E-commerce & mobile retail Online video planning & buying YouTube
YouTube continues to command a strong position in the online video advertising market and is actively looking for ways to forge deeper connections with viewers, creators and brands through multi-format video strategies.
Context
YouTube is prioritising Shorts and CTV engagement, and is innovating with unskippable 30-second ads and “pause experiences” on TV to help marketers engage audiences across screens and achieve both performance and brand-building goals.
Takeaways
Ad investment with YouTube is set to rise 4.0% in 2023 to reach $30.4bn
That marks a turnaround from Q4 2022 when ad revenue declined 8.8% year-on-year, as marketers shifted investment to retail media and search. But growth is expected to resume in 2023, at more than double the rate of growth recorded in 2022. WARC Media forecasts YouTube’s revenue growth to accelerate 10.3% in 2024, to reach $33.5bn by the end of that year.
Commerce brands are expected to spend $4.1bn on YouTube ads in 2023
This is a 4.6% rise on 2022. Retail remains YouTube’s most important category for ad investment, but growth from other sectors has been harder to achieve. While some categories will see double digit spending increases in 2023, including technology and electronics (+13.9%) and toiletries and cosmetics (+12.1%), figures elsewhere are more modest.
YouTube advertisers can reach half of all internet users globally. More than one billion hours of video are watched every day on YouTube
YouTube is the world’s most popular online platform, with an adult advertising reach estimated at 2.07 billion people, almost twice as much as TikTok and Instagram respectively. YouTube Shorts (60 seconds or less) will provide more opportunities for marketers to reach new audiences, but its 50 billion daily viewer total is some way behind the 140 billion daily views achieved by Instagram Reels; under-18s, meanwhile, spend on average 60% longer on TikTok than with YouTube content.
YouTube has overtaken Netflix as the biggest TV streaming platform in the US
YouTube accounted for 22.9% of OTT viewing in March 2023. It is also the most popular channel for US Gen Zs to catch up with sports news, and last year it was the most popular platform for both music and podcast listening in the US.
APAC is a key growth region for YouTube – from live shopping and Shorts to gaming – while in Latin America, YouTube delivers brand impact more cost-effectively than any other video platform, according to research by Kantar.