YouTube’s CEO, Neal Mohan, has announced that TV screens have become the most popular device for watching YouTube in the United States, surpassing mobile devices.
“TV has surpassed mobile and is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. (by watch time), and according to Nielsen, YouTube has been #1 in streaming watch time in the U.S. for two years.”
Data shows that viewers consume over one billion hours of YouTube content daily on TV screens.
Mohan attributes this growth to YouTube’s integration with smart TVs and streaming devices.
This marks a significant shift in audience behavior, presenting an opportunity to take advantage of new ad formats.
What This Means For Marketers
Fresh Advertising Opportunities
YouTube’s audience is moving towards television, which offers different advertising options and ways to engage viewers.
Marketers can take advantage of this changing viewer behavior in the following ways:
QR Codes on TV: Showing a QR code during a video or ad lets viewers scan it with their phones, linking big-screen watching with mobile actions.
Pause Ads: When viewers pause a video, advertisers can show targeted messages on the screen, capturing attention without interrupting the show.
Second Screen Experiences: YouTube is testing features that let viewers interact with TV content using their phones. This allows them to leave comments, share videos, or make purchases while watching.
These tools can improve viewer engagement and help measure results.
Unlike traditional TV ads, which don’t allow for immediate interaction, these digital options give brands a new way to connect with their audience.
Strategic Considerations
Longer Watch Times Viewers spend more time watching YouTube on TV than on mobile devices, which can lead to deeper engagement with ads and branded content.
Big-Screen Mindset Advertising for YouTube consumption on TV requires high production quality to achieve a broadcast-like feel. Marketers should consider the advantages of creating content designed for a living room environment.
Measuring Performance As technology advances, tracking conversions across multiple devices (TV and mobile) may become increasingly complex. Implementing cross-platform analytics and attribution models will be essential.
Podcasts
Another format thriving on YouTube is podcasting.
Mohan claims YouTube is the number one way people in the U.S. listen to podcasts, stating:
“One of the most relevant formats driving culture — podcasts — is thriving on YouTube. YouTube is now the most frequently used service for listening to podcasts in the U.S.”
As more people engage with TV and podcasts on YouTube, marketers can effectively combine these formats through video podcasts.
This can help brands connect with their audience in an engaging way, leveraging the trend of long videos on larger screens.
Looking Ahead
This signals YouTube’s evolution from a mobile-first platform to a dominant TV streaming service.
Marketers should adapt their strategies to align with this shift in viewer behavior.
Key takeaways include:
Leverage new ad formats like QR codes and ‘pause ads’
Create high-quality content tailored for big screens
Embracing new opportunities like video podcasts
With longer watch times and increased TV engagement, brands have a unique opportunity to connect with audiences more effectively.
However, staying ahead will require focusing on cross-platform analytics and thoughtful integration of mobile and TV experiences.
In a recent video interview, YouTube Liaison René Ritchie spoke with Todd Beaupré, YouTube’s Senior Director of Growth & Discovery, to discuss the platform’s recommendation system functions and what creators can expect this year.
Their discussion revealed how time of day, device type, viewer satisfaction, and the advent of large language models (LLMs) are reshaping YouTube’s algorithms.
Here’s what you need to know about YouTube’s recommendation system and how it works.
Personalized Recommendations
One of the central themes of the interview is YouTube’s focus on matching content to individual viewer preferences.
According to Beaupré:
“Often times creators will say hey, uh the recommendation system is pushing out my video to people or why isn’t it pushing out my video yes they they may ask that and the way the work it works is it… isn’t so much about pushing it out as much as it’s pulling…”
He goes on to explain that YouTube’s home feed prioritizes content based on what each viewer is most likely to enjoy at any given moment:
“When you open the homepage, YouTube is going to say hey Rene is here, we need to give Rene the best content that is going to make Rene happy today.”
Metrics & Satisfaction
While click-through rate (CTR) and watch time remain important, YouTube’s system also accounts for user satisfaction gleaned through direct surveys and other feedback signals.
Beaupré notes:
“We introduced this concept of satisfaction… we’re trying to understand not just about the viewer’s behavior and what they do, but how do they feel about the time they’re spending.”
He explains YouTube’s goal is to cultivate long-term viewer satisfaction:
“…we look at things like likes, dislikes, these survey responses… we have a variety of different signals to get at this satisfaction… we want to build a relationship with our audience just as creators want to do with their fans.”
Evergreen & Trending Content
YouTube’s algorithms can identify older videos that become relevant again due to trending topics, viral moments, or nostalgic interests.
Beaupré cites the system’s ability to pivot:
“…maybe like right now there’s a video that that reaches a certain audience but then like in six months… that makes this video relevant again… if it’s relevant and maybe to a different audience than enjoyed it the first time.”
Context: Time, Device, & Viewer Habits
Beaupré revealed YouTube’s system may show different kinds of content depending on whether someone is watching in the morning or at night, on a mobile phone or a TV:
“The recommendation system uses time of day and device… as some of the signals that we learn from to understand if there’s different content that is appealing in those different contexts… if you tend to have a preference for watching news in the morning and comedy at night… we’ll try to learn from other viewers like you if they have that pattern.”
Fluctuations In Views
Creators often worry if their views dip, but Beaupré suggests this can be a natural ebb and flow:
“…the first thing is that that is natural… it’s not particularly reasonable to expect that you’re going to always be at your highest level of views from all time… I would encourage you not to worry about it too much…”
He also recommends comparing metrics over longer periods and leveraging tools like Google Trends:
“…we do see seasonality can play a role… encourage you to look beyond… 90 days or more to kind of see the full context.”
Multi-Language Audio
Many creators are exploring multilingual audio to broaden their audiences.
Beaupré highlights how YouTube has adapted to support dubbed tracks:
“…we needed to add some new capabilities… aware that this video actually is available in multiple languages… so if you’re a Creator who’s interested in extending your reach through dubs… make sure that your titles and descriptions… are also uploaded [in] translated titles and descriptions…”
He also emphasizes consistency:
“We’ve seen in particular creators who dub at least 80% of the… watch time… tend to have more success than those who dub less…”
LLM Integration
Looking to the future, large language models (LLMs) enable YouTube to better understand video content and viewer preferences.
Beaupré says:
“…we’ve applied the large language model technology to recommendations at YouTube to… make them more relevant to viewers… rather than just memorizing that this video tends to be good with this type of viewer… it might actually be able to understand the ingredients of the dish better and maybe some more elements of the video style…”
Beaupré likens it to an expert chef who can adapt recipes:
“…we want to be more like the expert chef and less like the… memorized recipe.”
Key Takeaways For Creators
Here are the top takeaways from their 21-minute conversation on the YouTube recommendation system.
The recommendation system is about “pulling” content for each viewer, not pushing videos universally.
