YouTube is making it easier for marketers to create vertical video ads to take advantage of the short-form video phenomenon. When you think short-form, most almost instantly think of TikTok. However, YouTube Shorts is a platform that should not be underestimated.

Nicky Rettke, Director, Product Management, YouTube Ads

“YouTube Shorts is an entirely mobile and vertical experience with over 30 billion daily views and 1.5 billion monthly logged-in users. By adding vertical video assets to Video action, App and Performance Max campaigns, which automatically scale to Shorts, marketers can participate directly in the Shorts environment and drive better results.”

Create vertical video ads easier than ever before

To help marketers take advantage of its Shorts success, YouTube is experimenting with technology that automatically reforms landscape adverts to vertical or square ones.

Businesses that operate a smaller staff and don’t have the resource to create multiple versions of the same video should be pleased with this new update. Why? Well because AI automatically updates your existing assets for different formats and is available for App campaigns. It will be available for Video action and Performance Max campaigns soon.

To bring it all together, YouTube has invested in some nifty artificial intelligence.

Nicky Rettke, Director, Product Management, YouTube Ads

“The machine learning model detects important elements in the landscape ad — such as faces, key objects, logos, text and motion — and breaks the video into distinct “scenes.”

Breaking landscape videos into scenes makes sure that important elements are properly centred in your vertical ad and makes sure the user experience is the same.

20% more effective ads

It’s easy to feel cynical about YouTube’s statement, but there does seem to be some empirical evidence to back up its claims.

For example, research conducted in-house indicates that vertical videos are 10-20% more effective in terms of conversions than landscape assets. MercadoLibre, the largest online commerce and payments marketplace in Latin America, experienced 12% higher click-through rates and 9% higher view-through rates on mobile using vertical videos compared to landscape ads in the same campaign.

That data lends weight to the previous claim that vertical ads can make a difference.

Use short-form videos as the hook

YouTube’s data shows that while many people watch short-form videos, about 59% of Gen Z consumers use them as launchpads to go and find a longer version of those videos elsewhere. That means creators and marketers can hook their audience in with a short-form bite before serving the main course over a longer period of time.

That’s an interesting way to think about your mix of video content and how it can help you meet your goals as a brand. With 30 billion daily views, Shorts is certainly a good place to try out this strategy as you can persuade your audience to find your longer videos without having to leave the app.

New templates to make your life easier

That’s not all, folks. YouTube is also offering video ad templates to help marketers. From now on, there will be four new vertical video ad templates and one square template in the video creation tool in Google Ads.

Nicky Rettke, Director, Product Management, YouTube Ads

“With just a few images and text, you can customize these templates to create a vertical or square ad for your brand in minutes.”

Additionally, YouTube has added a new set of vertical video ad templates to its auto-generated video offering. These create vertical videos based on your inputs, like text and images.

YouTube says that this will let marketers take advantage of the improved performance of vertical assets even if they don’t have time to make one from scratch.

“These new templates follow creative best practices for YouTube and are built with specific considerations for a vertical viewing environment, with pacing, music tracks and transitions designed to make an impact.”

YouTube’s creative best practices for vertical ads

If you want to shoot your own vertical videos, please keep in mind these three best practices for vertical ads:

1. Match vertical ads with vertical platforms. In short, create vertical ads for YouTube Shorts. Also, consider using bold visuals, brave editing and popular audio to plug into what’s hot at the moment.
2. Keep it quick. Your ads need to be 10 to 60 seconds long. Get into the action fast and your audience will watch it. Take your time and you’re toast.
3. Embrace emotion. Viewers love joy, drama and laughter – so give it to them!