With television quickly becoming the preferred screen for watching YouTube videos, advertisers are taking the opportunity to reach the streaming audience with YouTube ads on TV screens.
Here’s why: In 2020, more than half of U.S. YouTube viewers watched on a connected TV. That number is expected to break 60 percent by 2025.
With this shift in viewing behaviors, advertisers need to be thinking about strategies for television advertising and how they differ from approaches to other screens like desktops and mobile devices.
Thankfully, YouTube offers plenty of options for showing ads to the streaming audience. Let’s dig deeper into how you can leverage YouTube ads on TV.
YouTube Select
YouTube Select was introduced in 2020 to help marketers target viewers watching YouTube or YouTube TV on television screens. Select makes it easier to purchase ads through streaming lineups. This option is available through a reservation, Google Ads, and DV360.
The Select program also enables marketers to tap the most relevant content for their brands, with categories like music, food, and entertainment. It’s a key differentiator as you look to reach television audiences that are more likely to stay engaged with the device than mobile or desktop viewers.
YouTube Masthead
The YouTube Masthead is a digital billboard that displays YouTube ads on the home page screen, so it’s positioned for high visibility to television viewers. It creates a rich, visual experience using photos, videos, multiple calls-to-action, and social media sharing buttons.
While this advertising option displays the ad to all viewers (rather than a targeted audience), it does run the YouTube ad on TV for a full 24 hours — giving marketers the opportunity to supercharge their brand awareness and consideration campaigns in front of millions of television viewers.
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YouTube Ad-Supported Video on Demand (AVOD) for TV Shows
Earlier this year, YouTube announced it would start streaming more than 4,000 full seasons of ad-supported TV shows for free. As subscription-based video on demand services like Netflix and Hulu lose momentum, there is a growing audience for AVOD.
This is great news for marketers who want to show YouTube ads on TV screens, as the streaming audience is expected to rise from 127.7 million viewers in 2021 to 164.0 million viewers in 2025.
To make the most of this AVOD opportunity, marketers need to optimize video content to show on TV. Pay specific attention to requirements like file format and dimensions to ensure YouTube ads display and function their best to television viewers.
Display and Video 360
As more people watch videos, movies, and TV shows on YouTube, it would be smart to consider Google’s Display and Video 360 option (YouTube is owned by Google). DV360 allows you to integrate YouTube ads on connected TV devices, like smart TVs, streaming devices, set-top boxes, and even gaming consoles.
Connected TVs have a large screen size and support high-definition video creative formats, so following these best practices ensure brand awareness and consideration ads can be their most effective.
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Conclusion
With the growth of YouTube viewership on televisions, marketers need to have a plan for targeting YouTube ads on TV screens. With YouTube Select, YouTube Masthead, AVOD, and DV360, there are plenty of opportunities to reach the streaming audience when — and specifically where — they prefer to watch their favorite content.
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