Metrics like CTR and watch time matter, but satisfaction (likes, dislikes, surveyed feedback) is also essential.
YouTube can resurface older videos if renewed interest emerges.
Time of day and device usage influence recommendations.
View fluctuations are normal—seasonality, trending events, and external factors can all be at play.
Dubbing and translated titles may help reach new markets, especially if a high percentage of your content is available in the same language.
Large language models empower more nuanced understanding—creators should stay attuned to how this impacts discovery.
Watch the full interview below.
YouTube plans to share more updates at VidCon later this year.
YouTube can be an effective source of B2C or B2C customers, but most companies look at it through the wrong lens: a performance channel.
The desire for companies to immediately squeeze customers out of YouTube content is holding them back.
After helping dozens of companies expand from SEO to YouTube, I’ve discovered that YouTube is the ideal expansion channel after SEO has matured. But to do it successfully, companies face three critical challenges: attribution, metrics, and conversion.
Overcoming those three challenges means you could unlock a new customer acquisition channel. Failing means a competitor could get an advantage by moving to YouTube first, and you might miss out on a way to repurpose your SEO content.
Together, YouTube and SEO make a perfect pairing, but only after you hit liftoff velocity in SEO. First, you want to cover your SEO bases: Rank for critical brand and non-branded keywords and drive steady growth in organic traffic and customers.
Expanding to YouTube too early means:
You’re spreading yourself too thin.
Viewers might search but not find you on Google.
You might not have enough data about which topics drive business impact.
Once you have traction or maturity in SEO, there are five strong reasons to invest in YouTube:
YouTube is the second largest search engine and No. 1 podcast platform, and it gets watched by 75 billion people every month.1
YouTube can also send important traffic diversification signals to Google. For example, affiliate site GarageGymReviews is winning against its much bigger competitor, Barbend, by employing a multi-channel strategy.
B2B buyers are watching YouTube, not just B2C customers (keep in mind 50% of B2B researchers are millennials):
Seventy percent of B2B buyers and researchers are watching videos throughout their path to purchase. That’s a 52% jump in only two years. And it’s not just light viewing.
According to U.S. YouTube data, over 895K hours of some of the top B2B videos from brands were watched in 2014. Nearly half of these researchers are viewing 30 minutes or more of B2B-related videos during their research process, and almost one in five watch over an hour of content. What’s got their attention?
Videos about product features top the list, followed by how-tos and professional reviews.2
Bottom line: Chances are high that your audience is on YouTube, and being visible positively impacts your sales funnel. The part that’s often forgotten is how YouTube content can also grow your presence in LLMs and solidify your position on Google.
So, how do you solve the attribution, metrics, and conversion problem?
The solution is to approach YouTube with a brand-building instead of a performance mindset:
Understand the inherent attribution problem
Focus on the right growth metrics
Test different conversion tactics (examples included)
The Attribution Problem
Image Credit: Kevin Indig
Most companies want to measure the direct impact of YouTube, similarly as they do for SEO or advertising, to determine the impact of an action. It makes sense because you want to prioritize your resources effectively.
However, YouTube wants to keep users on the platform, which means referral traffic from YouTube is extremely low.
I looked into two websites, one in B2C and one in B2B, and found that YouTube referral traffic makes up only 0.2% of total traffic for both of them, even though they get vastly different amounts of total traffic.
The fact that two very different sites get the same relative amount of YouTube referral traffic says something.
The typical user journey is that customers watch a bunch of videos and then often come to the site directly after a while. Our telemetry cannot pick that up. In short, YouTube attribution isn’t linear. It’s messy.
Image Credit: Kevin Indig
The solution is a mix of post-purchase surveys and UTM parameters. Post-purchase surveys (PPS) ask customers after their purchase how they found the company. You can find tons of software on the web that can do this for you.
UTM parameters allow you to trace clicks back to specific videos, but they demand a structured approach: keep a record of all the UTM parameters you use to tag CTAs for each video.
Don’t forget, though, that CTA clicks on YouTube videos are much lower compared to other channels, as YouTube wants to keep users on the platform.
The Right Growth Metrics
Image Credit: Kevin Indig
Because YouTube is not a performance channel, it’s very hard to get internal buy-in without the right metrics.
As a leader, you want to make sure performance is measured the right way so you can judge whether your team is on track to make an impact or not.
But what are the right metrics if you cannot measure linear attribution?
The answer is a set of cascading metrics that ladder up to customers. You might know this example from SEO, where you have leading indicators like impressions, ranks, and clicks and lagging indicators like conversions or revenue. The same is true for YouTube.
I call it the inverted pyramid of YouTube metrics. The leading indicators I recommend are views, subscriptions, average view duration, and CTA clicks.
Lagging indicators can be new customers or revenue from YouTube – again – measured through self-attribution.
The ladder works because leaders can trace the impact more easily over time. When views grow, so should subscriptions and average watch time, but with a time delay.
The Right Conversion Tactics
IMage Credit: Kevin Indig
There aren’t many known benchmarks for what you can expect from YouTube as a channel. One reference I found is that Ahrefs and Surfer convert about 12% of leads and 10% of sales from YouTube, measured by post-purchase attribution.3
YouTube is not a direct or linear conversion channel, but you can still maximize your chances of driving linear conversions.
The problem is that too many companies are very uncreative when it comes to converting viewers to customers on YouTube.
Here are some ideas:
Try to get viewers to watch your other videos instead of getting them to click on your site for videos that don’t reflect a strong purchase intent.
There are auditory and textual CTAs. The auditory ones are spoken or shown in the videos, as opposed to an overlay or text in the video description. Experiment with both.
Incentive users to click a CTA with a lead magnet, like a pdf template or a calculator they can download or use on your site.
The Big Picture: The Big Swing Era
Image Credit: Lyna ™
The challenge with expanding from SEO to YouTube fits into a bigger picture: linear cross-channel attribution is eroding, so marketers need to take bigger swings based on judgment, logic, and qualitative signals.
I’m seeing the same trend across many organic channels: Reddit, podcasting, social media, and also YouTube. We all know there’s a lot of attention paid to them, but the impact is hard to measure unless you advertise.
Why is that?
Privacy regulations like GDPR or CCPA and ad blockers limit tracking.
Platforms like Google, YouTube, or Meta share less data with marketers and use more black box algorithms.
Users use many devices to consume content.
More content sharing happens in closed messaging apps like WhatsApp or email.
Organic channels take a long time to show effect (often six months and longer) compared to advertising channels.
One thing companies can try to test the waters is to advertise on the platforms first, and then make a decision to create content for it. But apart from advertising, we’re back in the era when marketers need to take big swings to win.
But the biggest takeaway is that we have to take more big swings based on conviction, logic and qualitative data. Welcome to the big swing era.
There are tons of reasons you want to be on YouTube, building an audience, and getting discovered in the YouTube algorithm.
