YouTube Ads KPIs That Actually Matter (Not Conversions)

Youtube Ads is scary place for many marketers and advertisers beholden to attributed revenue and conversion targets. The lack of last click attribution with video advertising often means the value is understated.

However, the power of Youtube comes not from its directly attributed credit in the path to conversion, but rather the potential for incrementality. Let’s run through a scenario.

You are a successful brand selling custom made desk that range from low thousands to upwards of ten thousand dollars. You run successful Search Ad campaigns reaching potential customers searching for keywords like ‘custom made desk’.

However, you’ve seen CPCs rise each year, and soon ads won’t be profitable at your current customer acquisition cost. You could take that budget and put it into a platform like Meta – a great option for building a brand presence. But you have run Meta Ads in the past and they haven’t performed great either.

You’ve identified your audience to be primarily Men aged 30-45, a core demographic for Youtube, and want to try your hand at the platform to see how it performs. How do you measure for success? Let’s dive into Youtube Ad KPIs that will help you understand how ads are performing, where to optimize, and when to scale up.

Youtube Ads KPIs – Building a Measurement Framework

Similar to the Meta Ads Measurement Framework we’ve discussed before, Youtube’s primary metrics will be broken down into two categories:

• Attention
• Engagement

While the overarching goal of Youtube is building awareness and consideration for your brand, a variety of metrics can point to the success of specific audiences, ads, and ultimately the campaign.

Attention Metrics: Capturing Audience Awareness

Attention is more than just impressions – it’s the product of visibility and impact in delivering a message that resonates. To do this requires consideration of several metrics.

Viewable CPM

Key Takeaway: Impressions are not views. Viewable impressions are a better metric for measuring ad effectiveness.

What it Measures

One of the most common metrics marketers use to measure the impact of video advertising is impressions. However, this can be a misleading metric because Google’s definition of an impression doesn’t require it to be fully in view.

Impression Definition: Ad was delivered by the ad server and appeared on page whether viewable or not.

This means you could be charged for an ad that isn’t actually viewed by the user. Instead of looking at impressions, viewable impressions and cost per viewable impression offer a more accurate view of ad delivery.

Viewable Impression Definition: At least 50% of the display ad is in view for at least 1 second or 2 seconds for a video ad.

Why it Matters

The difference between CPM and viewable CPM is most acutely felt in Demand Gen campaigns running on Youtube. For example, a campaign I ran just recently using Demand Gen, but only targeting in-stream Youtube placements drove the following:

• Average CPM: $18
• Viewable CPM: $23

Not a drastic difference, but enough to call into question the types of placements these ads are shown on. When compared to a Youtube campaign (running a Target CPM bid model), we can see how much closer these two metrics are:

• Average CPM: $10.38
• Viewable CPM: $10.89

Not only does this indicate that the Youtube Awareness campaign is running on higher quality placements (that are viewable almost all the time), it shows that Demand Gen is running on more than just in-stream formats despite being set to only run on in-stream placements.

Keep this in mind when opting to run a Demand Gen conversion campaign in the future. Once you’ve worked out what format to run, understanding how to reach your audience enough times to drive impact is crucial.

Frequency: The Secret to Brand Lift

Key Takeaway: Repetition is important in developing memories, seeing an ad multiple times helps with recall.

Probably the most important metric when running Youtube Ads, frequency is the number of times on average each user sees an ad. Factors that impact frequency include spend, audience size, campaign objective, and the efficiency of impression delivery (cost per impression).

While most campaigns will hit anywhere between a 1-3 average frequency, studies show that higher frequency contributes to greater lift in brand metrics like consideration and purchase intent. However, the key is variety in message and time. No one likes getting the same ad 10 times in a row!

YouTube ad sequencing campaigns are an effective way to deliver high frequency while varying messaging.

Why Higher Frequency Matters

We conducted a case study that measured the impact of frequency on brand lift, and determined that lift was up to 2x greater when frequency exceeded 5 impressions on average per month. Finding the right frequency is a matter of testing and careful but ambitious experiments.

Understanding how much of your message is being consumed is also crucial. Not only does this help determine the imapct your ads are having, but also informs ways to optimize video content. Fortunately, there is a built-in metric that measures this.

Average Watch Time: Message Delivery Reality Check

Key Takeaway: Watch time is a measure of message delivery. Get the message across in less time than people watch on average for the most impact.

Diagnosing ad performance is a necessity in video advertising given attention is not guaranteed. Unlike a static ad which can only be measured through impressions (awareness) and click-through rate (engagement), video ads offer a host of metrics that diagnose effectiveness.

Why Watch Time Matters

One of the most important metrics is watch time per impression. It shows how much of a video users are watching on average, effectively how much of the message is consumed. This is particularly important to ensure your brand and offer are actually being communicated.

