Brands should care about YouTube Shorts because viewers love them. There are over 70 billion views every day, and 96% of Gen Zers in the U.S. say they watch both short-form and long-form videos on YouTube. It's a core part of the YouTube experience now. What's really interesting and unique to YouTube is how people are watching Shorts, which is increasingly on TVs. Views doubled from December 2022 to December 2023.

Brands can optimize for viewer behavior on YouTube Shorts by using AI-powered campaigns, which seamlessly reach people across the devices and placements where they watch YouTube. Advertisers can also choose specific formats when their marketing goal is driving views efficiently. For example, if you want to run a campaign exclusively in the Shorts feed, you can do that. This option is now available to optimize for both reach and views, providing more flexibility when buying across Shorts, in-stream, and in-feed placements.

The mentality of a Shorts viewer is the biggest thing that makes Shorts ads unique. Inside the Shorts feed, people are engagement-happy and ready to tap, swipe, and click. It's not just mindless scrolling. Brands can stand out in people’s Shorts feed by using formats that drive action. One fun example is stickers for retailers, which can make ads more appealing to viewers. These stickers are created automatically from images in product feeds, making ads more interactive and matching the fun sensibility viewers love on Shorts.

Brands can incorporate creators into their YouTube campaigns by leveraging the power of creator-driven content. Research shows that ads appearing within or alongside creator-driven content drive stronger results at every stage of the consumer journey compared to ads viewed alongside noncreator content. New features, like Communities and Hype, are about to make those connections even stronger. Additionally, YouTube has introduced a new API that enables brands to connect existing video ads to their Google Ads account, turning them into partnership ads that can be added to any AI-powered campaign in Google Ads.

YouTube is an essential part of a winning social strategy because people come to the platform for many reasons, such as diving into their passions, exploring new interests, or researching potential purchases. Regardless of why they come, users are truly engaged with creators and ads. The creativity and fan engagement that advance pop culture conversations are the enduring appeal of YouTube. Brands that tap into the Gen Z demographic’s interests and communities see great success, as 74% of surveyed Gen Z fans agree they like seeing brands engage with things they’re fans of.