YouTube Shorts has been testing ads since last year. Google announced the gradual rollout of ads on YouTube Shorts globally.
Google said YouTube Shorts is yielding 30 billion views per day, which is four times more than last year. “Video action campaigns and app campaigns will automatically scale to YouTube Shorts,” Google said in a blog post. Later this year, advertisers will be able to connect their product feed to their campaigns and make their video ads on YouTube Shorts more shoppable, it said.
“This is an exciting milestone for advertisers, and a key step on our road to developing a long-term YouTube Shorts monetisation solution for our creators,” Jerry Dischler, Google Ads VP and General Manager, said. A spokesperson told TechCrunch the rollout of ads in Shorts would not add direct revenue to the company at this time. The company will continue to reward creators and artists monthly using the YouTube Shorts Funds while developing a long-term model for creator monetisation, the spokesperson added. YouTube created a $100 million creator fund for Shorts last year, TechCrunch reported.
Later this year, Google will roll out new visual shopping ads to US customers on Google Search and a new ‘My Ad Center’ for users to have more control of their privacy and online experience.