YouTube Shorts Viewed 30B Times per Day, Ads on the Way

YouTube Shorts shows an incredible increase in views: in March 2022, short videos have been viewed 30 billion times a day, over 5 billion in February. This success will inevitably be monetized, and soon Google will introduce ads in this video format. So, prepare to see more ads between them if you watch Shorts one by one.

The numbers come from the report by Google published on April 26. One of the reasons mentioned by Sundar Pichai is the new possibilities that creators received with an updated video editor. Another is new possibilities for creators to monetize their content. Google even founds a $100-million YouTube Shorts Fund to support creators.

Not only do the absolute numbers of views grow. Shorts videos make a greater percentage of the overall YouTube views now than they did before. This motivates YouTube to pay more attention to its potential, regarding both its monetization and encouraging creators to generate more content. And this process already takes place. Despite the war Russia started in Ukraine and the problems with European regulators, which made a noticeable headwind, Google steadily places higher bets on the format and hopes to reencourage advertisers.

As for now, Google tests the new ad formats with App Install (an ad format that enables users to install advertised apps in one tap) and Video Action Campaigns (an advertising format that allows for using multiple ad combinations that contain in-stream and in-feed video ads. Don’t worry, they are skippable). The early results of testing these formats, as Philipp Schindler (Google SVP and CBO) says, are encouraging. The aim of the team now is to close the gap in advertising formats between Shorts and traditional YouTube formats.

Are you a devoted Shorts viewer? How often do you watch these videos? Would ads demotivate you to watch more of them, or maybe to finally subscribe to YouTube Premium? Let us know what you think in the comment section!