YouTube’s New ‘Dynamic Lineups’ Ad Tool Lets Marketers Buy Against Granular Topics, Cultural Moments, More

YouTube has released today a new tool for marketers, as it notes the coronavirus pandemic continues to accelerate a shift in ad dollars from linear TV to digital video.

“On average, advertisers saw that shifting just 20% of spend from TV to YouTube generated a 25% increase to the total campaign reach within their target audience,” YouTube said in a blog post, citing a study it commissioned by Nielsen.

The new ad tool is dubbed ‘Dynamic Lineups’, and it aims to bolster contextual targeting capabilities for advertisers. The service harnesses Google’s machine learning technology to analyze channels and videos (including imagery, sound, speech, and text), and then categorizes videos into so-called dynamic lineups. Dynamic lineups are packages of channels organized by granular topics, cultural moments, or popularity that marketers can buy against. For instance, while advertisers can already buy a home or lifestyle channel lineup, now they can delve deeper into even more nuanced categories like ‘home and garden’ and ‘home improvement’, YouTube says.

“This means better access to customers with unique interests and needs — all with the brand suitability controls that are most important for your business,” the company said.

A total of 300 pre-packaged lineups will be available for purchase at launch, with additional packages slated to arrive in 2021. Examples — which boast varying degrees of granularity, YouTube says — include: ‘Fashion’, ‘American Football’, ‘Interior Design’, ‘Luxury Travel’, ‘Budget Travel’, ‘Gen Z Influencer Spotlight’ (featuring creators like Molly Burke

and Antonio Garza), ‘Beauty’ (Tiarra Monet and Naptural85), ‘Health & Fitness’ (The Fitness Marshall), and ‘Teen Video Games’ (Valkyrae).

Dynamic lineups will roll out beginning today to all advertisers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, the U.K., and U.S. By month’s end, the tool will roll out to additional markets, YouTube said.

In addition to dynamic lineups, YouTube is also expanding two existing tools internationally to help advertisers as they navigate balancing their spending between linear television and YouTube. First, the company says it will expand its relationship with Nielsen to help furnish Total Ad Ratings — a reporting tool released by Nielsen in 2019 to measure ad performance across smartphones, tablets, computers, and television — beyond the U.S. to the U.K. and Italy.

And within its Reach Planner — a proprietary YouTube tool that enables advertisers to customize their campaign strategies across YouTube and linear TV — YouTube will also start providing linear TV data in three additional countries: France, Spain, and Vietnam. Already available in the U.S. and Japan, YouTube provides historical TV measurement data from local third-party providers within Reach Planner, and then uses Google algorithms to help advertisers predict the impact of campaigns comprising both YouTube and linear TV components.