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YouTube ad revenue set to power ahead in 2023 after 2022 slowdown

By our News Team | 2023

Growth is expected to resume in 2023 at more than double the rate of last year, with the retail sector being the biggest spender.

Despite well-documented woes in certain online-advertising sectors, video platform YouTube’s ad revenue is powering ahead and income is expected to rise 4.0% in 2023 to reach US$30.4-billion.

This is according to the latest Media Platform Insights from insights and data analytics company Warc, which says this marks a turnaround from Q4 2022, when ad revenue declined 8.8% year-on-year, as marketers shifted investment to retail media and search.

Photo by Szabó Viktor from Pexels

But growth is expected to resume in 2023 at more than double the rate of growth recorded in 2022. Warc Media further forecasts that YouTube’s revenue growth will accelerate 10.3% in 2024, to reach $33.5-billion by the end of that year.

“YouTube continues to command a strong position in the online video advertising market and is actively looking for ways to forge deeper connections with viewers, creators and brands through multi-format video strategies,” the report states.

Innovating with unskippable 30-second ads

“YouTube is prioritising Shorts and CTV (TV connected to the internet, most commonly used to stream video) engagement, and is innovating with unskippable 30-second ads and ‘pause experiences’ on TV to help marketers engage audiences across screens and achieve both performance and brand-building goals.”

Retail remains YouTube’s most important category for ad investment (up 4.6% on 2022), but growth from other sectors has been harder to achieve. While some categories will see double digit spending increases in 2023 – including technology and electronics (+13.9%) and toiletries and cosmetics (+12.1%) – figures elsewhere are more modest.

YouTube is the world’s most popular online platform, with an adult advertising reach estimated at 2.07-billion people, almost twice as much as TikTok and Instagram respectively.

“YouTube Shorts (60 seconds or less) will provide more opportunities for marketers to reach new audiences, but its 50-billion daily viewer total is some way behind the 140-billion daily views achieved by Instagram Reels,” Warc comments.

The under-18 audience, however, spends on average 60% longer on TikTok than on YouTube.

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