Google’s YouTube overtures gain traction among marketers refocusing on brand investments

“Everything in the sales pitch from Google right now to agencies is YouTube, YouTube, YouTube,” said Kris Tait, chief business officer at media agency Croud. He didn’t reveal specific figures, but told Digiday that spending by Croud’s clients on YouTube had risen almost 50% in the first half of 2025. Neither company responded to requests for comment.

Google’s brand-building pitch: Shorts, Peak Points and YouTube Select

Since upfronts season closed the platform’s execs have been pushing its “Peak Points” feature, first unveiled In May, according to one agency buyer who spoke to Digiday on condition of anonymity. The feature, built using Google’s Gemini AI tool, inserts ad units at the moment in a video where audiences are “most engaged”.

Google execs also are emphasizing the opportunities involved with YouTube Shorts — the platform’s answer to Reels and TikTok, launched in 2021 in the U.S. 88% of YouTube views so far this year went to Shorts, and 57% of all videos uploaded to YouTube in 2025 by U.S. creators have been Shorts, per Tubular Labs.

Previously only available to advertisers as part of a broader package, YouTube recently enabled Shorts to be bought as standalone inventory.

According to one holding company media buyer, who exchanged anonymity for candor, Google execs have been attempting to position Shorts as a valid competitor to both television and social video like Reels and TikTok. “They want to have their cake and eat it too,” said the holdco buyer.

“Our Google reps have been strongly promoting the channel [YouTube],” said Danielle Schultz, associate director of performance media at Collective Measures. 

She said the company’s staffers often advocated for clients to shift budgets previously earmarked for television into YouTube, citing its measurement and targeting capabilities – but that brands saw the platform more often as a peer of the social networks. “Social is an arena they can more quickly gain traction (and budget),” she said.

YouTube’s pitch has also emphasised the key position it occupies in the creator economy, according to Tinuiti senior innovation and growth director, TV, audio and display Brian Binder.

And while its performance focused, AI-powered Demand Gen products are already in favor among marketers, Binder said that YouTube Select, an advertising product that allows brands to buy ads against the top 1% of creator channels on the platform, had also begun to drive investment.

“We’re starting to see brands lean more into those premium types of placements,” said Binder, who added: “The definition of premium is changing a little bit… It doesn’t have to be just scripted content.”

How are clients responding?

At media agency Croud, client spending on Youtube in the first six months of 2025 was 47% higher than it was in the same period last year, according to Tait. “From an agency perspective, our investment is growing significantly every year,” he said.

Binder said Tinuiti had recorded a “double digit percentage growth” in YouTube spending between the first quarter of 2024 and 2025, but declined to provide specific figures.

According to media buyers, YouTube’s agency reps have found themselves pushing on an open door. Amid an unpredictable economy, agencies are advising clients not lean so hard on lower funnel, or “performance” channels like paid search. 

“We can’t just rely so heavily on [the] bottom of the funnel. More and more folks are understanding that the brand helps drive demand,” said Shamsul Chowdhury, global evp paid social at Jellyfish. “If you want to grow the brand, you have to do brand awareness,” he added.

In the first quarter of 2025, YouTube ads served on TVs rose 88% year-on-year, according to a Tinuiti benchmark report. TV screens now command 43% of YouTube video ad spend, nearly doubling from 2024’s 24%. 

YouTube hasn’t been the only beneficiary. Though buyers say it hasn’t been as forceful in its messaging as Google, Meta has released new ad products in recent months that have provoked an increase in brand-oriented spending from advertisers. In May, Meta added “Trending Reels” to Instagram, enabling advertisers to buy against popular Reels videos, as well as launching video ads on Threads.

(TikTok, incidentally, also expanded the similarly positioned Pulse suite of ad products that same month, following a push to convince advertisers it could satisfy their performance needs.)

Chowdhury estimated that so far, 20% of the client spending managed by Jellyfish this year had shifted from bottom to top-of-funnel channels, including spending on Meta and Google.

“Brands are becoming more and more curious about the impact that Meta has on brand metrics, not just performance metrics,” said Sara Young, group director, social, Dept. ​She estimated that spending by the agency’s clients on Meta’s platforms was 30% higher in the second quarter of 2025, compared with the same quarter last year.

‘I don’t think YouTube gets brought into [the] conversation as much as it should.’

Paid search — Google’s heartland — still accounts for most digital ad revenue. But the channel’s share of that revenue is being squeezed. It fell 2.4% between 2020 and 2024, while in the same period, digital video’s share increased 5.4% to account for 24% of overall revenues in 2024 ($259 billion) per IAB research published in April.

With that in mind, it’s not surprising to see Google’s reps focus on growing YouTube’s ad revenues and emphasizing the TV comparison. “For more and more people, watching TV means watching YouTube,” wrote YouTube CEO Neal Mohan in a February blog post.

The 20-year old business has a valid claim to be one of the most-watched video platforms in the United States. As of 2024, 40% of Americans watch its videos on connected TVs each month, according to Nielsen.

Much of that is owed to the popularity of creator-made content on the site. The platform sits at the crossroads of an influencer economy that’s only set to grow further in the coming years. WPP expects ad revenue from user-generated content — from videos to podcasts to social posts — will surpass that of professional media this year.

“Creators are the bread and butter and the beauty of YouTube and what really sets it apart,” he told Digiday.