YouTube Ads overview

YouTube Ads lets you reach the world's biggest video audience. Different intent modes (search vs recommended vs pre-roll), different formats. Best for brands that have video creative capacity and want scale.

Ad formats

• Skippable In-Stream: 5-second skip button. Most common. Pay per view (30s+ or completed).
• Non-Skippable In-Stream: 15-20s forced. Pay per impression.
• Bumper Ads: 6s non-skippable. Awareness-focused.
• In-Feed (Discovery) Ads: appear in search and recommendations. User-initiated. Higher intent.
• Masthead: homepage takeover. Premium only.
• YouTube Shorts Ads: vertical short-form, like TikTok.

Where to start

Most advertisers: Skippable In-Stream with Video View or Conversion objective. Pay per view means you only pay for engaged viewers (didn't skip).

Targeting

• Demographics
• Interests (similar to Meta)
• Keywords (videos about X topic)
• Topics
• Placements (specific channels or videos)
• Remarketing audiences
• Custom intent (based on searches)

Creative basics

• Hook in first 5 seconds (before skip is available)
• Ad still works if user skips at 5s (state the core value quickly)
• Horizontal 16:9 for traditional, vertical 9:16 for Shorts
• Sound matters (YouTube plays with sound)

When YouTube wins

• Visual/demo products
• Brand-building with video-capable creative team
• Longer consideration purchases benefiting from video explanation
• Audiences that YouTube already reaches (most of them)

When it doesn't

• Urgent high-intent conversions (Search is better)
• Low creative budget (video costs more than static)
• Hyper-niche B2B (LinkedIn better)

What to do with this

• Only run YouTube if you have the creative production budget, cheap production underperforms on a medium designed for polished video
• Use TrueView skippable in-stream as the DR default, viewers who stay past 5 seconds are self-qualifying into interest
• Pair YouTube with Search retargeting, video plants the message, Search captures the intent when the viewer comes back ready to buy
• Budget at least $100/day minimum to get meaningful data, video takes longer to optimize than static
• Track view-through conversions specifically, YouTube's value shows up in Search + Meta attribution later, not always in same-session conversion