Google Preferred could expand beyond YouTube video to display and mobile apps, says YouTube’s Derek Scobie
Google "hopes" to expand ad platform Preferred for YouTube to other areas of its tech stack including display and mobile apps, according to head of YouTube brand propositions Derek Scobie.
Speaking to The Drum following the launch of Preferred, a proposition which lets advertisers reserve inventory around the top five per cent of YouTube’s most popular content, Scobie said in the coming years the tech giant hopes to expand this opportunity to other areas in the Google network.
“We call it Google Preferred, rather than just YouTube, because Google obviously covers a number of other platforms," he said. "So today Google Preferred is a video product focused on YouTube but in the coming years we hope to be able to bring a similar level of preference or preferred understanding of that broader set of Google platforms, and make it easier for advertisers to go after the most popular engaging content regardless of its format and which platform it is on,” he said.
YouTube has launched Preferred, which uses an algorithm to determine the most popular content and channels, partly with the view to helping marketers get more commercial return from their YouTube investments.
Scobie said the video platform “prides itself” on having provided a multichannel environment through which marketers can reach a mass, global audience, for very little cost. However, he admitted the volume of content now available on the platform, which is still being added to hourly, throws up certain challenges for marketers - which Preferred will help tackle.
“The price we pay for that [being an open distribution platform] is that there is a vast amount of content of all different types, and sometimes from advertiser and agency points of view it can be hard to make choices between those types of content, and which is exactly right for their needs," he said.
“...One of the challenges for brands today is to find the people that matter most to them, and in the past we [the industry) have often categorised that as mass reach. But what we have tried to do is to help brands get closer to people on YouTube. Our aim is to make every marketing dollar more impactful and deliver more on the bottom line for them.”
YouTube is already in discussions with agencies and advertisers in the UK regarding tie-ups, although any partners are yet to be revealed.
However, Scobie urged advertisers and agencies not to delay if they are interested in Preferred, predicting that given the finite availability of the inventory, it is likely to sell out fast. It rolled out in the US a few months before its UK debut and has reportedly already sold out of inventory there.
“We want to give as many advertisers and their agencies as possible the chance to take advantage of Preferred. However, we are making it an opportunity for them to guarantee placement against content, but we expect there to be a limited supply of this kind of content and inventory for advertisers. So we are encouraging them to have conversations with us now, because this content isn’t necessarily going to be around forever,” he added.
To identify the top five per cent of channels, Google has created the Preference Score - an algorithm which ranks channels by popularity and engagement using signals like watch time, comments, shares, social embeds.