YouTube joins upfronts and enables frequency optimisation for advertisers

YouTube has joined this week’s revived upfronts event in New York for the first time and has introduced new features to enable advertisers to limit the frequency of their adverts on a weekly basis.

Citing research that showed 135 million people watched YouTube on connected TV in the US last year, YouTube also cited Nielsen’s finding that over 50% of ad-supported streaming watch time on TV screens was on its platform.

In a blog posting on the upfronts, YouTube director of global ad marketing Cenk Bulbul said that stunt video creator MrBeast’s YouTube channel would have more subscribers that the three most popular ad-supported streaming offerings if it was its own service.

Following a recent announcement that advertisers can control their ad frequency when they buy YouTube and third-party connected TV spots programmatically through the organisation’s Display and Video 360 offerings, YouTube has now extended the ability to limit frequency to non-connected TV spots.

“Now, you can complement your reach by actively setting your weekly frequency goal – a solution only YouTube can provide. Combining our unmatched audience reach and leading machine learning capabilities, advertisers will now be able to optimize how many times viewers see their ads in a week. Not only does this mean more efficient spend, but crucially, a better experience for viewers,” said Bulbul.

Bulbul cited a recent campaign in partnership with Discovery+ that enabled the latter to double awareness of its ads compared to past YouTube campaigns.