Take for example a 30 second video ad that doesn’t mention the offer until the last 10 seconds of the video. If most users are only watching 15 seconds on average (which is pretty normal for 30s ads), then most of them are missing the actual offer or call-to-action.

How To Optimize Watch Time

In this case, front-loading the offer or call-to-action, then repeating it at the end would ensure most viewers are at least hearing the message. Depending on the goal of the campaign, different elements will make sense to include at the beginning of the video versus the end. However, one thing remains true across all, you want the audience to know who you are and what you do no matter how much of the video they are watching.

Ads will be favored differently in the platform depending on a host of indicators like view rate, click-through rate, time on site, cost per impression (CPM), and many more. How Google Ads determines which ads show most frequently is often more complex than advertisers understand. Fortunately, a metric can help determine what priority the platform has placed on each video ad.

% Served: Which Ads YouTube Actually Likes

Key Takeaway: Know which ads are top performs and why YouTube is prioritizing them. Don’t pause ads just because performance is “worse” if they are being served.

% Served is a measure of impression delivery within an ad group or campaign. Where impression delivery is dictated the efficiency or effectiveness of an ad creative, % served gives a comparison between ads in a campaign or ad group.

% Served Benchmarks:

• Highest Performing Ad: 80-90%
• Multiple High Performing Ad: 20-30% each
• Low Performing Ad: Less than 5%

What Each Pattern Means

This means that within a campaign or ad group, % served will always add up to 100% to signify the total impression volume in that grouping. Campaigns with many ads may see % served of 10-20% for each ad or sometimes even less.

However, regardless of the number of ads in a campaign or ad group, often times Youtube will prioritize 2-3 ads, and the % served will be in the range of 20-30% for these 3. This is actually good sign as it means Youtube has identified several ads that act as a sort of mini-funnel – delivering a new ad with each new ad view.

In rare cases, Youtube will deliver all impressions under one ad and % served will be 80-90%. This means that the video is either much more compelling than any other creative in the campaign, or that other creatives are not performing well. Either way, it’s worth identifying what’s working well in the dominant video, or what is not working well in the ads not receiving impressions.

One additional metric identifies the quality of an ad. Similar to avg time watched, % viewed helps identify how much of an ad users are watching.

% Viewed: Diagnosing Creative Drop-Off

Key Takeaway: Understand how each section of your video is performing, and where dropoff occurs.

The 4 Quadrants

% Viewed is broken into 4 quadrants – 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. Each quadrant reveals different insights into how a video ad performs. Let’s break down a 30 second video ad:

• 25% Viewed = 7.5 seconds of watch time
• 50% Viewed = 15 seconds of watch time
• 75% Viewed = 22.5 seconds of watch time
• 100% Viewed = 30 seconds of watch time

What Each Tells You

25% viewed is a good indicator of whether the hook is working. Low 25% viewed (below 75%) indicates that the audience is not engaged. Keep in mind, all Youtube Ads run for at least 5 seconds before skipping is allowed, so users skipping before 25% of the video are skipping almost immediately.

50% and 75% viewed offer better insight into drop off rates. For example, users that are dropping off halfway through are less likely to hear your call to action. Figuring out how to keep users engaged until the end of the video improves their chances of truly digesting the information.

100% views or completed views as they are referred to in other media channels are a way to determine video ad effectiveness. For longer videos this number may be small (less than 20%) but for 15 second videos the benchmark to shoot for is 50%. This metric is the best way to determine how effective your video ads are at keeping users engaged.

% Viewed Benchmarks (30 second skippable ads):

• Strong Hook: 25% viewed above or 90%
• Engaging Video: 100% viewed 50% or above

To better measure between campaigns, marketers often user a calculated metric called ‘cost per completed view’. However, Google uses its own metric called cost per view which measures the amount of ad spend required to drive a 30 second view of a video ad.

Cost per View: Efficiency Across Campaigns

Key Takeaway: Compare the efficiency of your campaigns and their ability to capture attention.

This metric operates to measure cost efficiency of campaigns against each other. As the goal of Youtube regardless of the optimization method is to capture user attention, cost per view puts this into monetary terms.

How to Measure Cost per View

Cost per view can fluctuate depending on the length of the video – shorter videos have lower cost per views because a view is any completed view or 30 seconds for videos longer than 30 seconds – so it needs to be analyzed with care.

Cost per View Benchmarks:

• Target CPM/CPV: $0.02 Avg CPV or lower
• Maximize Conversion: $0.10 Avg CPV or lower

For campaigns that are looking to drive reach & frequency (those optimized on a target CPM or target CPV), a good goal is $0.02 CPV. For conversion optimized campaigns through Demand Gen, the avg CPV is often higher. Anything below $0.10 is acceptable.

Why Cost per View Matters

Cost per view can also be used to measure across channels, as any video advertising platform will have a cost per completed view metric. This gives perspective into which channel is driving awareness at the most effective cost, and how budget can be optimized.

