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Performance marketing

YouTube advertising, built around the skip button

Most YouTube ads are a television commercial with a logo at the end, running in a format where the viewer can leave after five seconds and most of them do. The creative decision and the media decision are the same decision here, which is why we do both.

  • 5 seconds the whole brief, really
  • In-house creative and media together
  • View-through measured, not assumed

Tell us what you need

A senior person reads this and replies within one working day. No call centre, no drip sequence.

Partners & recognition

The stack we work in, the clients we keep

The platforms we build and run campaigns in, and the clients whose numbers we publish with their names on. HubSpot is the one partnership we claim; the rest are tools we use, not badges.

  • German Medical Center
  • The Reformery Clinic
  • Alma Laser
  • Roxana Aesthetics Clinic
  • Lamel
  • Dotline Studios

The problem

A skippable format run like an unskippable one

Broadcast creative builds slowly towards a reveal. YouTube gives you five seconds before a button appears that removes you from the viewer's life. Those two facts are incompatible, and most campaigns never resolve them.

Why the campaign underperforms

  1. The first five seconds were an afterthought

    The film was cut for a website hero and then trimmed for YouTube. Everything that would make someone stay — the problem, the face, the offer — sits at second twenty, which almost nobody reaches.

  2. Targeting is set to reach, and reach is cheap

    Wide targeting produces impressive view counts at low cost. It also produces views from people who will never buy. Cheap reach is the easiest metric to hit and the least connected to revenue.

  3. Nobody measures what video actually does

    Video ads rarely get clicked. Judging them on click-through rate makes them look like a failure regardless of whether they worked. The effect shows up in branded search volume and in conversion rates on other channels, and nobody is looking there.

  4. One asset, every placement

    The same 30-second landscape film runs in-stream, in-feed, on Shorts and on connected TV. Shorts is vertical and sound-on by default. Connected TV is a lean-back screen with no click at all. One asset cannot serve all of them.

What is included

What YouTube advertising covers here

Creative and media in the same scope, because separating them is what produces beautiful films nobody watches.

Skippable in-stream

The workhorse format. You pay when someone watches thirty seconds or interacts, so the first five seconds are doing the qualifying work for you. Built so that a viewer who skips has still seen the one thing you needed them to see.

In-feed video ads

Appear alongside search results and related videos, where intent is higher and the viewer chose to click. Thumbnail and title carry most of the performance, and they get treated as ad creative rather than as an afterthought.

YouTube Shorts

Vertical, fast, sound-on, and a completely different editing grammar. Repurposed landscape footage reads as an intruder here. Shot or recut properly for the format.

Connected TV

A growing share of UAE YouTube viewing happens on a television. No click, no keyboard, a shared room. Creative needs a memorable brand and a searchable name rather than a URL nobody can type.

Demand Gen campaigns

Google's replacement for the old discovery campaigns, running across YouTube, Discover and Gmail. Useful for mid-funnel where search intent has not formed yet.

Creative production

Scripted, shot and cut for the format by the same team that runs the media. Detailed across our video cluster, and priced as part of the campaign rather than as a separate project with its own timeline.

Audience and exclusion strategy

Custom segments built from search behaviour, customer match where the list supports it, and an exclusion list that keeps ads off made-for-kids inventory and the content categories your brand should not sit beside.

Brand lift and search lift measurement

Where budget supports it, a formal brand lift study. Where it does not, branded search volume and direct traffic tracked against flight dates, which is a rougher but honest proxy.

Technology

What we run YouTube with

Media tooling on one side, an actual production capability on the other.

Media

Where the campaign is bought.

  • Google Ads
  • Display & Video 360
  • YouTube Studio
  • Google Ads Editor

Creative

Because the ad is the campaign.

  • Adobe Premiere Pro
  • After Effects
  • DaVinci Resolve
  • Motion graphics
  • Subtitling and localisation

Audience

Built, not bought off a shelf.

