YouTube to give 45% of ad revenue to 'Shorts' creators
Creators of YouTube Shorts will soon be able to monetize their short-form videos thanks to an announcement from the Google-owned platform that it will add advertising to Shorts and offer creators 45% of the ad revenue. According to Gadgets360, YouTube’s move comes amid escalating TikTok competition.
The 45% to 55% ad revenue split on YouTube is consistent with how it usually distributes its money, excluding its short-form videos. In April 2022, YouTube established a $100 million fund in an effort to entice producers to produce short-form videos. In contrast, TikTok uses a $1 billion fund to pay creators.
The most popular video platform on the internet has had difficulty competing with TikTok, an app that began by offering dance and lip-sync videos before ballooning to 1 billion monthly users. In response, YouTube released Shorts in late 2020, minute-long videos that get more than 1.5 billion monthly users.
In the first half of this year, Google made $14.2 billion from YouTube ad sales, an increase of 9% from the corresponding time in 2021. However, since the data’s disclosure started three years ago, the most recent quarterly ad sales showed the slowest growth. Financial analysts have stated that TikTok is a factor in addition to global economic considerations.
YouTuber Kris Collins, also known online as Kallmekris, applauded the streaming service for the action it has taken on ad revenue.
“Other platforms are focused on getting people their 15 seconds of fame, which is great, but YouTube is taking a different approach. They’re helping creators make stuff in multiple formats.”
May 2022 saw the start of the Google-owned streaming service’s rollout of adverts to its short-form videos, enabling advertisers’ material to seamlessly scale to the short format. Google Advertisements vice president Jerry Dischler stated that the company has been testing ads in YouTube Shorts since last year and is now progressively introducing them to all advertisers worldwide.
Additionally, Google disclosed that it will add a product feed option to its US YouTube Shorts platform later this year.
Advertisers will be able to display a scrollable list of products as part of their video ad campaigns, enabling visitors to make purchases right within YouTube Shorts.