YouTube is testing advertisements for its short video format YouTube Shorts.
Philipp Schindler, SVP and CBO, Google, at the company’s earnings call earlier this week had said, “We’re testing ads on Shorts with products like App Install and Video Action Campaigns – and while it’s still early days, we’re encouraged by initial advertiser feedback and results.”
Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet and Google, had said, “We are experiencing a slight headwind to revenue growth as Shorts viewership grows as a percentage of total YouTube time.”
“We are testing monetisation on Shorts, and early advertiser feedback and results are encouraging. The team is focused on closing the gap with traditional YouTube ads over time. So we’re excited about the new opportunities with Shorts, but a slight headwind,” Porat had said.
According to Google, YouTube Shorts is now averaging over 30 billion daily views, up four times as much from a year ago.
The platform has added a host of new capabilities to video editing and will continue to invest in making Shorts, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, had said during the earnings call.
Shorts has been rolled out to over 100 countries.
Youtube Shorts Fund
The tech giant is “taking a fresh look at what it means to monetise Shorts and reward creators for their short-form videos,” Schindler had said, adding that the first step towards this was the company’s $100 million YouTube Shorts Fund.
YouTube had introduced a $100 million creator fund for Shorts last year, which is now available in over 100 countries globally. Further, over 40 per cent of creators who received payment from the Shorts Fund in 2021 weren’t in the YouTube Partner Program.
“And then on the advertiser view side, as I mentioned earlier, we’re testing ads on Shorts with products like App Install and Video Action campaigns and are encouraged by the early results. And so all in all, I think we’re deeply committed to supporting the next generation of mobile creators here on YouTube and are very actively working on what monetisation could look like in the future,” Schindler added.
Overall, according to Google’s earnings report, YouTube ad revenue grew to $6.87 billion in Q1 CY2022, up from $6 billion last year.
Published on
April 28, 2022
