YouTube Brain

Connected TV and Shorts Ads

3 min read

Connected TV and Shorts Ads

Connected TV (CTV) is YouTube’s fastest-growing ad surface and the center of its 2025 to 2026 advertising story, while Shorts ads expand the short-form inventory. The living-room screen, long a pure awareness surface, is becoming a direct-response one, which changes what advertisers can do there. Because this area moves fast, re-verify launch details before advising; see Source Intake and Refresh. The format and campaign mechanics are in Ad Formats and Ad Campaign Types.

CTV as the new center

At Brandcast 2025 on 2025-05-14, coinciding with YouTube’s 20th anniversary, YouTube announced an immersive edge-to-edge Masthead on CTV for the homepage and Shoppable CTV that lets viewers browse and engage with products from the big screen. YouTube is positioned as the central living-room surface, and has been the number one streaming platform in the US for three straight years per industry reporting.

Shoppable CTV

Shoppable CTV ads rolled out broadly on 2026-01-23 after roughly seven months of testing. They pull product images (500 by 500 pixels or larger) and data from Google Merchant Center feeds, display as clickable carousels with QR codes, and run through Performance Max, Demand Gen, and Display & Video 360 on the smart-TV app. Reported results: QR codes lifted conversions more than 100 percent, and TV grew from under 0.5 percent to about 1.5 percent of Demand Gen impressions. This makes the QR code the bridge from the big screen to a phone purchase; measure it via Ad Measurement.

Non-skippable reach for CTV

Google launched non-skippable Video Reach Campaigns for CTV globally on 2026-03-03, supporting 6-second, 15-second, and 30-second CTV-only non-skippable ads, with AI optimizing the mix across lengths. This is the reach buy tuned for the television context; see Ad Bidding and Budget.

Shorts ads

Shorts ads keep expanding as a multi-format reach and views surface, delivered across Demand Gen, video views campaigns, and reach campaigns. A Shorts ad view counts at 10 seconds, the full ad, a call-to-action click, or an engagement. Shorts ads sit beside the organic Shorts feed, so creative that respects the vertical, sound-on, fast-hook format performs best.

How to apply

  • Treat CTV as a reach-plus-shoppable surface now, not just awareness; use the 30-second non-skippable CTV format and shoppable carousels where relevant.
  • Connect a Merchant Center feed to unlock shoppable CTV.
  • Design Shorts ads vertical and hook-first, like organic Shorts.
  • Re-check rollout availability by market; these features ship region by region.

Sources

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