How to Pitch a YouTube Viewer: Talking Babies Are a Good Start

YouTube’s homepage is some of the most valuable real estate on the Web: A “click to play” ad  on the top right corner of the page costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, justified by the Google (GOOG) unit’s enormous reach.

But those ads only work if people click on them, and the performance can vary dramatically. Web video tracker TubeMogul evaluated the views generated by 10 different video ads, each of which ran on the home page for a day earlier this year. Check out the range:

OK. So what does that tell us?

Maybe that YouTube’s core demo — 58 percent of the site’s users fall in the 15-24 range, TubeMogul estimates — like ads with talking babies (who doesn’t?). And that they have very little interest in tax software or Italian cooking travelogues.  Or

Here’s the best performing ad in TubeMogul’s sample:

And the worst:

You can check out the other eight on your own time:

Cars.com
Sony Pictures
Pepsi
Southwest
Nationwide
Panasonic
Touchstone Pictures
TurboTax