YouTube Ads is the advertising product for YouTube, sold by Google through Google Ads, Google's system for creating and managing ad campaigns. An advertiser creates a video campaign in a Google Ads account, and the ads run on YouTube and on video partner sites.
Formats include skippable and non-skippable in-stream ads (shown before, during or after a video), in-feed video ads on the YouTube home feed and in YouTube search, Shorts ads, bumper ads, masthead ads and audio ads. The campaign type follows the goal: Demand Gen campaigns aim to convert new customers, Video View campaigns build consideration, and Video Reach campaigns build awareness; Google AI chooses the creative and the combination of ad formats. Google Ads metrics report views, engagement and actions such as website conversions.
There is no fixed price. The advertiser decides how much to spend and sets an average daily budget; the monthly spending limit is that daily budget multiplied by the average number of days in a month.