YouTube is the second most popular website in the world, and YouTube videos can appear in Google Search results. This makes a YouTube presence a combined social media and SEO strategy. Entire businesses can be built on YouTube.
But, most YouTube videos suck.
Maybe “suck” is an unkind or imprecise word. It might be more accurate to say that the majority of YouTube videos don’t find an audience. That’s probably because they’re not good videos.
In this article, we’re going to talk about what makes YouTube videos good, how to identify if you have the potential to create them, what to do if you don’t, and why a poorly executed YouTube strategy can hurt your business.
Why It’s Difficult To Succeed On YouTube
There are 14 billion videos on YouTube and 65.4 million YouTube creators. Only 21% of all YouTube channels have more than 1,000 subscribers. 1,000 subscribers is the threshold to apply for advertising revenue.
YouTube represents a huge opportunity, but capitalizing on it isn’t easy. You need to be in the top 21% of the platform just to start earning advertising revenue.
To put it another way, you need to be better than 79% of all other creators as a baseline – better than all the hobbyists, enthusiasts, amateur and professional filmmakers, businesses, essayists, and commentators in that broad segment.
Creative Talent Is Difficult To Develop Or Find
Making good YouTube videos is hard because not everyone has the stuff. If you want to succeed on YouTube, your first question needs to be: do you have the stuff?
“The stuff” can be lots of things. Drive and passion, experience and knowledge, charisma, technical skills, artistic vision…it’s a long list, and anything could be on it as long as it gives you an edge.
There needs to be something unique about you or your business that will translate well into a creative, entertainment-focused medium.
What this means for businesses is that producing good YouTube videos is expensive. The kind of people who can make good YouTube videos, and their time, cost a lot of money.
YouTube’s Algorithm Pulls Videos For Users
Many people mistakenly assume that YouTube’s algorithm “pushes” videos out to audiences. As I explain in my article about YouTube SEO, YouTube’s algorithm finds videos for users, not users for videos.
It’s more than a semantic difference in word order. The algorithm pulls videos for users, finding what they might like. It doesn’t take your video and try to find an audience to push it to. It’s user-first, not video-first.
If your video isn’t genuinely interesting and engaging, if it doesn’t catch interest quickly and hold it, then the algorithm will notice that people aren’t very engaged, or the video doesn’t appeal to the audiences you’re trying to push it to, and won’t recommend it to similar users.
Users Have High Expectations
YouTube is an enthusiast platform. People create because they want to. As they learn and get better, their content improves, and audiences come to expect certain standards.
The standards might not be what you think.
While many successful channels have high production values and tight editing, there are still many successful “vlog” channels and low-budget, low-tech creators.
What I mean by high expectations is that users expect high effort. Whatever that effort looks like for your skill level and maturity with video production. Users are surprisingly willing to forgive junk if they can see the passion, authenticity, and value in a video.
This is one of the reasons that brands can struggle to find audiences on YouTube. It’s primarily an entertainment platform – brand-focused content without human connection and authenticity isn’t set up to perform well.
Users Don’t Want To Be Sold To On YouTube
Take a look at the top 100 biggest YouTube channels and you will see creators, music brands, musicians, movies, kids shows, etc. What you won’t see is a single product-focused brand.
SEJ keeps a list of the most subscribed-to individuals on YouTube, cutting out production companies. It’s mostly musicians, entertainers like MrBeast, and children’s creators such as Like Nastya.
People are on YouTube to be entertained or informed, not sold to. There are plenty of ads and in-video sponsorships already trying to sell things.
Is your content entertaining? Do you provide information that people actually care about?
Time Is Precious And There’s Always Something Else To Watch
Users are spoiled for choice. If they don’t find a video immediately compelling, YouTube has other recommendations they can click on right on the page.
They don’t even need to click the “back” button. There’s something new right there, with a colorful thumbnail ready to catch their eye.
This not only makes it difficult to distribute videos, it also makes it hard to make good videos.
Sometimes A Video’s Performance Is Just Luck
Videos you’re sure are good won’t take off. Videos you’re sure are bad will get traction. People are baffling, especially when it comes to what they watch and why. They’ll watch something they hate to have the experience of hating it. They’ll stop watching something they like when they’ve gotten what they need from it.
More than many other search platforms, sometimes you just have to be lucky to succeed on YouTube.
That might sound a little wishy-washy but it’s what built the YouTube platform and it’s what users continue to look for.
Videos Must Be Engaging AND Satisfying
Videos are more difficult to skim than text. You can improve it by using chapters and timestamps, but a reader can’t just scroll past what they aren’t interested in. A viewer has to wait for it to pass or actively skip it.
It doesn’t really benefit you to have people skipping around, because it means they’re not engaged, and being engaging is the first rule of a good video.
Engagement means watch time, interaction signals, and even what users do after watching your video.
This makes introductions and hooks critical to a video’s success. Right away, you need to convince someone that it’s worth it to keep watching.
However, it’s easy to go too far and create “clickbait” that over-promises and under-delivers. Even if this gets you watch time, YouTube’s algorithm filters for satisfaction as well as raw engagement.
It can tell the difference between good engagement and not-so-good engagement. If someone watches a whole video expecting something specific and they don’t get it, that’s high engagement but a bad experience.
User signals on YouTube are much more complicated than raw CTR and watch time numbers. Watch time, however, is still one of the major markers of success.
Self-Assessment Is Difficult: So Do It More
Self-assessing creative content is difficult. It’s not easy to look at something you made and ask yourself: is this actually any good? Would anyone watch it? Is it worth someone else’s time?
But you need to practice self-critique and seek critique from others. You need to approach videos from the point of view of the person watching and find the point between what you need to communicate and what they’re willing to watch.
Selling Must Be Incidental To The Content
Unless you’re a BIG brand with an exciting release that people are genuinely anticipating, users are unlikely to care about your business or what you’re trying to sell while they’re on YouTube.
YouTube isn’t really the platform for promotional videos, about us videos, product videos, etc., at least not if you expect algorithmic success.
That doesn’t mean you can’t be successful with mid to low funnel type videos, but they need to be part of a broader strategy — not be your whole approach to the platform.
Your first duty with a YouTube video is to provide genuine value to the viewer. “Value” could be learning, news, or laughing at memes. If you focus on your business conversion goals first, you’ll lose audiences early and harm your metrics, burying your videos.
If you know SEO, you know this already. YouTube videos are most successful when they’re a “top funnel” strategy. Give something of value, and expect only time in return.
As a user gets to know and like you through your videos, they’ll become more interested in your value proposition as a business or service provider.
Good YouTube Videos Are Made For The Love Of It
Doing things because you love them isn’t reserved only for individual creators. As a team, as a professional, as a business, you can do this too. It just means caring about what you’re publishing and who you’re publishing it for.
