In-feed video ads place your brand, product, or service alongside YouTube content that is likely to be viewed by your target audience. In-feed video ads appear in YouTube search results, YouTube watch next, YouTube app Home feed, and YouTube subscription feed.
In this article, you’ll learn about in-feed video ad assets, technical specs, and reporting tools.
Benefits
- Build brand consideration by showing your ads when viewers browse related videos, scroll through the YouTube Home feed in the app, or search for content.
- Deliver information to viewers actively consuming relevant content.
- Make viewers more likely to subscribe, share, and watch additional videos from your brand.
How in-feed video ads appear on YouTube
In-feed video ads include an image thumbnail, a headline, and up to 2 lines of text (depending on where the ad appears). When a viewer interacts with the thumbnail, they’re taken to the ad’s landing page or website. In certain environments, hovering on the thumbnail will then lead to muted autoplay of the video ad.
Note: In the YouTube app, the video may automatically play (with the sound off and captions enabled) in the ad if the viewer turns on "Playback in feeds". Autoplay doesn't count towards video views for the ad, and Google doesn’t charge you until the viewer visits the YouTube watch page for the ad.
In-feed video ads can appear in the following locations on YouTube:
YouTube search results
Your ad appears above relevant search results on YouTube for desktop and in the YouTube app for mobile and TV.
YouTube watch next
Your ad appears at the top or in between related videos that appear on a video’s watch page.
- On desktop, your ad appears with related videos adjacent to the main video.
- On mobile, your ad appears with related videos below the main video.
YouTube Home feed
Your ad appears in the YouTube Home feed on desktop, mobile, and TV.
- On mobile, your ad appears either at the top of the feed (when a Masthead ad isn’t being served to viewers) or between videos in the feed.
- On desktop, your ad appears either as the first recommended video or between videos in the feed.
- On TV, your ad appears in the recommended videos list.
When a user clicks the YouTube channel name on an in-feed ad, they're taken to the ad's landing page or website, not the ad's YouTube channel or watch page.
YouTube subscription feed
Your ad appears in the YouTube subscription feed.
- On mobile and tablet device, your ad appears as the first recommended video at the top of the feed in the YouTube App.
Available assets
| Asset | Guidelines |
|---|---|
| YouTube video URL | The link to your video. The URL can be any standard video uploaded to YouTube. The video must be public or unlisted and comply with our advertising policies and requirements. |
| Channel name | The name of your channel. |
| Thumbnail |
A small preview of your video that gives viewers an idea of the video’s content. When you create the ad, you can choose from 4 thumbnails from the video. To create custom thumbnails, use YouTube Studio. When creating custom thumbnails, follow our best practices. |
| Headline | 100 characters max (text longer than 25 characters may be shortened on some devices). Headline text should be concise and communicate key information, accurately reflect the content in the video, and entice viewers with a clear call-to-action (for example, "Watch now"). |
| Description |
Up to 2 lines. 35 characters max for each line. The description doesn’t appear when the ad runs on the YouTube watch page (desktop) and on TV. |
Ad specifications
Your video must be uploaded to YouTube and set as public or unlisted to use in an ad. You can find the details of in-feed video ad specifications in the table below:
| Recommended | Accepted | Callouts | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution |
1080p (Full HD) Recommended pixels (px) for HD:
|
720p (Standard HD) Minimum px:
Minimum px for SD:
|
For optimal quality, we don’t recommend using SD |
| Aspect ratio |
|
|
For optimal quality, we don’t recommend using SD |
| Format | .MPG (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4) | .WMV, .AVI, .MOV and .FLV .MPEG-1, .MP4, .MPEGPS, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm & HEVC (h265) | Can’t accept audio files, for example, MP3, WAV, or PCM files on YouTube |
| File size | ≤256 GB | ||
| Length |
Best practice by marketing objective
|
Any length |
|
| Headline/Description |
|
|
Supported Google Ads goal
- Product and brand consideration
Available bidding strategy
Target cost-per-thousand impressions (tCPM)
With tCPM bidding, set how much on average you’re willing to pay every thousand times your ad is shown (this amount is your target CPM). We’ll optimize bids using your target CPM (tCPM) to help you reach more unique users. While some impressions may cost more or less than your tCPM, Google Ads will try to keep your campaign's average CPM equal to or lower than the tCPM you set. Learn more about Target cost-per-thousand impressions (tCPM).
Cost-per-view (CPV)
With tCPV bidding, you pay for video views when a person interacts with a video thumbnail to watch your video ad. With in-feed ads, you’re charged when a viewer clicks on a video thumbnail to watch your video ad or watches the ad autoplay for at least 10 seconds (or until the end of the ad if it's shorter than 10 seconds). Learn more about YouTube's cost per view (CPV) bidding.
Reporting
Metrics
All standard video metrics are available for in-feed video ads.
Third-party measurement
Third-party measurement is available for in-feed video ads.
Policies
In-feed video ads must follow Google Ads policies and YouTube policies.
