New ways to build awareness with YouTube Shorts
Short-form video is booming. It’s a rich canvas for every type of content people care about: music, gaming, sports, lifestyle, learning, food. People love it so much that according to Talk Shoppe, viewers now report watching more short-form video than studio-produced TV and films.1
Since the launch of ads on Shorts last year, brands have found many ways to drive performance in their direct-response campaigns. Through Video action campaigns and app campaigns, vertical video ads are fully immersive and appear between organic Shorts content.
This week at the IAB NewFronts, we’re announcing new ways to introduce Shorts into your awareness campaigns to reach highly engaged YouTube audiences.
Add Shorts to maximize efficient reach
YouTube Shorts is where pop culture meets self-expression. Just look at the recent #IAmYourMother challenge, and all the fun ways people riffed on it. When viewers turn to Shorts, they’re in the mood for discovery — which creates an ideal environment for advertisers to reach new audiences.
That’s why we’re expanding Shorts into Video reach campaigns. Video reach campaigns use Google AI to serve the best combination of ads, and improve your reach and efficiency on YouTube. In addition to Shorts, we are adding In-feed video ads to Video reach campaigns to bring more opportunities to connect with your audience across YouTube. Paramount+ Mexico was one of our early partners to test the latest version of Video reach campaigns. To drive efficient reach and brand impact around its new movie, At Midnight, Paramount+ Mexico spread the message across YouTube’s in-stream, In-feed and Shorts ad experiences. In addition to reaching new audiences, the campaign drove higher efficiencies and higher ad recall (compared to in-stream ads alone). This means short-form video is an essential ingredient for brand campaigns.
With this update to Video reach campaigns, you simply upload a 60-second (or shorter) vertical video along with your other assets. If you’d prefer to use existing horizontal creative, YouTube’s campaign setup tools include AI-powered features that automatically adapt and optimize your videos for the vertical screen.
Appear next to trending Shorts content
YouTube Select helps advertisers surround the most popular content on YouTube — all in a brand-suitable environment. Now, the same technology that powers YouTube Select is coming to Shorts, allowing brands to reach 1.5 billion logged-in monthly Shorts users.2
Today, we’re excited to introduce the YouTube Select Run of Shorts lineup. This technology ensures your ads appear alongside the most popular and relevant videos in viewers’ Shorts feed so your brand can stay top-of-mind as users scroll through their latest videos.
With the new First Position on Shorts, piloting across YouTube Select, advertisers can also break through at the start of a viewing session. When a viewer opens YouTube Shorts and starts watching, your ad is the first one they will see. This lets you land a strong first impression in a highly immersive environment.
Make the long and Shorts of YouTube yours
With every kind of content, every genre of music, every category of entertainment, and every format to engage with video (live, short, long, podcast, music), YouTube has everything people love in one place. Shorts and long-form videos fuel engagement and discovery of each other and viewers are moving seamlessly between the two. So it’s no surprise that viewers say YouTube is their favorite place to watch both creator content and short-form content.3
Tapping into YouTube for awareness campaigns means more people can see your creative messaging as they watch the creators and content they love. With products and tools that make short-form video advertising a seamless addition to your campaign, YouTube helps brands of all kinds stay relevant and connected with today’s viewers.
