How to Target Competitor Website Visitors Using YouTube Ads: The Step-by-Step Placement Method

Target competitor audiences on YouTube ads by creating video campaigns with strategic competitor website and video placements, using recommended video formats, and setting up proper retargeting systems to capture visitors at just $1,300 for 38 leads.



Time Required: 2-3 hours to set up initial campaign

Best For: Business owners wanting low-cost leads from competitors' audiences

YouTube ads represent the lowest cost place to generate quality leads for your business. In my experience helping businesses like law firms get 38 leads for just $1,300 spent, I've discovered that targeting your competitors and other YouTube channels with strategic ad placements is one of the most effective ways to get more visitors, leads, and customers from YouTube.

What makes this approach different from standard YouTube advertising is the focus on placement-based targeting rather than just demographics or interests. Instead of hoping your ads show up to the right people, you're strategically placing them exactly where your ideal customers are already watching - on your competitors' content.

Why YouTube Ads Are the Best Low-Cost Lead Source

YouTube ads consistently deliver the lowest cost per lead compared to other advertising platforms. I've seen this across multiple industries, with our law firm client achieving 38 quality leads for just $1,300 in ad spend. This cost efficiency comes from YouTube's massive reach combined with precise targeting capabilities.

The key advantage is that people are already engaged and watching video content, making them more receptive to your video ads when they appear as recommended content. Unlike disruptive pre-roll ads that people want to skip, the placement strategy I use shows your content where viewers naturally expect to find related videos.

How to Set Up a YouTube Ads Campaign in Google Ads

First, you need a Google Ads account - that's the number one step. You can check out other videos on my playlist showing how to set up a Google Ads account. They give you great credits if you want to get set up. Just go to ads.google.com, scroll down and you're going to see that they give you some ad credits.

Once you get your account set up, they're going to make you create a test campaign with the most simple settings. You have to go through them, deposit 50 bucks, but you can pause it as soon as you turn that on. Then you want to go to the advanced view.

How to Create a Google Ads Account for YouTube Ads

You're going to create a new campaign and depending on if you want sales, leads, website traffic, awareness, or just create campaign without guidance, you can choose any of these. If you're just new and starting out and you don't have any audiences yet, just do create a campaign without guidance.

What I would recommend is hiring an expert from a freelance site - I recommend using Fiverr for finding qualified freelancers who can help set up tracking. It is good to retarget your website visitors, and if you're an e-commerce store, target anyone that viewed products so you can then target them on these different channels.

How to Choose the Right Campaign Objective

Today in particular we're going to be focused on video, really YouTube, as that's one of the best places where leads come in. You have some different options here - you can do video views, drive conversions, all of that. I recommend the option that gives you the most flexibility.

Let's click on continue and name your campaign something like "YouTube ad to competitor websites" - this helps you remember that it targets people who go to other websites and watch competitors' YouTube videos.

How to Avoid Skippable Ads and Use Recommended Placements

You're going to see different ad formats, but I don't like the skippable ones - they just make you seem kind of spammy and people can't wait to hit that skip button. Sometimes you even have people who upgrade their YouTube channel for $20 a month to not see any ads, but this will still work because you can show these ads on Google search, Google Display Network, Gmail and other Google Display sites. Maybe you won't show on the YouTube channel but you will show on other Google products, which helps you retarget people.

We're going to choose "any related videos" so you can choose two videos from your channel that you think are relatable. These will be recommended after your ad, so if somebody sees your ad they will also be recommended these next videos.

How to Use Welcome Videos in YouTube Ads

What I recommend is having a welcome video. If we go to my channel, I have "welcome to automation links" - I recommend doing this as it helps convert viewers. That's what we use here for our two recommended videos.

If you hired somebody or if you set it up on your own, you'll have other audiences that you can add. You can also target different demographics or do it based on interests and detailed demographics. Feel free to play around with that and fill all of that out.

How to Add Competitor URLs and Video Placements

From here, we want to choose content where you want your ads to show, and this is where we can actually add placements. We can search by word, phrase, URL or video ID. What I can do is go to Google and look at some other law firms as an example, and you can place that URL in there to target that person's website visitors.

From there you can scroll down and find other recommended websites that would be similar to that. You want to make sure these are all added. Sometimes you can look for a few more and then go through the recommended ones below. You can add one placement there and manually add others as well.

You can look for other channels that have something to do with your industry. What we want to look for is somebody that has good reach - like channels with 185,000 views - something we can target. This is something I want you to research and figure out for your specific niche.

It's saying that we still need more placements, so I usually recommend about 10. Go ahead and keep scrolling through, find some other videos that you think would be a good fit and make sure to place those in there. You can show your ad on the top right or in sponsored posts.

How to Upload and Launch Your YouTube Ad Video

From there, you've got a pretty good list hopefully, and this is where you're going to upload your YouTube video that we want to start advertising. What it's going to do is target any of these website visitors and any of these YouTube channel visitors and show up on mobile phones, computers, and display.

You can also see it on Google video partners. From there you can add more videos, even add vertical videos, and add a call to action where we have those two buttons that show up. You want to be really strategic on the headline and description.

You can choose your cost - put it right around $1 per day to start. Once you turn this on and it starts adjusting, it'll give you some warnings, but then click create campaign, turn that campaign on, and you'll start showing your video that you chose in front of the audience that you chose.

Key Point: Strategic placement targeting on competitor content

How It Works: Place ads where your ideal customers already watch content

Time to See Results: Start seeing data within 24-48 hours of campaign launch

Tools Needed: Google Ads account, YouTube channel with welcome video, list of competitor URLs/channels

For more advanced advertising strategies, see our comprehensive advertising guide, and if you need help with conversion tracking, check out our website design and development services.

Final Tips for Getting More Leads from YouTube Ads

The key to success with this competitor targeting method is selecting the right placements and having high-quality video content that provides genuine value. Your welcome videos and follow-up content need to clearly communicate your unique value proposition.

For tracking and optimization, I recommend using AdKong for advanced tracking capabilities to better understand which placements are driving the highest quality leads. To manage your leads effectively, GoHighLevel CRM provides excellent automation and follow-up capabilities.

Start with a modest budget around $1 per day and scale up once you identify your best-performing placements. The goal is to capture visitors who are already interested in your type of service or product, making them much more likely to convert.

Take Action Today

YouTube competitor targeting through strategic placements offers the lowest cost per lead when executed properly. Focus on value-driven video content, precise placement selection, and systematic testing to achieve results like 38 leads for $1,300 in ad spend.

For businesses ready to implement this strategy but needing expert setup and optimization, my team at automationlinks.com would be more than happy to set this up for you with proper tracking and conversion optimization.

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