If you have a brilliant creative team, set them to work on a YouTube channel! If you’re passionate about helping people, solving problems, providing good information, or just letting your team be goobers for the camera, it’s a great idea to start some kind of production.
This could look like a podcast, a tutorial, or a demonstration series. Or even something unrelated to your businesses but that is a special interest to someone on your team, that you can use for testing.
This might feel like nothing advice but believe me, users can tell when videos are made with love and when they aren’t. There’s no way to replicate or fake it. You’ve just got to do it. Or fund people who do it with advertising.
Although YouTube is owned by Google, it’s a unique platform with a different approach to algorithms and discovery to Google Search.
YouTube’s systems take a viewer-first approach, evaluating a user’s preferences and interests based on the data it has about their viewing habits and pulling lists of videos unique to that user.
It also prioritizes signs of video quality, especially user engagement and user satisfaction, much more than metadata.
YouTube search is one of several systems that deliver videos, and while you can rank for specific keywords and search terms, it’s also weighted heavily toward personalization and user satisfaction.
Many videos may not perform well in search but will draw traffic from other discovery systems on the platform – and user journeys don’t include YouTube Search much of the time.
Ranking on YouTube is only one part of a complex relationship between you, your content, and your audience. If you want to build a successful YouTube strategy, then you must expand your thinking beyond ranking.
How YouTube Can Benefit SEO
YouTube has two key benefits for SEO.
YouTube is the second-biggest social media platform, with 2.5 billion monthly active users. An effective video strategy can drive brand awareness and engage your audience. It can also create a unique revenue stream through advertising and channel memberships.
YouTube videos can also appear in organic Google search results, and there is a tab for “videos” in Google Search. A video strategy can be critical to user experience, depending on the audiences you serve and how they prefer to interact.
YouTube is a Google property, and even though there’s unlikely cross-pollination between YouTube’s and Google’s algorithms, YouTube is an excellent look at what Google prioritizes when it has access to every data metric and every user journey.
It’s a closed environment that it controls, which does not describe Search (despite its best efforts). Learning to succeed on YouTube can absolutely make you a better SEO.
How Do Videos Rank On YouTube?
To understand SEO on YouTube, you need to understand how the algorithm works and what its different systems prioritize. YouTube has multiple systems that deliver videos to users.
Each system acts using different sets of signals. There are general algorithmic priorities and then specific functions of systems that weigh different signals in different ways.
Generally, the different signals the YouTube uses fall under two categories:
Personalization.
Performance.
Under these categories, there are hundreds of individual signals.
Signals that fall under personalization include:
A user’s activity history tied to their account or browser.
A user’s activity history in the current session.
A user’s subscriptions, liked videos, notification preferences, and other interaction signals.
Search terms that users input.
Device type.
Time of day.
Signals that fall under performance include:
Total hours of watch time.
Average view duration/percentage of video viewed.
User satisfaction surveys.
Whether users ignore a video or click “not interested.”
Comments, likes, and subscriptions that a video generates.
User behavior while watching a video (skipping forward or back).
User behavior after watching a video (going back to their search, clicking on a new video, etc.).
For more information, watch the video below:
The Recommendation System
The first aspect of discovery we’re going to discuss involves video recommendations.
This term covers two distinct but closely related systems: a user’s homepage view and a user’s suggested videos view.
When a user visits YouTube, they have access to a homepage with video recommendations that are personalized for them.
This personalization is based on their activity history, what they like to watch, their subscribed channels, etc. The recommendations also consider signals of video quality and user satisfaction calculated by the algorithms.
To quote the video: “Home offers to deliver the most relevant, personalized recommendations to each viewer when they visit YouTube.”
The Suggested Videos System
Suggested videos (offered alongside the video a user is watching) are similar, grouped under the same umbrella of recommendations, but they use different signals. These recommendations priotize the experience of a user’s current session.
To quote the video: “Suggested offers viewers a selection of videos they’re most likely to watch next, based on their prior activity.”
While quality and user experience signals absolutely count in the suggested recommendations, they’re more heavily weighted toward satisfying a user’s immediate interest and intent.
This quote from the video is critical to understand, especially when we discuss different factors in YouTube’s algorithm later on: “YouTube’s recommendation system finds videos for viewers (rather than viewers for videos).”
The Search System
YouTube’s search system connects users with videos based on search terms they input, so it works a little more like Google Search.
It doesn’t weigh a user’s history quite as heavily to remain open to what they currently need.
Rather than trying to predict videos to suggest, it waits for user input and then uses available data (such as video topics, satisfaction metrics, and a user’s history) to serve results relevant to the query.
YouTube Search seems to be considered a separate feature. It prioritizes three core metrics:
Relevance: How well a video’s title, description, and content match the query.
Engagement: A video’s engagement statistics, such as watch time and other user signals.
Quality: YouTube also uses E-E-A-T signals, a familiar phrase for SEO professionals.
The Shorts System
The Shorts system is unique. While it uses many of the same principles as other systems, each user has a separate Shorts watch history from their long-form video watch history.
There may be some crossover, but for the most part, any personalization signals are separate between Shorts and other types of videos.
Shorts has its own tab, as well as sections on other areas of the site such as the home page, in Search, and recommendations.
Here’s what YouTube says about how Trending videos are chosen:
“Amongst the many great new videos on YouTube on any given day, Trending can only show a limited number. Trending aims to surface videos that:
Are appealing to a wide range of viewers.
Are not misleading, clickbaity or sensational.
Capture the breadth of what’s happening on YouTube and in the world.
Showcase a diversity of creators.
Ideally, are surprising or novel.
Trending aims to balance all of these considerations. To achieve this, Trending considers many signals, including (but not limited to):
View count.
How quickly the video is generating views (i.e., “temperature”).
Where views are coming from, including outside of YouTube.
The age of the video.
How the video performs compared to other recent uploads from the same channel.”
YouTube Algorithm Ranking Factors
The first thing you need to understand about YouTube’s algorithm is that it is “all about the audience.”
Recall this quote from earlier:
“YouTube’s recommendation system finds videos for viewers (rather than viewers for videos).”
It’s audience-first every time. Responding to a question about whether it makes sense to change the thumbnail or title of a video, a product manager at YouTube said this:
“When you change your title and thumbnail, you may notice that your video starts getting more or fewer views. And that’s generally because your video looks different to viewers, and that’s going to change up the way that people interact with it when it’s offered to them in recommendations. Our systems are responding to how viewers are reacting to your video differently, not the act of changing your title and thumbnail.”
1. Watch Time, Engagement, And Satisfaction
As explained in the video links above, the primary metrics that YouTube’s algorithm is optimized for are engagement and satisfaction.
Clicks and views are important in this consideration, but the most important is watch time modified by satisfaction.