  • Custom segments from search behaviour
  • Customer Match
  • Placement exclusions
  • Brand suitability controls

Measurement

For a channel nobody clicks.

  • Brand lift studies
  • Branded search volume tracking
  • Google Analytics 4
  • Looker Studio

How we work

How a YouTube campaign gets made

Creative and media planned together from the first meeting, because the format dictates the script.

Awareness, consideration or action

These need different creative, different formats and different measurement. A campaign trying to do all three does none of them, and it is the most common brief we are handed.

  • One objective agreed and written down
  • Formats chosen to match it
  • Success defined before anything is shot
  • Budget sized against the objective

Then for thirty

The opening has to work as a complete message for someone who leaves immediately, and as an opening for someone who stays. That is a real writing constraint and it is where the work is.

  • Opening five seconds scripted first
  • Message intact for a skipper
  • Vertical and landscape planned, not cropped
  • Sound-off legibility checked

Retention curves, not clicks

The audience retention graph tells you exactly which second lost people. That is a specific, fixable piece of information, and it is far more useful than an aggregate view rate.

  • Retention curve reviewed per asset
  • Drop-off points recut
  • Placement and audience exclusions applied
  • Frequency capped before it annoys

Including what we cannot prove

View-through conversions, branded search movement against flight dates, and assisted conversions. We label what is measured and what is inferred, because pretending video attribution is precise is how budgets get pulled when someone checks.

  • View-through reported separately from click-through
  • Branded search tracked against flights
  • Assisted conversions shown
  • Inference labelled as inference

Why us

Why creative and media belong together

Every failure mode on this page comes from splitting them.

We make the ad and we run it

So the retention curve feeds straight back into the next cut. When the media team and the production company are different suppliers, that feedback loop takes a quarter and usually never closes.

The first five seconds get written first

Not trimmed from a longer film afterwards. It is a different craft from a brand film and it is the entire performance of a skippable format.

Measured on what video actually moves

View-through conversions, branded search lift and assisted conversions, reported separately and labelled honestly. Judging video on last-click would make every video campaign look like a failure.

Cut properly for each placement

Vertical for Shorts, landscape for in-stream, a thumbnail treated as ad creative for in-feed, and connected TV creative that works with no click at all.

Start a projectIf you already have a film, send it over. We will tell you honestly whether it can be recut for YouTube or whether it needs shooting again.

Industries

Proven results across sectors

Every number below is the count of case studies we have actually published in that sector, and the best result among them. Nothing is a counter.

Selected work

Paid programmes we have run

Client stories

What clients say

On camera and in writing — swipe through the founders and teams we’ve helped design, build and grow.

