{"id":929216,"date":"2026-08-23T17:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T22:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/23\/future-of-tv-briefing-youtube-shorts-gains-ad-dollars-but-needs-to-crack-social-budgets\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T17:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T22:21:14","slug":"future-of-tv-briefing-youtube-shorts-gains-ad-dollars-but-needs-to-crack-social-budgets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/23\/future-of-tv-briefing-youtube-shorts-gains-ad-dollars-but-needs-to-crack-social-budgets\/","title":{"rendered":"Future of TV Briefing: YouTube Shorts gains ad dollars but needs to crack social budgets"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Future of TV Briefing covers the latest in streaming and TV for Digiday+ members and is distributed over email every Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET. More from the series \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n

This week\u2019s Future of TV Briefing looks at advertisers\u2019 spending on YouTube Shorts inventory as the platform raises the revenue-sharing threshold for creators.<\/p>\n

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YouTube raising the bar<\/a> for Shorts creators to join its revenue-sharing program raises the question: Is YouTube making it harder for Shorts creators to get a cut of ad dollars because there are fewer ad dollars earmarked for Shorts?<\/p>\n

The answer is no. Actually, advertisers are increasing the amount of money going toward YouTube Shorts inventory, according to agency executives. However, that spending is being handicapped by how much money advertisers are spending on other social video platforms, namely Meta\u2019s Reels and TikTok. But it\u2019s also being handicapped by how the money is being spent on YouTube overall \u2014 and Shorts specifically.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely grown considerably,\u201d said Leah Askew, svp and head of precision media for North America at Digitas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually starting to grow,\u201d said Brian Binder, senior director of TV, audio and display at Tinuiti.<\/p>\n

\u201cShorts has been an expanding format within YouTube investment and video investment overall,\u201d said Skyler McGill, head of programmatic and video at Wpromote.<\/p>\n

A YouTube spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment by press time.<\/p>\n

While advertisers\u2019 YouTube Shorts spending is growing, they are still spending more money on other short-form video platforms. And that\u2019s despite the fact that YouTube Shorts inventory is typically cheaper than Reels or TikTok, with Shorts CPMs ranging around $4 to $6 versus Reels and TikTok CPMs at $7 to $8, per agency executives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Meta and TikTok are 60% of a buy, there\u2019s no way that YouTube Shorts is going to come close. They\u2019re going to be at like 10%. They can\u2019t scale yet to that exact same degree,\u201d said one agency executive.<\/p>\n

A major impediment is that typically advertisers aren\u2019t buying YouTube Shorts specifically. They\u2019re buying a bundle of YouTube inventory, including in-stream inventory against traditional YouTube videos. And YouTube seems to have so much of the latter inventory that it often eats up the budget of these bundled buys.<\/p>\n

Shorts is \u201cusually more of a minority, just based off sheer volume that\u2019s happening across in-feed and in-stream,\u201d said McGill.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the delivery still gets pushed to the in-stream ads over YouTube Shorts whenever you do group things together. So the algorithm definitely favors more of that in-stream inventory just because there\u2019s just so much of it. But [Shorts inventory is] definitely not something that anybody\u2019s shying away from,\u201d Binder said.<\/p>\n

In fact, advertisers and agencies are trying to figure out how to tailor their ad buys to YouTube Shorts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s usually more beneficial to break it out as its own line item to help actually drive more scale, more targeted performance from optimization lens versus just having it sit within a bundled Demand Gen line,\u201d said McGill.<\/p>\n

YouTube\/Google representatives have pitched Shorts to advertisers and agencies as social video. That makes sense given its closest comparisons are to Meta\u2019s Reels and TikTok. But that requires a shift in creative strategy for Shorts ads, such as by running ads featuring user-generated content and\/or creators instead of cutdowns of traditional TV spots.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really should not be taking the long-form video and applying that there. You really shouldn\u2019t even be thinking vertical video goes there. You really need to be bringing social strategy and social assets to it,\u201d Askew said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing more conversation happen around is this lift-and-shift strategy. Being able to take what you\u2019re currently doing over on the traditional social side of the house and just move that into YouTube Shorts,\u201d Binder said.<\/p>\n

But complicating matters, it\u2019s not always a brand\u2019s or agency\u2019s social team that is responsible for buying YouTube, according to agency executives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe called an \u2018all hands on deck\u2019 conversation to sort that out within our brand and also across the organization and have agreed that where we buy it needs to take place within programmatic because of the platform and the skills that we already have built there with programmatic, but it\u2019s on us as an investment org to really collaborate strategically with social. So the lanes become blurred,\u201d Askew said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I feel like brand and agencies are trying to grapple with is where does YouTube live from a management standpoint versus where social lives. A social team will manage Meta and TikTok, but sometimes YouTube\u2019s managed by a search team or a programmatic team. So it\u2019s starting to think about where does this actually live and what is the baseline that we\u2019re going to start comparing to,\u201d Binder said.<\/p>\n

Which gets at the final limiter at the moment to Shorts ad spending growth. For as much as advertisers are spending more money on Shorts, they\u2019ve been spending even more money on Meta\u2019s Reels and TikTok.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYouTube Shorts as a standalone is much more nascent and early days and a smaller amount versus what we see from just traditional social,\u201d said Binder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bulk of the investment is still being driven by TikTok and Reels. That\u2019s just due to overall maturity and understanding that the investment and strategies happening in those platforms, especially in social environments, are still leading,\u201d said McGill.<\/p>\n

Therefore, as they start to treat Shorts more like Reels and TikTok, they need to see Shorts not only on par with the competition but outperform those other platforms to the extent that advertisers can be convinced to move money away from Reels and TikTok in favor of Shorts.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerformance is comparable to TikTok and Reels. But given those platforms operate at higher spend levels, we\u2019d expect Shorts to deliver stronger efficiency since it\u2019s at a lower investment,\u201d said one agency executive. \u201cI don\u2019t have the argument to scale it fully yet because it needs to come in as ultra-efficient. It needs to be the best performer for us to route dollars that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

What we\u2019ve heard<\/h2>\n
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\u201cWhat\u2019s the commission rate? Are there tiers now, or will there be? Does any of this happen on the clock, or is it all on the employee\u2019s own time?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 GRIN\u2019s Ben Zawacki on brands\u2019 employee-creator programs<\/a><\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Numbers to know<\/h2>\n

450,000:<\/strong><\/a> Number of \u201cclippers\u201d in YouTube creator Eric \u201cAirrack\u201d Decker\u2019s clipping network ClipFarm.<\/p>\n

$500 million:<\/strong><\/a> Valuation of Alex Cooper\u2019s Unwell after its latest funding round.<\/p>\n

$12.99:<\/a> <\/strong>New monthly subscription price for Peacock\u2019s Premium ad-supported tier.<\/p>\n

What we\u2019ve covered<\/h2>\n

TV measurement\u2019s competitive reset gathers pace (with more job cuts):<\/strong><\/p>\n