YouTube from a Performance Branding Perspective

Some products take more than 15 seconds to explain. Some stories only become interesting when you give them time. YouTube gives them room – and a way to put them in front of an audience through paid promotion.

People will watch longer advertising when the content interests them. Ottakringer’s “Der letzte Stammtisch” generated more than 131 days of watch time with a €2,000 media budget. An hour spent with the film cost approximately 63 cents.

Digital Basics: Answer the questions customers already ask

What do customers ask before buying? What does the sales team explain again and again? And what only makes sense once you have seen it?

Those are the subjects for your YouTube channel. A filmed product demonstration, an animated explanation or a conversation with someone who knows the subject. On a well-maintained channel, these videos become a useful library for prospective customers and your sales team alike.

Maintained means the information is accurate, videos are organised by topic and viewers can find the relevant product or contact person. A channel does not need a new video every week to be useful.

Include these subjects in your SEO and AISEO planning: Which questions do people search for? Which answers are still missing? A clear title, good captions and a written explanation on the relevant website page make that knowledge easier to access.

For its AI search features, Google also recommends making important information available as text and supporting it with useful video. To appear in video search results, consider the requirements for a dedicated video page. Simply embedding a video is not enough.

Digital Advantage: Longer content needs viewers too

A good film is an investment. Uploading it and hoping for organic reach leaves an important part of the job unfinished.

On YouTube, we can promote that film to a relevant audience. With CPV bidding for skippable in-stream ads, a view is billed after 30 seconds or an earlier interaction. If someone then keeps watching for five minutes, those additional minutes are not billed individually.

This is where good content makes economic sense: when people stay, the brand gets more of their time for its budget. That is why we pay particular attention to cost per hour of watch time in these campaigns.

Billing detail: This rule applies to skippable in-stream ads with CPV bidding. Completing a video shorter than 30 seconds also counts; other bidding strategies charge by impressions. Google Ads explains the details.

Ottakringer: An hour with the film for around 63 cents

Obscura produced “Der letzte Stammtisch”; Bacon & Bold handled ad management and consulting. With a €2,000 media budget, the campaign generated more than 131 days of watch time – approximately €0.63 per hour. Read about the campaign and its results in our Ottakringer case study.

This is why we take long-form content seriously in media planning. A film that people spend several minutes watching has a different role from a brief advertising contact.

We calculate the figure by dividing media cost by watch time in hours. Both must come from the same campaign and period; we consider production costs separately. Whether that time also strengthens the brand or generates sales is the next question to investigate.

YouTube platform insights: Worldwide and in Austria

How large is YouTube worldwide?

DataReportal puts YouTube’s worldwide potential advertising reach at 2.53 billion in January 2025. This is based on Google’s advertising tools and does not describe the platform’s entire monthly active user base. Source and reference date: DataReportal: YouTube statistics, March 2025.

How large is YouTube in Austria?

For late 2025, DataReportal’s Digital 2026: Austria report gives YouTube a potential advertising reach of 6.98 million. This equated to 76.6 percent of the population or 80.3 percent of internet users. These are also Google advertising-planning figures, not a count of monthly active users.

For Austrian brands, this indicates the channel’s scale. How much of that audience is relevant to your offer and reachable with your budget depends on the audience, format and campaign plan. For an actual campaign, we plan around the chosen audience and available budget.

What does this mean for your video plan?

Which questions should you answer? Which existing film deserves more viewers? And what should time spent with your brand cost? These are the questions we start with. Explore our video marketing and campaign services, or read how our Performance Branding framework distinguishes Basics from Advantages.