Capital One auto loans is the fact you can only use their purchase loans at participating dealers. They let you get pre-qualified for an auto loan without a hard inquiry on your credit report, but you’re limited in terms of where you can use your loan proceeds. If you want to buy a truck off a friend or happen to find a car you want to buy at a small boutique dealership that doesn’t partner with Capital One, you can’t use this loan.

Their loans are also limiting in other ways, including the fact Capital One doesn’t finance vehicles in Alaska or Hawaii. Also note that, while Capital One offers interest rates starting at 3.79% for purchase loans, the best rates and terms only go to consumers with very good credit, which is usually considered anyone with a FICO score of 740 or higher. Customers may qualify for the best rates with slightly lower scores, but those with “average” credit or “poor” credit will wind up paying considerably higher interest rates for the same loan.

Finally, Capital One does require a minimum income of $1,500 to $1,800 a month for their auto loans, and that requirement can surge based on the amount you want to borrow.

Who Capital One Auto Loans are Best for:

• Anyone with great credit who can qualify for their lowest rates and best terms.
• Consumers who want to get pre-qualified to see how much they can borrow without a hard inquiry on their credit report.
• People who don’t mind using their loan at a participating dealership.
• Refinancing customers with great credit who need to get into a new auto loan with a lower interest rate and better terms.

How We Rate Capital One Auto Financing

At The Simple Dollar, we aim to provide a general overview of a lender’s products and services through a standard rating process. After a thorough research and discovery period, here’s how Capital One stacks up:

Capital One Auto Loans at a Glance
Overall Rating	Affordability (interest rates, fees, and terms)
	Availability (credit requirements, geographic reach)
	Ease of Use
	Transparency

How to Apply for an Auto Loan from Capital One

Whether you are ready to apply for an auto loan, Capital One keeps the process simple by letting you apply online. With their Auto Navigator program, you can get pre-qualified for a car loan using the application on the Capital One website. Information you’ll need to provide to get pre-qualified includes:

• Your name
• Email address
• Social Security number
• Phone number
• Home address
• Length at residence
• Employment information
• Gross annual income

With your pre-qualification letter in hand, you can shop for a car at any participating dealer. When you find the car you want, you’ll complete the full loan application with Capital One and the dealership will help you apply the loan funds to your auto purchase. In summary, applying for an auto loan from Capital One isn’t that different from using dealer financing other than the fact they let you get pre-qualified for your loan online before you shop.

The Bottom Line

If you’re ready to buy a new or used car but you prefer to get financing from a bank you know and trust, Capital One auto loans are worth checking out. Interest rates can be low for consumers with excellent credit, and you can use your loan to purchase a vehicle from more than 12,000 dealerships nationwide. You can even refinance an auto loan you already have to get a lower rate — either to save money on interest, pay your car off faster, or both.

On the flip side, you may want to consider another loan if you need more flexibility in how the funds are used. And if you want the option to buy from any dealership or purchase a car from an individual, you’ll need to look for a different auto loan altogether.

Related:

• The Best Auto Loans
• Can You Buy a Car with a Credit Card?
• The Best Used Cars for Simply Getting Around

The post Capital One Auto Loans Review appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar http://bit.ly/2VcO7Hs

Behind the Fed's Stone Wall of Secrecy: Time to Let the Sun Shine In

This powerful agency of government truly does operate under a stone wall of secrecy. Meetings are held behind closed doors, statements are carefully crafted to reveal little in the way of what monetary authorities actually think, and the day-to-day activities are shielded from audit .  

Source CBNNews.com http://bit.ly/2HaEXaM

How to Advertise on YouTube

In a perfect world, you’d be able to build brand awareness organically without spending a dime.

But as you and I both know, the world we live in is far from perfect. There comes a time when every business needs to start running paid advertisements.

However, just because you’re paying for ads it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be successful. I’ve seen countless businesses blow their marketing budgets on unsuccessful campaigns because they didn’t have the right strategy.

The first piece to any successful advertising campaign is choosing the right platform. YouTube is arguably the best network for running ads. Here’s why.

More than 1.9 billion users visit YouTube each month. Those people are watching a billion hours of video each day.

