Skip links

How to Set the Right Advertising Budget for Video Content

Budgeting is an essential part of the marketing process, especially when it comes to video marketing. Unless you’re making phone videos on your lunch break, there’s going to be a cost to creating videos and a cost to get those videos seen by your target audience. But how do you determine what your advertising budget should be?

That’s what this post is all about. We’re only talking about the advertising component here and won’t be getting into video production budgeting, except to say that it’s possible to make great videos on a smartphone. 

No matter what you use, video is a useful marketing tool with proven success. Just ask the 85% of millennials who admit to making a purchase after watching a marketing video. 

When setting your budget, there are a few things to look at:

Who is the customer, and where are they?

This is basic Marketing 101 stuff, but you should have a good idea of who your customer is, what they like, and where they spend their time. In this case, since we’re only dealing with video, focus on where people spend their time online. 

Timing

You want to put your video in front of people when they’re looking to buy. Swimsuits in December likely won’t sell well. And you want your videos delivered when your customers are online, so pay attention to the time of day, as well. 

Product popularity

While you might be eager to offload that pile of product gathering dust, for your video advertising efforts, you need to focus on products you know people will want. 

Cost per sale

Figure out how much you’re willing to spend to capture a sale, and use that to guide your video placement decisions. 

Advertising medium

Spend some time looking at which platform will offer the best results. This largely depends on your audience and their favorite places to hang out online. Once you know where your audience is, you’ll want to balance that with your ad spend. Each platform has a different average cost per click, which itself is dependent on a wide range of variables. For a baseline, consider these cost per click numbers

Facebook: $0.97
Instagram: $3.56
LinkedIn: $5.26
Twitter: $0.38

Facebook 

The world’s largest social media network is still going strong, with one-third of Americans under age 34 regularly logging on. That’s down from a few years ago, but still a significant number. And, three-quarters of American Facebook users log in every day.

Facebook has a robust ads management center that helpfully guides you through the ad creation process to make sure you’re getting the outcome you want, be it awareness, leads, or website visits. And because Facebook owns Instagram, you can control ad campaigns for both apps from one central location. 

Instagram

Instagram tends to have a younger user base than Facebook, making it a good outlet for youthful brands or anyone that isn’t specifically targeting the boomer crowd. When deciding where to spend your advertising dollars, consider that 81% of Instagram users research products on the platform. 

Twitter

Although not as popular as Facebook or Instagram, Twitter does have a strong following. It’s popular with the 35 to 65-year-old set, which makes up 63% of users worldwide. And 40% of users made a purchase after seeing the item on Twitter. The small bite format of Twitter makes it a good spot to place those really short video ads, and you can track their success using Twitter’s 3-second and 6-second watch stats when you create a video ad campaign

LinkedIn

When it comes to B2B advertising, LinkedIn is the place to be. But it’s also worth looking at for your B2C advertising efforts, as well. If you’re looking to get in front of an older crowd with disposable income, consider that two-thirds of LinkedIn users are over 46 years old and that nearly half of those users earn more than $75,000 per year. 

YouTube

Three-quarters of Americans use YouTube regularly. And, that number doesn’t change much from teens to seniors, making it a good option for a general interest audience. The platform’s ad targeting options allow you to fine-tune your audience, as well, for those times you don’t want to reach the entire 75% of Americans using the site. 

Paid placement video ads are a great way to boost the organic reach of your videos, as well as ensuring your intended audience sees your message. Like any new venture, getting started with video ads will require a bit of testing advertising budgets to find out which platform is right for your business. 

Need help creating the perfect video ad? Get in touch with DreamItReel today. 

Recommended readings

How much does it cost to make a video?

Video production services agreement.

+