YouTube ads: how to set up a campaign in Google Ads

Video ads on YouTube reach a lot of people. It is one of the more effective ad types. There are many video formats. Two of them give the best value:

• Skippable In-Stream. The ad appears before the video the person wants to watch, in the middle, or at the end. The first 5 seconds are required viewing, but the advertiser does not pay for those seconds. After that the person either hits Skip or watches to the end.
• In-Feed video ads. They show as a banner. If the person clicks, the ad video starts.

How to set up YouTube ads

Here is how to launch YouTube ads from the Google Ads account:

1. Create a new campaign in the Google Ads interface.
2. For “Campaign goal” choose “Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance”. That unlocks the widest set of settings.
3. Choose the campaign route that matches the business goal. The two current routes below cover lead generation and subscriber growth without treating legacy names as separate options.

Two current YouTube advertising routes I recommend

• Demand Gen for leads or sales, using video creative where it fits the placement. This is the current route for conversion-focused campaigns that used to run as Video action or “Drive conversions”.
• Demand Gen with the YouTube engagements goal, using an In-feed video ad. This route optimizes for channel subscriptions and follow-on views across eligible YouTube feed placements.

Demand Gen goal “YouTube engagements”

This is how you attract targeted, active subscriptions to the channel. The order of work, how to run the ads:

In Google’s official guide to creating a video campaign, the campaign goal decides which subtypes and formats you can use. So you pick the format after the business goal, and you verify the conversion before you raise the budget.

1. Make sure Google Ads can see your YouTube subscriptions. The YouTube and Google Ads accounts must be linked. In Google Ads, open Tools → Data manager → Connected products → YouTube, then connect the channel and complete the confirmation steps.
2. Choose the countries where YouTube users will see the ads.
3. The languages those people speak and that their browsers are set to.
4. For the bidding strategy I recommend leaving “Maximize conversions”. Later you can switch it to “Target CPA”. With the YouTube engagements goal, subscriptions and follow-on views can be selected as conversion actions.
5. The daily ad budget is different for everyone. What it costs to run YouTube ads depends on the country, how popular the channel is, and the niche. In different niches 1 subscriber can cost you 20 cents, $2, and in some cases even $20. I recommend starting with a budget of $5 to $10 per day.

How extra settings save your budget

A practical way to cut ad spend without hurting the result:

• In “Devices” turn off “TVs”. That saves a lot of money on TV impressions, because people almost never subscribe from a TV.
• I recommend starting with a conservative frequency cap, such as 1 impression per month, and relaxing it only if reach is too low. An impression means the ad was served; it does not mean the person skipped it. Since October 2025, the qualified view metric in the interface is called a TrueView view. Its criteria vary by format and may include a viewing threshold or an interaction, so it is not simply every full or 30-second watch.

How to choose an audience for the video ad

You need a clear circle of people who will be offered the ad:

1. Give the audience a name (any name that is clear to you).
2. Add custom segments. Google builds these audiences with its neural nets.
3. Add remarketing from the YouTube channel or the site: people who already touched you, for example watched other videos.
4. Add interests and detailed demographics. In “Browse” you can pick specific interests, life events, and in-market intents that are likely to match the audience.
5. Exclude people who already subscribe.
6. You can pick a specific gender, age, people with or without children, household income. 10% means the highest-income group in the country. Below 50% are the lowest-income group. These data are not directly tied to how many conversions you get, so use them carefully.
7. Turn “Optimized targeting” off. You can turn it on later if reach is too low.

Creating the video ad

Next, create the video ad in Google Ads:

1. On your YouTube channel pick the most popular video and paste it into the field. The video should be up to 2 minutes. At the start it helps to say a line that filters out people who do not care about the offer. For example, “If you are not interested in Google Ads, skip this video”. That cuts spend on wasted views.
2. In the final URL put the YouTube channel address.
3. Pick a “Call to action”, for example “Subscribe”.
4. Write a headline, a long headline, and a description. You can reuse copy from display ads.
5. You can add a companion banner. For desktop Google builds them automatically. You can make your own image in Canva or hire a designer. Size 300 x 60 px, 150 KB.
6. On the right you can check how the ad will look on a computer, a tablet, on mobile, and in the feed. If it looks right, click “Create campaign”.

If the account is linked, the format matches the goal, and the first ad is live, the promise of a working YouTube test is already done. The rest of the article is how not to burn the same budget across other placements.

How to run YouTube ads in the In-Stream format

For conversion-focused video ads, use Demand Gen. Google moved the legacy Video action and “Drive conversions” workflow into Demand Gen, so “Custom video campaign” is no longer a current alternative subtype.

