Why YouTube TV Might Be the Best Ad Environment You're Overlooking

A few years ago, we signed up for YouTube TV, not because we were cutting the cord, but because we wanted to better understand the ad experience.

Clients were asking more about it, and we were also noticing our standard YouTube campaigns increasingly showing up on YouTube TV inventory.

What I found surprised me—in a good way.

YouTube TV, in many ways, is the best of both worlds: it combines the feel of connected TV with the structure of traditional cable. And in some ways, it improves on both.

What Makes the YouTube TV Experience Different

One of the common issues with OTT advertising is awkward ad placement. Ads can feel like they pop in at random. This is especially noticeable during long-form content or movies.

The ad breaks often don’t match natural scene transitions, which disrupts the viewing experience.

But YouTube TV handles ad breaks more like traditional cable. The ad units appear in natural break points, which helps maintain narrative flow. As a viewer, the experience feels familiar—and seamless.

From an advertiser’s perspective, that’s gold. You get the advanced targeting capabilities of streaming, paired with the natural pacing and polish of linear TV.

Targeting Meets Familiar Viewing

YouTube TV offers granular targeting options typically associated with digital platforms versus the demographic skews of traditional cable buys. While addressable cable and linear targeting solutions do exist, they often lack scale, especially at the local (DMA) level.

YouTube TV has helped fill that gap.

That said, it’s important to note: YouTube TV is a closed environment. If you're used to buying across OTT platforms where you can expand inventory to scale up your reach, that's not the case here. YouTube TV has a fixed user base in any given market, so increasing your budget doesn’t necessarily increase your reach—it often increases your frequency.

In fact, we’ve consistently seen higher frequencies on YouTube TV compared to cable, simply because there are fewer impressions available in a given market. The audience size, particularly on a local level, is still smaller than that of traditional cable. But it’s growing every year.

And from a user experience standpoint, it’s excellent.

My husband, for instance, loves the platform for live sports thanks to picture-in-picture options and other intuitive features. We've also found ourselves watching more local programming again, including local broadcast news.

YouTube TV makes it easy, and that’s good news for local stations and networks trying to recapture audiences lost to streaming.

CPMs, Scale, and a Bit of a Hack

YouTube TV is available for direct media buying, and the CPMs tend to be higher than typical OTT placements, though not quite double. But I believe it’s a higher-quality ad environment, which justifies the premium.

Here’s something interesting: some standard YouTube ads (like non-skippables or TrueView placements) are also showing up on YouTube TV. When they do, you’re not paying YouTube TV CPMs. That means you’re getting premium placement at a fraction of the cost (sometimes a $55 spot for $15).

We’ve developed a few internal methods for improving our chances of landing on YouTube TV through standard YouTube buys—not something I’ll disclose here—but it’s been a useful tactic when budgets are tight and performance is a priority.

Just know: this isn't guaranteed inventory, and as more advertisers buy directly, these backdoor opportunities will become rarer or limited to remnant.

The Evolution of Buying on YouTube TV

When we first started trying to place YouTube TV buys, it was … painful.

Google was essentially trying to sell TV inventory with a digital playbook, and it didn’t work.

There were no dedicated reps, the minimums were high, and it took us nine months to complete our first order. (Seriously.)

Fast-forward to today, and the process is far smoother, at least for agencies like ours who buy enough of it across clients.

In fact, we now have the ability to place insertion orders directly, bypassing the rep process entirely.

If you want to get onto YouTube TV but don’t meet Google's budget thresholds, you can go through our agency and benefit from the volume we’re already buying.

Final Thoughts

YouTube TV isn’t a high-reach platform (yet), but it offers a strong balance of quality, targeting, and user experience.

If you’re looking for an ad environment that blends the best of linear and digital—with fewer compromises—it’s worth your consideration.

We’ve had success buying it both ways: directly when we need guaranteed placements, and opportunistically through YouTube campaigns when we’re willing to bet on performance.

Either way, it’s a platform I’d recommend keeping on your radar, and maybe even exploring sooner rather than later.

If you want to chat about a YouTube TV strategy, drop us a line!