Agencies divide YouTube Shorts ad buying across social, search and video teams
Leah Askew, svp and head of precision media for North America at Digitas, said the agency held an "all hands on deck" conversation to settle who buys YouTube Shorts ads, landing on its programmatic team because of the platform and the buying skills already built there. Skyler McGill, head of programmatic and video at Wpromote, said Shorts investment at his agency spans paid search, programmatic, integrated buying and video teams. Brian Binder, senior director of TV, audio and display at Tinuiti, said social teams that buy Meta and TikTok typically don't buy against Shorts or other YouTube inventory, since YouTube spending often sits with search or programmatic desks instead.
Buying Shorts well now depends on which desk inside an agency controls the relationship as much as which platform hosts the ad. Digitas pairs its programmatic buyers with social strategists for Shorts creative, an approach Binder called "lift-and-shift" as other shops apply social-style content and pacing to a YouTube buy. Agencies are now working out how far a social-first strategy for Shorts should extend into the rest of their YouTube spending, and how that connects to search, streaming and podcast budgets placed with the same platform.