Google expanding YouTube Director onsite video ad service to more than 170 cities

First offered last year to advertisers in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., YouTube Director onsite is now available in more than 170 US cities.

The video ad creation service provides access to “experts” who will script, film and edit a 30-second video ad for free when a business commits to spend at least $350 on YouTube through Google AdWords. That is more than twice the original buy-in of $150 worth of YouTube ads Google required businesses to purchase to use the service when it was available in a limited number of cities.

Google shared the following graphic to clarify how the process works when advertisers sign up to work with a YouTube Director onsite expert:

Google says Warmoth Guitar Products, one of the early advertisers to use YouTube Director onsite, saw a 13x return on its ad spend and a 130 percent increase in revenue from the video ad it created.

When YouTube Director onsite was originally announced, it was in addition to a YouTube Director app, a free iPhone app designed to help businesses create video ads from their phone. YouTube shuttered the app last December but kept the YouTube Director onsite service going.

The YouTube Director onsite website includes the following map showing where the service is being offered.

YouTube Director onsite coverage areas

Last week, Google announced it was bringing custom intent audiences to YouTube and rolling out a new ad format for direct response advertisers on YouTube called TrueView for Action.