Whether it’s TV, radio, or magazine ads, conquesting is not a new phenomenon in the advertising world. Using Google Ads for conquesting can be just as effective, if not more so, than traditional advertising methods.

Targeting the people who are searching for your competitors is an excellent strategy to reach customers who are in the market for your product. They are low funnel users and are nearly ready to make a purchase. Your job is to convince them you are a better match for them than your competitor. 

The most obvious method of conquesting is by using Search campaigns to target your competitor’s keywords. We wrote a blog post about this method which goes into more detail about the topic.

A lesser-known way of conquesting in Google Ads is by using Discovery and YouTube campaigns. Today, you will learn more about how to leverage these two campaign types for all your conquesting needs.

Before we start, we have a separate blog post on Discovery ads. If you are wondering how to set up your first Discovery campaign and need some help, you can learn the basics here.

Why advertise on YouTube?

According to the 2021 statistics by Global Media Insights:

  • YouTube has 122 million active users daily.
  • 1 billion hours of content is watched across the world every day.
  • 62% of YouTube users in the USA access the platform on a daily basis.
  • Every minute, more than 500 hours of new content is uploaded into YouTube.
  • On average, a visitor spends 16 minutes and 44 seconds on YouTube every day.

People don’t just go to YouTube for listening to music or watching funny cat videos. They are there to also look for product reviews, unboxing videos, tutorials, product comparisons and so much more.

If you don’t advertise on your YouTube, you are missing out on valuable users who might be in market for your product.

We use conquesting to find such users. Because we know that they are interested in our competitors, it can be easier to get them to convert compared to other users.

We use two methods for conquesting on Discovery and YouTube ads:

  1. Custom Segments
  1. Managed Placements

Using Custom Segments

Custom segments have huge potential when it comes to targeting people on Discovery and YouTube. They allow us to reach users based on their interests, what they are searching for, what apps they use, what websites they visit, and more.

You can create a custom segment based on what people have been searching on Google. Go to Tools & Settings and under shared Library, choose Audience Manager.

Next, go to Custom Segments and click on +

Name your segment and then pick the second option:

The reason we pick the second option is because it allows you to reach people who have searched these terms/keywords on Google and YouTube. It is more targeted than the alternative.

Now is the time to add your competitor’s name. Once you add the name, Youtube will suggest a list of what else people search for that relates to your competitor. For example, if you are competing against Nike, add their name and you will get a list of ideas of other keywords that you can add:

On the right side of the box, you can get segment insights and can change the country, language, or campaign type to get an initial idea of your segment’s reach.

For example, on Discovery, my custom segment is eligible for 10M to 50M weekly impressions with a primarily male audience of ages 25-34.

Hit save and your custom segment is ready.

A second custom segment that you can create for your competitors is by using their website URLs. Using custom segments, you can narrow down your audience by websites or even apps. It’s a really great feature, and we’re very fond of it. For frame of reference, we’ve included where you might find this, and what it looks like:

Simply click on ‘People who browse types of websites’ and add your competitor website(s). You can also add prospecting or relevant keywords with the websites. The two of these signals together help narrow in on who you want to target.    

After you are done creating your custom segments, go to your Discovery or YouTube campaign. From there, navigate to the ad group, and in the sidebar, select Audiences.

Go to ‘Edit Audience Segments’, find and add your target audience to the ad group.

Managed Placements On YouTube

This method is specific to YouTube campaigns. Using ‘Managed Placements’, you can show your ads on specific videos that are either by your competitors or are related to them. For example, a competitor’s product unboxing or a review video. This is an effective way of introducing your brand to your target audience right when they are consuming content by or related to your competitors.

How to target specific Placements in your campaign?    

Go to your YouTube campaign and in the sidebar, expand ‘Content’ and select Placements:

Click on the pencil icon and then go to YouTube channels or YouTube videos. From there, select your competitor’s channel or any video you want to target related to them. Not all channels are eligible for advertising so if you don’t find a specific channel, it might be because you are unable to advertise on said channel.

One thing you need to keep in mind is that if you have other types of targeting (keywords, topic, demographics) layered in, then Google can show your ads on other content that’s related to the other targeting layers in the campaign.   

Final Thoughts…

Using these two targeting methods, you can level up your Discovery and YouTube prospecting campaigns and reach your target audience more effectively.

Questions, comments, concerns? Leave it all below, see if we can’t help you guys out a little!