According to Alexa, YouTube is the second most popular website in the world, second only to Google. Furthermore, the users spend an average of 8 minutes and 42 seconds using the platform each day. That’s just 42 seconds less than Facebook’s daily average. YouTube has an average of five daily unique page views per user as well.

YouTube was the most popular iOS mobile app of 2018, ranking ahead of other giants like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Google Maps, and Gmail.

The advertising statistics on YouTube are just as impressive.

Users are attentive during 83% of YouTube mobile advertisements. To put that into perspective for you, the average attention rate for television ads is about 45%.

84% of consumers have bought something after watching a video about it.

Users who watch at least 30 seconds of a YouTube ad are 23 times more likely to subscribe to that brand’s channel, watch more videos by that brand, share a video, or visit the visit. People are ten times more likely to take these actions, even if they are just exposed to YouTube ad.

In short, YouTube is continuing to grow in popularity with no signs of slowing down. Ads on this platform have exceptional performance metrics.

Now that you understand why you should be advertising on YouTube, it’s time to learn how. I’ll explain everything you need to know about how to run ads on YouTube in this guide.

Step #1: Create a YouTube channel and Google Ads account

Let’s begin with the basics. Before you can proceed, you need to have accounts set up on two platforms.

1. YouTube
2. Google Ads

I’m assuming the majority of you already have these in place. If that’s the case, you can skip over this. But for those of you who don’t have one, the other, or both, this will be your first step.

Step #2: Upload your ad

Once your profiles are set up, simply upload your video advertisement to YouTube.

From your YouTube dashboard, look for the little video camera icon in the top right corner. If you click on it, a menu will pop up with two options.

• Upload video
• Go live

Select upload video, as I’ve highlighted above, to land on this screen.

From here, you can also decide who can see your video. These are the options:

• Public
• Unlisted
• Private
• Scheduled

This is completely up to you. If you want to keep your ads separate from the content that you share on your channel, keep it private. Alternatively, if you want to use your channel content as an ad, go with public or scheduled.

I think private is better because it gives you the option to run targeted ads without uploading irrelevant content to your channel. It’s easier to control things this way, and you can always change the privacy settings after the video has been uploaded.

Step #3: Create a new campaign

Now you’re going to navigate away from YouTube and head over the Google Ads. From here, you’ll be able to start a new campaign.

Select “campaigns” from the menu on the left side of the screen.

Once you’re on this page, you can start a new campaign by clicking the plus sign or new campaign. Both of these have been highlighted in the screenshot above.

Step #4: Select your goal

Technically, this an optional step. Google Ads will give you the option to proceed without choosing a goal, but it’s definitely in your best interest to do so.

These are your options:

• Sales
• Leads
• Website traffic
• Product and brand consideration
• Brand awareness and reach
• App promotion

By selecting a goal, Google Ads will automatically suggest campaign settings that will be optimal for your ads. Video advertisements will be available for all of these choices, except for app promotion.

Step #5: Choose your campaign type

Now you have to pick what type of campaign you want to run. This selection determines where your ads will be displayed.

Obviously, for our purposes here today, you’re going to choose the video option.

As you can see from what I’ve highlighted above, this type of campaign will reach users on YouTube.

Step #6: Select an ad format

Now you’ll have to choose how your ad will be run. Your options will vary based on the goal you chose back in step #4.

Here’s a more detailed description of your options:

• TrueView advertisements — These ads come in two forms; in-stream and discovery. The in-stream ads play before a video starts, and can be skipped after they’ve been played for a certain amount of time. Discovery ads appear in the search results.
• Non-skippable in-stream advertisements — As the name implies, these video ads cannot be skipped. These are either played before an ad starts, or in the middle of videos that are longer (usually 10 minutes or more). In this case, they’re called “mid-roll” non-skippable ads.
• Bumper advertisements — Bumper ads are just six seconds long, and appear right before a video starts playing. The time limit restricts what you can do, but this format can be part of your overall YouTube advertising strategy.
• Sponsored cards — These ads are shown in the form of a pop-up with a CTA. They start as a small icon, and expand when clicked. Since the cards are small, they aren’t very intrusive the user, and don’t interfere with the video they’re watching.
• Overlay advertisements — Overlays are extremely straightforward. They are basically banner advertisements that show up at the bottom of the screen. These can advertisements can be text or images.
• Display advertisements — Display ads are shown on the right side of YouTube pages above the list of suggested videos. This is another format that does not require a video ad.

