The book on YouTube ads as a paid acquisition channel rather than a brand-awareness afterthought. Covers the structural moves: the campaign-objective decision that determines what you're actually optimising for, the audience signals that work on YouTube specifically (which differ from search), the creative patterns that perform in the first five seconds (where the auction actually happens), and the measurement framework that handles YouTube's longer attribution cycles. Built for the marketer running paid acquisition and considering whether YouTube ads belong in the channel mix.

The pre-launch check for any YouTube campaign. Walks through the campaign-objective decision (Conversions, View, Awareness — they're not interchangeable), the audience targeting setup (with the YouTube-specific signals that work), the bidding strategy alignment with the actual goal, the creative readiness check (the assets YouTube needs to have a chance), and the measurement and attribution setup. Run before launch. Most YouTube campaigns underperform because of structural setup decisions that no in-flight optimisation can fix.

Most YouTube ad campaigns underperform because the operator skipped the strategic planning and went straight to ad creative, then wonders why the campaign isn’t converting. The strategic build is more disciplined and produces consistently better results. This guide installs the practice: the goal-setting work that decides what the campaign is actually optimizing for, the audience-research work that names who the ad is actually targeting, the YouTube ad format pick (TrueView, Bumper, Discovery, Masthead) matched by stage and budget, the budget-planning math that prevents the over-pay-for-clicks problem, the bidding-strategy decisions matched to the campaign objective, the channel-and-landing-page setup work that closes the conversion loop, and the launch timeline that handles both creative production and account setup. Pair with the YouTube ads ebook for the strategic frame; this guide is the per-campaign build playbook.

The detailed framework for the first five seconds of any YouTube ad — the auction window where the cost-per-view is decided. Covers the hook structure that earns the next five seconds, the attention-pattern recognition that's specific to YouTube's user mode (different from social), the visual versus audio decision (not all hooks belong in the audio layer), and the creative patterns that perform across categories. Worked example through twenty real YouTube ads with the structural critique.

Six daily emails that walk through launching a YouTube ad campaign. Day 1: campaign-objective and audience setup. Day 2: creative production scoped to the platform. Day 3: campaign launch and learning-phase protection. Day 4: first-week monitoring and adjustment. Day 5: optimisation and asset rotation. Day 6: scaling and ongoing rhythm. Built for the marketer new to YouTube ads or running them poorly and ready for the structural reset.

Working prompts for the AI-assisted parts of YouTube ad management: the hook variant generator (against a defined audience and offer), the campaign post-mortem analyser, the creative-rejection diagnoser (paste rejection reasons, get the structural fix), the audience-signal optimiser. Each prompt comes with input/output format. Tested across Claude and ChatGPT.