Dive Brief:
- Google announced AdWords upgrades to YouTube advertising to improve the mobile ad experience per a company blog post. In the post Google said that more than 50% of YouTube video views are now on mobile devices.
- YouTube advertisers can now use data from Google accounts such as demographic information and past search data to serve ads to relevant audiences, and advertisers can use the Customer Match feature to use their own data to reach people on YouTube who are already in their customer database.
- Advertisers will also have access to a new cloud-based measurement solution rolled out during 2017 that offers target audiences privacy and security across Google and YouTube while providing marketers with audience insights. The measurement solution is being created in conjunction with MRC accredited vendors such as comScore, DoubleVerify, IAS, Moat and Nielsen.
Dive Insight:
The news reflects how cloud-based marketing solutions are growing in an attempt to make it easier for marketers to create integrated experiences across screens to address how consumers are engaging with a multitude of devices throughout their day. Cross-screen efforts are proving successful, with recent research from IAB showing a brand lift for campaigns leveraging a combination of online and offline media.
As digital viewing overall continues to grow at the same time that relative newcomers to the space like Facebook and Snapchat attract big audiences, YouTube — long a major player in digital video — is ramping up efforts to appeal to marketers, likely in an attempt to address findings like that only 29% of millennials watch YouTube ads to completion and that Facebook Live has surpassed YouTube for the most popular live streaming platform.
In recognition of the differences inherent to a cross-screen approach, Google also pointed out in the blog post that it will limit the use of cookies and pixels on YouTube since both were built for a single screen and don’t accurately reflect user activity from desktop to a mobile device and even to a living room TV screen.
Along with the enhanced measurement and targeting tools, consumers will get an upgrade in controlling ads on YouTube and across Google via My Account. The new user controls were built with cross-screen viewing in mind. For example, if a user mutes an ad on Google search, ads from that advertiser will be muted on YouTube as well.