These metrics all serve to deduce how much attention your audience is paying to your ads. While it’s a far cry from directly attributed revenue (see Setting Marketing Goals for more), this framework can determine what ads are most engaging, what messages YouTube is prioritizing, and how much of your message is being consumed.

Next, we’ll look at how to capture engagement on the platform.

Engagement Metrics: Measuring Audience Action

Engagement metrics are often not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Youtube ads. Most people don’t click on Youtube Ads, at least intentionally, and some Youtube Ads inventory (TV Screens) does not even generate clicks.

Regardless, engagement metrics give us insight into how well we’re aligning with audience intent.

Click-Through Rate: Beware of Accidental Clicks

Key Takeaway: Measure action potential but be wary of unintentional clicks. Always breakdown performance by device.

Similar to Meta Ads, click-through rate denotes the rate of engagement with your ad. How many people are compelled enough by what they see to click.

Click-through Rate Benchmarks:

• Target CPM/CPV: 0.25% or higher
• Maximize Conversions: 0.50% or higher

A conversion campaign should be aiming for at least a 0.50% click-through rate. Any lower and the creative is not aligned with the audience. As awareness campaigns are more focused on delivery and watch time, click-through rate will naturally be lower. An awareness generating a 0.25% CTR or higher is engaging exceptionally well.

Exercise caution when looking at click-through rate as Youtube is prone to accidental clicks, especially on mobile devices. Segmenting campaign performance by device shows this quite clearly.

Device Performance Reality

In the last 14 days of two campaigns I’ve run, these are the following click-through rates by device:

As you can see, Mobile devices always bring up the average. We can see this in cost per click as well.

Cost per Click: Cross-Channel Comparison

Key Takeaway: Compare cost efficiency against other tactics, but keep in mind Youtube is meant to drive awareness, not action.

What is Cost per Click

We’ve discussed cost per click several times before. It’s a measure of engagement efficiency that offers comparison across tactics (think search vs display vs video).

As Youtube is often run as a supplemental tactic to lower funnel tactics like Search or Meta Ads, it’s important that it drives efficiency in either reach or engagement. To this end, cost per click from Youtube Ads should typically come in lower than Google Search, especially for conversion campaigns.

Cost per Click Benchmarks (industry agnostic):

• Target CPM/CPV: $5-10 or less
• Maximize Conversions: $2 or less

A good benchmark to consider is $2 for conversion campaigns. Awareness campaigns will have much higher CPCs as they’re not optimizing for engagement. A CPC of anywhere from $5-10 is considered average for awareness campaigns.

Keep in mind, device mix matters in CPC benchmarking. Campaigns that include TV screens will have much higher CPCs than those that do not. Awareness campaigns will often prioritize TV screens as a placement because of the added reach they are able to generate.

Cost per click can be used to correlate to conversion potential, but micro-conversion rates are even more effective at measuring potential for downstream conversion potential.

Micro-Conversions: The Attribution Workaround

Key Takeaway: Find the quality of audience segments targeted to determine where to find most high-intent users.

Definition & Examples

Micro-conversions are any action on your site that are not the final step you want users to complete (purchase or lead). These could include engagement with a tool, starting a checkout process, signing up for a newsletter, etc.

Ideally, they are actions that are completed more frequently than your ultimate goal. The more common, the better they will be at identifying high intent users. Just make sure they are actions that lead to the final goal.

Micro-converisons can be measured as either a rate (% per clicks) or cost ($ per conversion). Both tell valuable information regarding your ad performance.

Why They Matter For YouTube

Both will offer good cross-campaign performance comparisons. For example, you might find like I did that the cost per micro-conversion was 33% lower from Youtube vs Non-Brand Search, but Youtube had zero purchases while Non-Brand Search was capturing purchases every day.

The unfortunate truth with Youtube is that it is terrible at attribution. Micro-conversions solve for this at least in part by identifying quality traffic based on upper to mid-funnel actions users take on your site.

Thoughts for Consideration

Take all engagement metrics with a grain of salt. Especially with a platform like Youtube that is susceptible to accidental clicks, bots, and low quality traffic.

If you’re running a test, isolate a small market and measure it against a control market. Once you verify the impact on key KPIs or even revenue, you can start to scale.

Key Considerations for YouTube Measurement

YouTube Ads require a different measurement mindset than direct-response channels. While the platform struggles with attribution, the KPIs outlined above provide a comprehensive framework for evaluating performance and optimization opportunities.

The key is balancing attention and engagement metrics to understand both reach effectiveness and audience quality. Frequency drives brand lift, watch time indicates message consumption, and micro-conversions reveal traffic quality despite attribution limitations.

Remember, YouTube’s value often lies in its incrementality rather than last-click conversions. Test in isolated markets, measure against control groups, and focus on the metrics that matter most for your campaign objectives. When done right, YouTube can be a powerful complement to your lower-funnel tactics, driving awareness that pays dividends across your entire marketing funnel.