YouTube has been making overtures to companies and model advertisers within the hope they’ll enhance their media investments with the Google-owned video platform.
The platform’s execs have been underlining YouTube’s new place on the prime of the TV pyramid in conversations with media consumers, whereas emphasizing advert merchandise like Peak Factors and YouTube Choose, in addition to its TikTok competitor Shorts.
“Every thing within the gross sales pitch from Google proper now to companies is YouTube, YouTube, YouTube,” stated Kris Tait, chief enterprise officer at media company Croud. He didn’t reveal particular figures, however instructed Digiday that spending by Croud’s shoppers on YouTube had risen virtually 50% within the first half of 2025. Neither firm responded to requests for remark.
Google’s brand-building pitch: Shorts, Peak Factors and YouTube Choose
Since upfronts season closed the platform’s execs have been pushing its “Peak Factors” function, first unveiled In Might, in response to one company purchaser who spoke to Digiday on situation of anonymity. The function, constructed utilizing Google’s Gemini AI device, inserts advert items in the intervening time in a video the place audiences are “most engaged”.
Google execs are also emphasizing the alternatives concerned with YouTube Shorts — the platform’s reply to Reels and TikTok, launched in 2021 within the U.S. 88% of YouTube views thus far this 12 months went to Shorts, and 57% of all movies uploaded to YouTube in 2025 by U.S. creators have been Shorts, per Tubular Labs.
Beforehand solely obtainable to advertisers as a part of a broader bundle, YouTube lately enabled Shorts to be purchased as standalone stock.
In line with one holding firm media purchaser, who exchanged anonymity for candor, Google execs have been making an attempt to place Shorts as a sound competitor to each tv and social video like Reels and TikTok. “They need to have their cake and eat it too,” stated the holdco purchaser.
“Our Google reps have been strongly selling the channel [YouTube],” stated Danielle Schultz, affiliate director of efficiency media at Collective Measures.
She stated the corporate’s staffers typically advocated for shoppers to shift budgets beforehand earmarked for tv into YouTube, citing its measurement and concentrating on capabilities – however that manufacturers noticed the platform extra typically as a peer of the social networks. “Social is an area they will extra shortly acquire traction (and funds),” she stated.
YouTube’s pitch has additionally emphasised the important thing place it occupies within the creator economic system, in response to Tinuiti senior innovation and progress director, TV, audio and show Brian Binder.
And whereas its efficiency centered, AI-powered Demand Gen merchandise are already in favor amongst entrepreneurs, Binder stated that YouTube Choose, an promoting product that enables manufacturers to purchase adverts towards the highest 1% of creator channels on the platform, had additionally begun to drive funding.
“We’re beginning to see manufacturers lean extra into these premium varieties of placements,” stated Binder, who added: “The definition of premium is altering a bit of bit… It doesn’t need to be simply scripted content material.”
How are shoppers responding?
At media company Croud, consumer spending on Youtube within the first six months of 2025 was 47% greater than it was in the identical interval final 12 months, in response to Tait. “From an company perspective, our funding is rising considerably yearly,” he stated.
Binder stated Tinuiti had recorded a “double digit proportion progress” in YouTube spending between the primary quarter of 2024 and 2025, however declined to supply particular figures.
In line with media consumers, YouTube’s company reps have discovered themselves pushing on an open door. Amid an unpredictable economic system, companies are advising shoppers not lean so arduous on decrease funnel, or “efficiency” channels like paid search.
“We will’t simply rely so closely on [the] backside of the funnel. An increasing number of of us are understanding that the model helps drive demand,” stated Shamsul Chowdhury, world evp paid social at Jellyfish. “If you wish to develop the model, you must do model consciousness,” he added.
Within the first quarter of 2025, YouTube adverts served on TVs rose 88% year-on-year, in response to a Tinuiti benchmark report. TV screens now command 43% of YouTube video advert spend, almost doubling from 2024’s 24%.
YouTube hasn’t been the one beneficiary. Although consumers say it hasn’t been as forceful in its messaging as Google, Meta has launched new advert merchandise in latest months which have provoked a rise in brand-oriented spending from advertisers. In Might, Meta added “Trending Reels” to Instagram, enabling advertisers to purchase towards standard Reels movies, in addition to launching video adverts on Threads.
(TikTok, by the way, additionally expanded the equally positioned Pulse suite of advert merchandise that very same month, following a push to persuade advertisers it may fulfill their efficiency wants.)
Chowdhury estimated that thus far, 20% of the consumer spending managed by Jellyfish this 12 months had shifted from backside to top-of-funnel channels, together with spending on Meta and Google.
“Manufacturers have gotten increasingly curious concerning the influence that Meta has on model metrics, not simply efficiency metrics,” stated Sara Younger, group director, social, Dept. She estimated that spending by the company’s shoppers on Meta’s platforms was 30% greater within the second quarter of 2025, in contrast with the identical quarter final 12 months.
‘I don’t assume YouTube will get introduced into [the] dialog as a lot because it ought to.’
Paid search — Google’s heartland — nonetheless accounts for many digital advert income. However the channel’s share of that income is being squeezed. It fell 2.4% between 2020 and 2024, whereas in the identical interval, digital video’s share elevated 5.4% to account for twenty-four% of general revenues in 2024 ($259 billion) per IAB analysis printed in April.
With that in thoughts, it’s not stunning to see Google’s reps give attention to rising YouTube’s advert revenues and emphasizing the TV comparability. “For increasingly individuals, watching TV means watching YouTube,” wrote YouTube CEO Neal Mohan in a February weblog publish.
The 20-year outdated enterprise has a sound declare to be one of many most-watched video platforms in america. As of 2024, 40% of People watch its movies on related TVs every month, in response to Nielsen.
A lot of that’s owed to the recognition of creator-made content material on the location. The platform sits on the crossroads of an influencer economic system that’s solely set to develop additional within the coming years. WPP expects advert income from user-generated content material — from movies to podcasts to social posts — will surpass that {of professional} media this 12 months.
“Creators are the bread and butter and the fantastic thing about YouTube and what actually units it aside,” he instructed Digiday.