Choose a leads or sales goal when the person should register, book, download something, or buy on the site. Demand Gen can then optimize video delivery toward those measured actions. Details when you build the campaign:

1. Choose the goal “Conversions”, for example a website registration, a subscription, a download. Click “Continue”.
2. Bidding: Maximize conversions. If you already know the conversion cost from a previous display campaign, multiply that number by 1.5, because video ads run a bit more expensive. That gives you the target cost per conversion.
3. The budget must be set per day, not for the whole campaign. Start with a small budget so you do not lose a lot of money at once. You can raise it later as the ads and the site get tighter.
4. I do not recommend adding sitelinks.
5. “Frequency cap” as a starting point: 2 per day, 4 per week, 8 per month for one user, so the ad does not wear people out. If the audience is small, you can raise the numbers a bit: 4, 8, and 16.
6. You can create an ad group, name it, and set the audience. When you pick the audience, turn on “Audience signals”. When the ad is ready, click “Save ad and publish campaign”.
7. Then, in the campaign you just created, duplicate the ad group (copy, paste). In each new group open “Audiences” and change the “Audience signal” to another one. Do this several times until you have a separate ad group for every audience signal.

How to place YouTube ads in the In-Feed format

For subscriber growth, use Demand Gen, select the YouTube engagements campaign goal, and create an In-feed video ad. Eligible in-feed placements include YouTube Home, Search, Watch Next, and the Subscriptions feed. The ad does not play inside another video as an in-stream ad. Details of the YouTube placement:

1. Bidding strategy: YouTube engagements can treat channel subscriptions and follow-on views as conversion actions. Start with Maximize conversions; once enough reliable data exists, you can test Target CPA.
2. Set a daily budget.
3. When you pick “Networks”, turn off Display Network partners. Leave only YouTube videos and search.
4. You can add 2 similar videos from your YouTube channel that already have the most views. They will show as recommended, and people can click through.
5. You can skip a frequency cap, especially at the start. The video ad shows as a banner and is not that pushy. People watch it only if they click. Set a view limit of about 1 time per week.
6. An ad group can hold many audience segments, not signals. Exclude people who do not fit the demographics, add all custom segments, and YouTube users. In “Search”, review the audiences Google recommends and exclude the ones that have nothing to do with your niche.
7. Do not turn on audience expansion.
8. Keywords, topics, and placements can be set, but they are usually far less effective than audience targeting. Content targeting helps when the budget is very tight and the audience is fuzzy, meaning almost anyone might care about the product. For example, if you add the keyword “Google Ads”, the ad will show to people who search that on YouTube, or next to videos whose title contains that phrase. You can also name specific YouTube channels or videos where you want the ad to run. For a comparison you can launch 1 ad group with audience targeting (effective in 99% of cases) and 1 with content targeting (1%).
9. For “Video ad format” choose “In-feed video ad”. Order the cover from a designer so it actually catches the eye.
10. When you set the cost-per-view bid, I recommend starting at 1 cent. After a day, if impressions are low, raise the bid by 1 cent, and keep doing that until you get enough impressions to spend the full daily budget.

YouTube ads launch checklist

1. Link the Google Ads account to the YouTube channel through Tools → Data manager → Connected products → YouTube. Otherwise some formats and subscription data stay unavailable.
2. Pick the route for the campaign goal: Demand Gen for lead generation, or Demand Gen with YouTube engagements and an In-feed video ad for subscriber growth.
3. Set audiences and signals: custom segments, remarketing from the channel and the site, interests and demographics, and always exclude people who already subscribe.
4. Set a small daily budget for the test. For subscriber growth, a starting point is $5 to $10 per day. Scale only after the first results.
5. Cap impressions: turn off TVs, set a frequency cap (for lead generation a starting point is 2 times per day and 4 times per week per user).
6. Turn on conversion tracking for the goal: channel subscriptions or follow-on views for YouTube engagements, and a web conversion such as a registration or purchase for lead generation.
7. Launch the campaign on a small budget, let stats build for 3 or 5 days, then expand audiences one ad group at a time.
8. Watch cost per conversion or per subscriber, reach, and frequency, then adjust bids and audiences on the facts.

Takeaways on YouTube ads

There are many details that decide whether YouTube ads actually work. The factors that move the final result:

• the quality of the video ad,
• the right campaign subtype,
• how relevant the landing page is, or how popular the YouTube channel is.

Follow the steps above and you can bring the cost of YouTube ads down. Working the audiences is what tightens the reach.

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