Looking to improve your YouTube campaigns in 2024?

This might help. Today, YouTube has shared its top ads of 2023, along with some tips to help brands tap into key engagement trends reflected within these promotions.

While some of the tips relate to celebrity partnerships and highly produced content, there are some notes that can be applied to all campaigns and budgets.

First off, on the top ads. YouTube has tagged promotions from Apple, Pepsi and Louis Vuitton as the best performers of the year.

Apple’s “Study with Me” video, featuring actor Storm Reid, runs for 90 minutes and has generated over 18 million views.

In the video, Reid uses the Pomodoro method to maximize her study time and utilizes several Apple devices in the process. The content is both helpful and celebrity-led, which seem to be the key notes, but it also aligns with key trends around “Study With Me” content.

Louis Vuitton meanwhile shared an entire 20-minute fashion show as a promotion, which also included various celebrities.

I’m not sure there’s a heap for regular brands to take from this, as you likely can’t stage your own product-based narrative performance, but the longer clip does point to more opportunity for long-form content, within certain parameters.

Finally, Pepsi promoted several versions of a music video for its “Rise Up Baby” campaign.

That promotion was hugely successful in India, while Pepsi has also run similar music-based promotions in other regions.

Based on these top performing clips, YouTube has also provided a list of notes to help you improve your YouTube ads approach.

• Creator collaborations – A common theme with the top performing ads is partnering with well-known creators. Again, that’s not always as accessible for regular brands, who can’t afford to add Hollywood stars to their clips. But maybe, through collaboration with the right influencers for your niche, that could be an effective consideration.
• Use Shorts – Unsurprisingly, YouTube also advises brands to expand their promotions into Shorts. “When YouTube advertisers added a vertical creative asset to their Video Action Campaigns, they delivered 10% to 20% more conversions per dollar on Shorts than campaigns that used landscape assets alone.” Shorts has been the fastest-growing content format in the app over the past two years, and as the stats show, it could well be worth expanding your ads into Shorts as well.
• Long-form storytelling – As with the above examples, some brands are testing out trend-aligned long-form content, which could be another consideration for your promotions. Creating longer content may require more resources, but if you can tap into the right trend, the engagement could be significant.
• AI tools – Finally, YouTube suggests that advertisers consider utilizing AI tools to maximize their campaign targeting and performance. “AI-powered Video Reach Campaign mixes on YouTube earned an average return on ad spend 3.7X higher than manually optimized campaigns.” 

These are some interesting suggestions, though how workable they might be within your ad budget is debatable. Either way, some additional considerations for your video ad campaigns in 2024.   

You can check out YouTube’s full listing of top ads and tips here.