You’ll also have the option to set up ad sequencing. This is the process of showing a series of video advertisements to a singular person. Each video in the sequence will be assigned a step or number, so they are shown in the proper order to an individual over time.

Ad sequencing can be used for TrueView in-stream advertisements, bumper ads, or a combination of the two.

Step #7: Configure your campaign

It’s likely that you’re going to run more than campaign on YouTube. So this step is a crucial component for staying organized.

Now is your last chance to change your goal before you proceed. You’ll also be naming your campaign so you can access it to adjust the settings and monitor the performance.

For our purposes today, I just named it “YouTube Test” as an example.

Next, you’ll determine your budget and bidding strategy for the advertisement.

You can set your budget two ways. Either the total amount that you’ll spend for the duration of the campaign (as shown above) or a daily amount that you want to spend.

There are six different options for bidding strategies.

• Maximum CPV — cost per view.
• Maximum CPM — cost per 1,000 times the ad is displayed.
• Target CPM — average cost per 1,000 times the ad is displayed.
• Viewable CPM — cost per 1,000 times ad was viewed (at least 50% of ad is on the screen for two seconds or more).
• Target CPA — automatic bids based on an action, billed at the CPM rate.
• Maximize conversions – automatic bids set up by Google to give you the highest number of conversions to fit your budget.

I recommend experimenting with as many bidding options as possible to see what gives you the best return on your investment. When in doubt, you can always set up target CPA or maximize conversions to let Google Ads automate things for you.

During the campaign configuration process you’ll also be able to customize things like:

• Networks
• Languages
• Locations
• Inventory types
• Excluded content

This is the first part of customizing who will see your campaigns. Next, you can break this down even further by choosing the people you want to reach. You’ll have options like:

• Gender
• Age
• Parental status
• Household income
• Interests and habits
• Life events
• Previous interactions with your business

You’ll want to make this as specific as possible to ensure that your ads are reaching the right audience. The last thing you want to do is waste money on a campaign that’s being shown to the wrong person.

For help with this process, check out my guide on how to define your target audience.

Step #8: Select keywords and topics

In addition to selecting who will see your ads, you also have the ability to choose what types of videos your advertisements will be shown on.

So conduct keyword research that’s related to your brand, as well as what your target audience will be searching for. Google Ads can generate keyword ideas for you if you enter a related website along with the products or services that you’re marketing.

Each topic will also have subcategories to narrow the results even further. For example, if you choose arts and entertainment, you’ll be able to pick subtopics like:

• Celebrities
• Comics and animation
• Events and listings
• Humor
• Movies
• Visual art and design

Again, this entire process is designed to make sure your ads are associated with related videos and being shown to relevant audiences.

Step #9: Paste your video ad URL

I know it seems like a while ago, but remember back in step #2 when I had you upload your ad to YouTube? Now it’s time to circle back there and copy the ad URL.

You’re going to paste it into this section of Google Ads:

That’s the final step of the process.

The last thing you’ll do from here is approval the details and then your ad will start being run on YouTube.

Conclusion

For those of you who have never advertised on YouTube before, this entire process can feel a bit intimidating or overwhelming.

But as you can see from the guide I’ve created, the entire process can be broken down into just nine simple steps. If you already have a YouTube account and Google Ads account, the first step is already completed.

The reality is this; YouTube is king when it comes to video content.

This platform is still rising and popularity and people all over the world are consuming billions of hours of video content on a daily basis. We’re beginning to reach the point where business can’t afford to compete if they don’t have an active YouTube presence.

If you’re going to run paid ads, you might as well do it on a platform like this one. The fact that everything is run through Google Ads makes it easier for you to customize your campaigns to ensure that they’re reaching the right audience.

You’ll be able to successfully advertise on YouTube with ease if you simply follow the step-by-step process that I’ve outlined above.

Source Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2DYHTpc