Watch time can be represented in a couple of different ways:
The amount of time that a user watches a video.
The percentage of a video that a user watches.
Raw watch time is a pretty good indicator of whether or not users like a video. However, the percentage of a video they watch can be a better indicator.
In the analytics of a video, YouTube shows you the number of views, the watch time in total hours, and also a graph that looks something like this:
Screenshot from author, September 2024
This is a helpful visualization of the percentage of viewers engaged with the video and when they stop watching. You can use this graph to examine how successful your video is at grabbing and keeping attention.
This is critical information for you about the quality of your video in the eyes of your viewers, and the algorithm is using it as part of the formula determining how engaging and satisfying your videos are.
YouTube also trains its algorithms with satisfaction data, primarily gathered through surveys. The surveys aren’t a direct factor in an individual video, but the combination of watch time and satisfaction trains the algorithms to recognize high-quality content.
If you want to optimize for YouTube, or use video to enhance your SEO efforts, the first and most impactful rule is:
Make a good video that your audience wants to watch.
2. User Engagement
User engagement factors also matter for ranking.
How users behave during their watch time and after they are finished watching (combined with when they finish watching) goes into calculating video performance. These data sources include:
Whether a user skips forward during a video.
Whether a user moves back to rewatch a video section. (This can result in an automated “most replayed” section on a video’s timeline.)
How a user behaves after they finish watching. Do they:
Click on a new video in the suggested videos list?
Play the next video in the playlist?
Return to their search or homepage?
Close the session?
3. Video Title And Description
Just like websites in Google search, the title of a video is critical for helping users and search engines understand what content to expect.
However, it doesn’t act in the way you might expect. You should think about your title in terms of user experience first.
While it’s important to use keywords, your use of keywords will have much less impact than the CTR, watch time, and other engagement and satisfaction factors.
When it comes to your title, the most important consideration is how you set the stage for the video with your target audience.
Your title and video content are closely related, and you must ensure that the video delivers on the promise of the title – or at least begins to do so – quickly.
Optimizing your title for keywords can end up hurting you if it sets unrealistic expectations or makes the title less appealing.
Similarly, you should use descriptions in a way that helps users. The description should briefly describe the topic and what the user can expect.
It’s also a good place to put references from the video, links to other content the user may want to watch, and actions you may want them to take after watching, such as a link to your website.
A critical note for descriptions is that you should use them to add titled timestamps to your videos. Timestamps look like this:
0:00 Introduction
0:52 Chapter 1
02:02 Chapter 2
You wouldn’t want to use “chapter” – you would add a title that describes what that section of the video is about.
Doing this in the video description automatically adds sectioned chapters to the video timeline.
Google Search indexes these chapter titles and timestamps, so if you execute them carefully, Google can send users to a directly relevant section of your video. You can see this with the “key moments” feature in Google SERPs:
Screenshot from search for [how to train a dog], Google, September 2024
As you can see in the next screenshot, the “key moments” appearing on Google Search are taken directly from the video description on YouTube:
Screenshot from YouTube, September 2024
This is powerful SEO. Do not underestimate this feature for “how to” SEO queries.
It’s a very compelling reason that video should be part of your organic SEO strategy because video results can show up in the “All” tab as well as the “Videos” tab in Google.
If you don’t add these yourself, Google may automatically create video chapters from the transcript. It’s best to control this process yourself.
4. Thumbnail
While they’re not a type of text metadata that algorithms can directly interpret, thumbnails are critical as part of the click-through and watch time formula.
Along with your title, they can make the difference between users clicking or not or finding a video satisfying or not, depending on the expectations set by the image.
I should also note that with Google leaning into multi-modal neural networks, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that algorithms may soon understand thumbnails in relation to a video’s content.
Thumbnails are a ranking factor insofar as they’re a critical part of engagement. The algorithm will respond to how users respond to your video. So, your thumbnail needs to set your video up for viewers, both to attract clicks and set reasonable expectations.
In fact, thumbnails are one of the most important things on YouTube. They’re the first thing a user sees and likely the first piece of information they use to make a decision about whether to click, as they’ll likely parse the image more quickly than the title.
5. Video Content
Video content is, of course, the primary determiner of quality and what users respond to, so it’s what engagement and satisfaction data is based on.
However, there are some specific ways that a video’s content impacts ranking.
Watch Time: If you create a good video that viewers like, you’ll get positive engagement and satisfaction signals.
Captions and Transcripts: If you don’t provide captions, YouTube automatically generates them and builds a transcript for a video. It uses the information from captions to determine what your video is about, which makes your video script a helpful source of metadata.
So, use important keywords early in your script. This is potentially relevant for Google Search as well as YouTube Search and other systems.
It’s a good idea to upload your own transcript with videos for YouTube to build the captions, as the AI will make mistakes.
Relevance: If users indicate or the systems determine that your video content is not relevant to your title, then your video is unlikely to perform well.
Similarly, if you use a “clickbait” thumbnail that sets users up to expect something that you don’t deliver on, that disappointment will be reflected in the data.
Remember that there is a dance to your title and thumbnail, and what happens with the user is much more important than your metadata optimization.
If you have high clicks but low watch time, that indicates that users were drawn in but didn’t like the video. If the opposite is true, it could indicate that users aren’t resonating with your title and thumbnail when they see them.
6. Subscribers And Notifications
Subscribers are a critical part of a channel’s success, and they can impact how a new video performs. New videos appear in the “Subscriptions” tab of users subscribed to your channel.
Additionally, if your subscribers have opted in to receive notifications, they will get a notification when your video goes live.
These views are a critical initial source of data, as they can help YouTube build an understanding of how viewers respond to your videos. If your subscribers like a video, YouTube has a lot of information to work with about how to recommend that video to non-subscribers.
In a video for Creator Insider, Todd Beauprè, YouTube’s Growth and Discovery team lead, said that the Subscription feed “offers a bit of a control over other variables” when it comes to diagnosing why a video could be underperforming. If your subscribers don’t like it, other people probably won’t either.
For newer creators, YouTube does have a team and systems in place to assist in finding audiences.
According to Beauprè, there are systems that show videos from new creators to new audiences based on the history and preferences of those users as a sort of test.
Either way, it’s important to look at the initial data coming in about a video to see if it’s satisfying the first audiences who see it. If it isn’t, YouTube may not continue serving that video based on the quality, engagement, and satisfaction signals.
7. Tags Don’t Matter
I feel like this needs to be said multiple times.
Tags don’t matter.
Tags don’t matter.
Anyone who tells you that optimizing tags is important is wrong, and they can come and fight me over it.
Screenshot of the YouTube Help Center, September 2024
If you don’t like to trust what the documentation says at face value – after Google’s shenanigans over the last few months, I don’t blame you – check out these experiments:
YouTube SEO Tips
As a companion to your organic SEO strategy or as its own strategy, YouTube can have a huge payoff.
