Google this week announced several new advertising features for YouTube across video, audio, and commerce. Here’s what the company announced at Advertising Week New York:
More options for YouTube Select. YouTube’s new “Moment Blast” gives advertisers the ability to place ads during popular events such as sports match-ups and product launches.
- Advertisers can also leverage branded title cards and masthead placements.
- “Moment Blast” is part of YouTube Select, an existing program that lets advertisers target the top 5% of YouTube’s popular channels.
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Why we care: YouTube needs big ad buys. It has already seen advertising revenues pinched by the current economic downturn after ad revenues grew only 4.8% in Q2.
Expanding Audio ads. Google also announced the global availability of audio ads for YouTube music and podcast listeners, which advertisers can now buy through Google Ads or its Display & Video 360 platform.
- Advertisers are now able to target podcasts exclusively with audio ads.
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Why we care: YouTube, which only recently launched a dedicated page for podcasts, is the most used platform for podcasts by dedicated listeners, giving advertisers an opportunity to reach a wider engaged audience. US podcast ad spend will hit $1.73 billion this year and grow as a share of digital audio ad spend. YouTube wants in.
Product feed in Discovery. Now advertisers will be able to add product feeds—which list available products from a brand—directly in Discovery ads.
- Google said the expansion comes amid rising engagement with product feeds. “We've recently expanded product feeds to Shorts and found that, on average, video action campaigns with product feeds saw an over 70% increase in conversions on Shorts over those without product feeds,” wrote Kristen O’Hara, Google’s vice president of agency and brand solutions.
- The company will soon add local offers and real-time availability to product feeds, Google said. It will also give creators the ability to tag products in their Shorts or videos.
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Why we care: YouTube is very focused on commerce, and has been adding features to compete with Facebook and Instagram. It’s also in a race with TikTok to keep creators happy by giving them more opportunities to monetize their content.
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