For every hour of most programming on YouTube TV, there’ll be around 16 minutes of ads specifically targeted to every viewer, even if they’re watching the same show.
How YouTube TV targeting works
Available targeting options
The following targeting options are available for YouTube TV:
- Demographic targeting
- Gender
- User language
- Parental status
- Age
- Note: We also suggest targeting age bands instead of specific ages.
- Affinity segments
- Geo targeting
- Topic targeting
- Frequency capping: Frequency capping can be applied, but it’s not recommended as it’ll significantly impact available impressions.
To activate demographic and affinity targeting, Google’s audience data is applied to YouTube TV inventory in the same manner as any other YouTube platform. YouTube TV is a logged-in experience, which gives YouTube a unique ability to be a platform on which you can use Google’s audience data, such as demo or affinity targeting and overlay that data on TV inventory.
Geo targeting
Geo targeting at the state, designated market area (DMA), and zip code level is available on YouTube TV. Geo targeting is recommended for local TV and digital advertising if you want to target certain local DMAs or zip codes, or have key markets for your ads.
DMA targeting on YouTube TV has been an effective tactic in driving incremental revenue, often from true local TV budgets.
Best practices for geo targeting
- Use broad demo targeting only, such as ages “18–49” and “25–54”. Affinity targeting and exclusion lists are NOT recommended.
- Share advertising dates and budgets early. Share estimates as early and often as possible to increase chances of securing your total budget.
- Avoid overly narrow targeting or short advertising periods. The narrower the targeting or the shorter the advertising period, the more volatile and restricted inventory will become, which will increase your chances of under-delivering. If you need to restrict your campaign to a specific DMA, you’re strongly recommended to avoid other targeting, such as demographic targeting.
- In instances of short advertising periods, we recommend delivering assets earlier than the 48-hour turnaround time requirement to prevent potential launch delays from causing underdelivery.
- Rotate creatives to minimize line items. Use Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) tags to rotate creatives, versus relying on unique line items, as it allows for greater flexibility.
- Avoid making significant changes. Changes to advertising periods, budgets, creative allocations, and targeting prompts the system to release and re-forecast all inventory, meaning any material changes increase the risk of losing all inventory.
Unavailable targeting options
The following targeting options aren’t available on YouTube TV:
- Day parting: Where you specify certain hours or days of the week to show your ads, or when you set bid adjustments to increase or decrease your bids for specific hours or days of the week.
- Ad pod positions: Targeting specific positions (for example, first or last) within an ad pod of multiple ads in a row.
- First position targeting: First position targeting won’t apply to YouTube TV ad impressions, but will apply to the rest of your YouTube Select impressions. If this is an issue, we recommend either disabling first position when initiating YouTube TV advertising, or opting out of YouTube TV for now.
- Content: All campaigns will run across YouTube TV (YouTube TV lineup) or across YouTube TV live sports events (YouTube TV Sports lineup). There are strict policies in place that prevent you from targeting specific networks or programs directly. It’s possible to exclude programs, shows, or networks using an exclusion list in YouTube Select. In YouTube Select and auction, it’s possible to exclude targets. Learn more About YouTube TV exclusions.
- Remarketing lists: You can’t build remarketing lists from a YouTube TV ad and remarket the viewer on YouTube. The same principle applies for non-skippable ads on YouTube: collecting remarketing lists isn’t possible for YouTube Select non-skippable ads, because you can’t collect lists on forced views.