But you should be careful when treating it like a marketing channel.
Success on YouTube is audience-dependent, and modern audiences are sensitive to marketing campaigns.
If you’re using YouTube as a channel to try and send more traffic to your website or some other off-platform goal, you’re going to have a hard time for a couple of reasons:
If users are on YouTube, it’s because they want to watch videos. If you’re too aggressive with off-platform conversion attempts, it can turn viewers off.
YouTube’s algorithm prioritizes in-platform engagement and activity. A successful video should entice a user to watch the whole thing and then find another video to watch, not end the session and convert.
That doesn’t mean you can’t use YouTube as an organic marketing channel. But you must deliver value to your audiences first and build a community on the platform if that’s the route you’re taking.
If you’re using YouTube to boost your organic search performance, you can consider video more of a supplementary strategy.
But again, you should focus on providing direct value and create videos that are user-friendly and informative, not promotional.
The video should be a companion to your content because it is more user-friendly than text and static images, or a strong alternative for users who prefer it.
Make A Good Video
Nothing else in this article matters unless you make a good video.
This is advice that I find to be missing in a lot of “YouTube SEO advice” type articles.
Sure, many will provide you with guidelines that sort of add up to making a good video, like research and scripting and editing, but the simple statement is missing: Make a good video.
What follows from that is a whole bunch of questions about what “good” and “high-quality” really mean and statements like “that’s vague advice” and “it depends,” but I actually find this to be a very helpful filter statement.
If you don’t know what “a good video” means for your niche and your audience, then I have a question for you:
Why are you considering a video strategy in the first place?
Go and find five videos from other creators that you know for a fact your audience likes. Then, write down all the things that make them good.
If you can’t do that, go back to the drawing board. Go and find out what a good video is, what it does, and why people like it. That isn’t competitor research; it’s understanding the medium in which you plan to work.
Making a good video can overcome poor optimization at any of the points discussed in this article or any other article. Perfect optimization cannot overcome the impact of a bad video or a video that viewers don’t like.
If you’re struggling to get traction for your videos, the first question should never be how well they’re optimized. Your first question should be: “Are the videos good enough?”
Audience Research
Don’t start your keyword research for videos until you’ve done audience research.
YouTube’s algorithm doesn’t take a video and decide who to send it to. It examines the preferences and history of users and then curates a selection of videos for each individual.
You must identify the audience for your videos, which could be a very specific subset of your existing audience or a new audience entirely.
What this audience already watches is of critical importance because YouTube has multiple traffic sources within the platform with their own systems that weigh ranking factors differently.
For many videos, the primary traffic potential comes from the recommendation systems on the homepage or suggested video features.
That makes understanding what your audience is already watching critically important. Build on existing topics on the platform. Watch videos in your niche and find ways to answer questions or provide content that they don’t.
It takes a very specific type of video to get traction in YouTube Search. Search is the part of YouTube that weighs metadata most strongly, but user satisfaction remains a critical factor.
The video cited above in “The Recommendation System” section mentions that “learning or how-to videos – they often get more views from search.”
You must understand not only the preferences and needs of your audience, but how they’re most likely to come across your video.
Not every video is built for YouTube Search, and if that’s the case, it won’t take off if you don’t understand the flow of the experience a user might come to your video from.
Resources About Audience Research:
Keyword Research
Keyword research is important for videos that you’re targeting on YouTube or Google Search. It’s still important, but to a much lesser degree, when it comes to YouTube’s discovery systems.
What I mean by that is that the research is still important so that you understand the language users are engaging with, but there’s only so much optimization you can do. It’s much easier to over-optimize and sabotage yourself when it comes to recommendation systems.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it. I’m saying you need to understand your audience and traffic source, do your keyword research, and then choose how to approach your metadata based on the traffic sources you expect for your video.
There are automated tools that can assist you with keyword research, and I encourage installing at least the free versions of both of these tools.
There’s a lot of value you can get out of your existing keyword research process, but it’s important to understand platform-specific keyword trends.
Resources About Keyword Research:
Focus On Thumbnails And Titles
Thumbnails and titles are where you spend the majority of your optimization time. These are the hooks, and how you handle them can make or break a video’s performance (second, of course, to whether the video is good).
The primary goal of titling high-quality content is to set an expectation. That expectation should entice users.
Then, you must fully deliver on the expectation. If your title and video are harmonious in this way, and you’ve researched your audience to know that they will respond to the topic, then you have the makings of a successful video.
Titles are your core keyword opportunity for videos, in addition to your description and video content. Thumbnails are your biggest opportunity to entice a response in users.
YouTube is now offering in-platform A/B testing for video thumbnails, which can help you understand what resonates with your audience.
Like the title, your thumbnail should set expectations for the video. Some elements that work well include:
Humans with expressions or poses that match the video’s tone.
Keywords that your audience will understand as integral to the video’s topic.
Artistic and metaphorical representations of a topic.
Adhering to, or standing out from, a common color scheme or design philosophy that other videos use.
Multiple different styles and design philosophies can work.
Here’s a screenshot of a wildly successful video by YouTuber hbomberguy titled, “Plagiarism and You(Tube)” – it’s 4 hours long with 25 million views.
Honestly, it’s a masterclass in overcoming the pervasive narrative of short online attention spans – and it’s a great video (yes, as you can see, I watched the whole thing).
But the thumbnail isn’t very refined, is it? It’s a bit messy. There’s a bunch of people there, and it’s a mix of real photos and a pretty creepy cartoon guy back there in the corner. Hbomberguy himself isn’t making an exaggerated expression; he just looks sort of baffled.
This thumbnail is masterful at evoking tone. This is the sort of thing you should be paying attention to when it comes to aligning the expectations of your presentation with the impact of your video.
Screenshot from YouTube, September 2024
Below are a few video results from the search we did earlier: [how to train a dog].
As you can see, there’s a wide variety of thumbnails that are all effective in their own way while sticking to the common theme of the search. I’ve cut out the sponsored results.
The top result is interesting. I find it loud and visually unappealing, but it’s clearly working.
Now, we can’t say whether the thumbnail has a significant positive impact or whether the video is just so good that the thumbnail doesn’t matter. But to be the first result, we have to assume it gets a lot of clicks. So, the CTR is good, and the thumbnail is a big part of that.
So this search, then, is less about tone and more about how clear and visually striking the image is.
I haven’t watched any of these videos (and I don’t have a dog), so the algorithm doesn’t have a ton of specific personalization to work with. Still, your results may differ.
Screenshot from search for [how to train a dog], YouTube, September 2024
Screenshot from search for [how to train a dog], YouTube, September 2024
So, we’re back to audience research and specific query research. Intent could be a deciding factor in how you approach thumbnails.