In their words

★★★★★
GMC is thrilled to extend our heartfelt appreciation to Adnika! Collaborating with Ehsan and his team has consistently been an absolute delight. Ehsan's dedication and commitment have ensured that German Medical Center remains an exceedingly satisfied and happy client, especially regarding their Hubspot Onboarding, Digital Marketing, Website Development, Content Creation and Social Media Marketing. Adnika is indeed the Best Digital and Growth Marketing Agency in UAE!
German Medical CenterDubai, UAE
★★★★★
Adnika provided us with their Inbound Sales and Marketing solutions through Hubspot. They helped us generate more qualified leads for our sales team, drive website traffic, increase customer engagement, and grow our customer base. Adnika is a reliable partner that has always taken our specific goals and needs seriously.
Ómar Thor ÓmarssonCMO, Meniga
★★★★★
Adnika has helped us plan, implement and optimize ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. Adnika is truly committed to Performance Marketing. They provided us with a fantastic dashboard with detailed KPIs that helped us track the campaigns’ performance in real time. Adnika also gave us helpful and dedicated support during the whole project, and the campaigns turned out to be a great success. We highly recommend working with Adnika's growth experts.
Christer PihlqvistKapi Marketing
★★★★★
We really enjoyed working with Adnika’s team. Not only are they talented, but they all take the time to understand whom they're working with, what they're trying to accomplish, and how to help the business achieve its goals. The quality of work we've experienced has made a huge difference for us and helped drive new business.
Ola BringleMarketing Advertising
★★★★★
Adnika helped Sea Technology with setting up new digital channels, such as Google Search Ads, to attract more customers and leverage our brand. We are very satisfied with the results and we will continue with the implementation of lead generation, marketing automation, and performance marketing.
Bengt LundquistSeatech
★★★★★
Working with the Adnika team has been a real pleasure! Extremely friendly, Ehsan and Elin are always available with prompt replies, valuable insights, patience, a problem-solving attitude, and high knowledge. Super easy to work with them. I highly recommend the Adnika team to help your business!
Magnus BruhnPharmaceuticals
★★★★★
I am an artist, but I also manage a collective of DJs. In order to promote our services to our clients, we needed Inbound solutions that could attract the right traffic and promote the brand. Adnika built and designed our Inbound processes as well as create and manage campaigns on social media and Google Ads which helped us attract many more customers. I’m very happy!
Denise LopezXOXO Agency
★★★★★
We've been using Adnika growth marketing solutions only for a few months. They are highly professional, competent, experienced, and creative. Get ready to get to work with this agency. They will come alongside you as a business owner and feel your pain and joy! Get ready to transform your business.
Pierre-Alexande RauxTelecommunications

Questions

YouTube advertising, answered plainly

Including what it costs and how to tell whether it worked.

AED 5,500 to AED 22,000 covers most of what we are asked to build. The number moves on whether creative production is included, how many assets and formats, how many languages, and whether a formal brand lift study is in scope. Media spend is separate and paid to Google. Anything quoted before those are known is a guess. We scope first, then price, and the scope document is yours whether or not you proceed. These are market ranges rather than a fixed rate card — the proposal carries the real figure.

For skippable in-stream, typically a few fils to around AED 0.40 per view depending on targeting tightness and category competition. Tighter targeting costs more per view and usually costs less per outcome, which is the trade worth making. Treat any agency quoting you a low cost per view as the headline with suspicion.

Often, though not always. An existing film can sometimes be recut if the material for a strong opening exists in the footage. If everything interesting happens after second twenty and there is no usable alternative, recutting will not save it. We will tell you which case you are in before you commit to a production budget.

It can, and it works differently. You are not going to close an enterprise deal from a video ad. What it does well is make the brand familiar before the buying committee starts searching, which shows up later as higher branded search and better conversion on other channels. Judged on last-click it will always look poor.

YouTube ads are bought inside Google Ads — it is the same platform and often the same account. The difference is the format and the intent. Search catches people already looking. YouTube reaches people before they look, which is more useful for demand creation and less useful for immediate lead capture.

If your audience is there and you can shoot vertical properly, yes. Not by cropping landscape footage, which is visible and reads as lazy. Shorts is a distinct format with its own pacing, and treating it as a resize is the most common mistake.

Three things, in order of reliability: conversions attributed through view-through, branded search volume measured against flight dates, and audience retention on the creative itself. The first is measured, the second is a strong signal, the third tells you what to fix. We report all three and label which is which.

For skippable in-stream, thirty percent and up is a reasonable working benchmark, though it varies enormously with targeting width. A very high view rate on very narrow targeting can mean you are just reaching people who already know you. The retention curve is a more useful diagnostic than the aggregate rate.

The useful answer is that the first five seconds must stand alone. After that, as long as it stays interesting — retention curves regularly show a good ninety-second film holding better than a weak fifteen-second one. Cut to the material, not to a slot.

Yes. We will give you a format brief before you shoot so the assets come back usable, and we will be straight with you if what arrives cannot perform in the format.

No questions match — try another search.

Next step

Have a film that is not performing on YouTube?

Send it with the campaign data. We will look at the retention curve and tell you whether it is a creative problem or a targeting one.

Get a quote