Don’t Ignore The Comment Section
This will be the last point because I’m becoming long-winded.
Comments sections are more important than you might think. They have a ton of functionality, such as your ability to pin comments, that can supplement a video.
You could pin a comment to highlight a specific call to action for highly engaged users who scroll down to the comments. It’s also commonly used to issue corrections and updates.
Some creators choose to pin comments from users that they find to be particularly insightful, complimentary, or in some cases, inflammatory.
Engaging with commenters is good practice. These users, for one reason or another, are highly engaged. That means:
There’s a lot you can learn about your highest-value audiences from what they have to say.
Engaging with them builds a sense of community and feedback.
The Best YouTube SEO Is A Good Video
I want to come back to this point to end the article.
It really is all about the video and what value it adds to the user’s experience and your content.
You can overcome so many obstacles with a video that comes from a place of genuine understanding of your audience’s needs or excitement for the subject matter.
This should be what drives your video strategy, whether you’re using videos to empower your organic SEO or build a following on YouTube.
YouTube is enhancing its Inspiration Tab, a tool for creators to understand their audience and improve content.
In a video demonstration, the company previewed new AI features that will launch in the coming months.
Initially a research tool, the Inspiration Tab now helps creators identify audience interests and content gaps.
The new AI features are designed to boost creativity and streamline content creation.
Personalized Ideas and Audience Insights
You’ll find five tailored ideas for your channel in the updated Inspiration Tab.
Screenshot from: YouTube.com/CreatorInsider, Nov 2024.
Each idea includes a thumbnail, title, summary, and audience interest insights, helping you see how well it fits your audience.
You can also input any topic as a text prompt, and the AI will generate ideas based on your request.
Screenshot from: YouTube.com/CreatorInsider, Nov 2024.
In the Idea Playground, you can personalize your idea by exploring different angles.
Choose from suggested angles or enter your own prompt.
The Playground also offers undo and redo options, so you don’t lose your work.
Screenshot from: YouTube.com/CreatorInsider, Nov 2024.
Screenshot from: YouTube.com/CreatorInsider, Nov 2024.
You can access outlines and thumbnails in the Playground. The AI will suggest ways to adjust your talking points. You can modify the entire outline or focus on specific sections.
Similar options are available for titles and thumbnails. You can download images for use as backgrounds or modify them to visualize before uploading.
Screenshot from: YouTube.com/CreatorInsider, Nov 2024.
Availability
The Inspiration Tab is the updated Trends Tab, formerly the Research Tab. It will be a central hub where you can use AI to brainstorm ideas, outlines, titles, thumbnails, and concepts.
YouTube plans to roll out these features over the next few months. Note that these features are not widely available yet, as YouTube is previewing them to gather creator feedback.
YouTube’s latest weekly update highlights new creator features, including expanding longer Shorts, launching images on Quiz posts for Android, and broader access to the Brand Connect tab in YouTube Studio.
Longer Shorts Update
YouTube has finished rolling out updates allowing Shorts videos ranging from 1 to 3 minutes to be displayed accordingly in the subscriptions tab, on channel pages, and in YouTube Studio.
These videos have been organized into the Shorts shelf on the subscriptions page and the Shorts tab on both the channel page and YouTube Studio.
Creators wishing their uploads to be classified as long-form videos can do so by uploading in a wider aspect ratio, such as 16:9.
Revamped Video Sharing From Other Apps
YouTube is updating how you share and publish videos from other apps on Android and iOS.
When sharing a video to YouTube from another app, you will now have direct access to Shorts creation tools.
This allows you to trim the video, add details such as captions, set visibility and location, and enhance your video before publishing.
Images On Quiz Posts
YouTube has announced an improvement following the launch of text-based Quiz posts.
You can now optionally add images to the multiple-choice answers in your quizzes.
This feature will initially be available on Android devices, but the image quizzes you create will be accessible to viewers on all devices where Community posts are available.
‘Transform’ and ‘DreamScreen’ For Posts
YouTube is launching two new tools designed to help you improve text input and generate images for posts.
The “Transform” tool allows you to rephrase and customize text while composing a post. The “DreamScreen” tool can help you generate new images based on a prompt.
Initially, these features will only be available in English and will support prompts in English.
Brand Connect Expansion
YouTube’s self-service platform, Brand Connect, is now available to all eligible creators. You can find the Brand Connect tab under the “Earn” section in YouTube Studio.
This tab allows you to sign up and access Brand Connect features. The platform helps you manage accepted brand deals and provides a customizable Media Kit with audience insights.
Open Call Pilot Program
YouTube is testing a new program called “Open Call” until December. This program allows advertisers to ask for custom ads from eligible creators.
Creators can review these requests and submit their content if they want. The goal of this pilot is to make it easier for brands and creators to work together on ad content.
C2PA Disclosure For Camera-Captured Content
YouTube is launching a new feature to help creators show where their content comes from and how authentic it is.
A label that says “Captured with a camera” will appear in the description box when a video is filmed using special technology.
This technology works with cameras that support C2PA version 2.1 or higher, allowing creators to verify their videos.
Looking Ahead
Many of these new features will be global, but some, like AI tools and BrandConnect, are region-specific.
Monitor your YouTube Studio dashboard and official messages for updates on features and rollout.
Decision-makers at brands and agencies know that the new AI-generated holiday ads from Coca-Cola have attracted a lot of criticism.
Others have described the three new AI versions of the classic “Holidays Are Coming” campaign as “a soulless and creepy, dystopian nightmare” and “the biggest branding blunder of the year,” with others saying the AI campaign “destroyed the spirit of Christmas” and “earns Coca-Cola a lump of coal.”
Strong words. But has Manuel “Manolo” Arroyo, the executive vice president and global chief marketing officer for the company, just made a career-damaging move?
In testing for festive campaigns globally by DAIVID, none of Coke’s new AI-generated holiday ads made the top 30 most effective holiday campaigns of 2024 against 90 other Christmas ads.
Watch the new AI-generated holiday ads, which were created by three different ad agencies, and form your own opinion.
Secret Santa
Secret Level created “Coca-Cola – Secret Santa (AI-Generated Christmas Ad 2024).”
Holidays Are Coming
Silverside created “Coca Cola – Holidays Are Coming.”
Unexpected Santa
Wildcard created “Coca-Cola – Unexpected Santa (AI-Generated Christmas Ad 2024).”
Holidays Are Coming 2020
While you’re reviewing these new versions, you should also watch the version that was uploaded to Coca-Cola Great Britain & Ireland’s YouTube channel back in 2020.
How Do Coke’s New AI Versions Compare To The Classic 2020 Ad?
What do you notice? What do you wonder?
Attention
All the new AI versions generated above-average attention from the start.
However, the classic version, which starts with a boy ringing a bell, captures more attention than any of the AI versions, which mostly start with shots of snowy landscapes.
People will generally attract more attention than images of trees and lakes.
Prevalence Of Intense Emotions
According to testing by DAIVID, none of the AI ads generate the same levels of intense positive emotions as the 2020 version, and all of them are below the industry average.
The 2020 version generates almost twice as much warmth as the norm, while the AI versions are level or slightly above.
The AI version that generated the most warmth was still 38% less likely to make people feel warmth than the 2020 version.
The AI versions were less relatable and less – for want of a better word – real.
Brand Recall
All of the new AI versions predictably scored above the industry average for correct brand recall.
This is not surprising, considering that people know the ad well, and the brand is present throughout and integral to the storyline (Coke Trucks).
The classic scores higher than the AI versions, though. This, again, is possibly due to the familiarity of the ad, but also the fact the famous “Holidays Are Coming” track kicks in much quicker.
Next Step Intents
One of the emotions that the AI versions consistently scored higher than the 2020 ad for is feelings of craving. All are around two to three times higher than average.
This is probably due to the close-ups of someone opening a cold bottle of Coke, which wasn’t included in the 2020 version.
What Was The Most Effective AI Version?
Ian Forrester of DAIVID reported:
“The AI versions of Coke’s classic ‘Holidays Are Coming’ campaign were strong for attention in the first second and brand recall, but were let down by their evocation of intense positive emotions, which were all below the industry norm.
The difference between the AI and the original was most stark in their evocation of warmth, a mainstay of Christmas advertising. The original evoked intense warmth among 33.0% of viewers, whereas the AI versions were significantly below this.
So, while the AI is producing images which on the face of it seem cute and heart-warming, the human viewer to some degree discerns their synthetic nature, which detracts from their impact.”
How Can Brands Avoid AI Negative Backlash?
After analyzing the data published by DAIVID, I reached out directly and spoke to their Chief Growth Officer, Barney Worfolk-Smith:
GJ: Why does AI have such a negative perception?
BWS: It’s not surprising that the use of generative AI, especially jazzing up familiar Christmas traditions like Coke’s truck, garners some negative opinions.
As the introduction of generative AI into processes is nascent and messy at best, none of us really know exactly how it will play out.
So, some in the advertising community who feel a sense of ominous threat will instantly adopt a negative stance. I don’t blame them, but the reality is, the toothpaste is out of the tube, so we should all have a hand on the wheel of a human-AI hybrid Christmas Coke truck to have a stake in the future.
GJ: Can brands navigate carefully to avoid backlash?
BWS: Generative AI is present – or at least coming down the chimney – in almost all aspects of advertising. It’s actually incumbent upon brands to try bits of it out.
Sure, it’s going to be bumpy, but the backlashes will frequently be confined to the advertising community.
As a result, as long as they’re doing measured introductory human AI experiments and not dismissing the agency of record, I think they’ll avoid a hit on the share price.
GJ: Why was the original video such a classic?
BWS: The original was a glorious confluence: strong, familiar emotions, which Coca-Cola evokes generally, the shared history of Santa and Coca-Cola’s colors, and a palpable, relatable sense of anticipation that even the “Grinchiest” of us feel in the run-up to Christmas.
GJ: Why has AI failed to replicate the success of the first campaign?
BWS: At DAIVID, we understand the importance emotions play in advertising effectiveness – and the AI versions all garnered below-average U.S. positive emotional responses.
Without a doubt, the uncanny valley plays a part here, especially with an advert that is so recognizable to so many of us.
GJ: What must marketers do when using AI in video or images?
BWS: Marketers need to take their eyes off the spreadsheet and on to the creative process.
Of course, AI can drive efficiencies, but it can also open up new avenues of creativity, and that will happen when creatives are empowered to use AI, not be threatened with it.
Embrace AI Cautiously In Holiday Ads
Holiday ads are notoriously tricky to navigate and strike the right sentiment, with the best intention often missing the mark.
Feelings of warmth and nostalgia are at the heart of the festive season. Perhaps AI just can’t replicate the nuance of human emotion – or more likely, humans don’t like the idea of AI trying to replicate that.
Coca-Cola’s new ads emphasizes the challenge for brands to cultivate emotional authenticity when engaging with their audience as AI becomes more integrated into advertising campaigns.
It reminds us to embrace AI cautiously while upholding the human elements that underpin marketing campaigns – holiday ads, in particular.
Methodology
DAIVID used its AI-powered platform that predicts the emotions an ad will generate, and its likely impact on brand and business metrics – enabling advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their ad campaigns at scale.
They tested 90 Christmas ads for 39 different emotions. The strength of emotions people feel is ranked from 1-10, with 8-10 considered “intense.” Data for the chart was compiled at 7:00 AM on November 15, 2024.
YouTube is introducing “Gifts, Powered by Jewels,” which lets people support creators during vertical livestreams.
This signals YouTube’s push into the virtual gifting space that TikTok has capitalized on for years.
Key Features
“Gifts, Powered by Jewels,” is available for members of the YouTube Partner Program in the United States and offers new ways to earn money from live content.
The new gifting system introduces two virtual currencies: Jewels for viewers and Rubies for creators.
Viewers can purchase Jewels in bundles to send animated gifts that appear as overlays during vertical livestreams.
This feature is similar to TikTok’s popular gift animations that occur during live sessions.
Earnings
Creators earn Rubies from these gifts, with each Ruby worth one cent in real currency.
For example, if a creator receives 100 Rubies, they earn $1.
To incentivize adoption, YouTube offers a 50% bonus on gift earnings (up to $1,000 per month) to qualified creators for the first three months.
This bonus structure appears designed to attract creators who might currently be prioritizing TikTok livestreams for their virtual gifting revenue.
Technical Requirements
The feature is currently restricted to:
Vertical format livestreams only
U.S.-based creators in the YouTube Partner Program
Creators who have accepted the Virtual Items Module
U.S.-based viewers for purchasing Jewels
Only mobile app users can buy and send gifts, but creators can receive them while streaming directly on YouTube or through third-party software.
Retiring Super Stickers
YouTube is phasing out Super Stickers for vertical livestreams with the introduction of gifts.
Once creators enable gifts on their channels, Super Stickers will no longer be available for their vertical live content.
Unlike traditional monetization features such as Super Chats and channel memberships, gifts don’t have a fixed revenue share since their prices can vary based on bundle pricing and promotional offers.
Looking Ahead
YouTube is beta testing “Gifts, Powered by Jewels” in the United States and plans to roll it out to more countries soon.
You can enable gifting through the Earn hub in YouTube Studio.
This launch represents YouTube’s direct challenge to TikTok’s live streaming monetization.
While TikTok has the edge in virtual gifting, YouTube’s large user base and monetization infrastructure could make it a strong competitor.
Featured Image: Screenshot from support.google.com, November 2024.
