YouTube Shorts Attract More Ad Traffic Than Analogs

Advertising experts from Creatopy conducted an interesting experiment. They ran identical short video ads on Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube to test the effectiveness of these platforms. It wasn't TikTok, specializing in short videos, that attracted the most traffic.

YouTube Shorts really got the most visitors to the Creatopy page. However, their traffic quality was not the highest. According to this indicator, this platform came in second place. The first place was taken by Instagram Reels, which showed the highest engagement rate of 41%. For comparison, YouTube had 22%, Pinterest had about the same level — about 20%, and Pinterest was far behind with 16%. These metrics tell you how well platforms target audiences to display ads. The quality of traffic reflects the interest of viewers in a particular product.

At the same time, in terms of CPM (impressions), TikTok came out on top. The ad launched was viewed more than 150000 times. Pinterest reached 91000 impressions while YouTube reached just 56000 views. Of all these services, TikTok is known to offer the most budget-friendly advertising plans. Instagram and YouTube are among the most expensive services in this respect. However, a large number of impressions does not guarantee high-quality traffic, unfortunately.

In many ways, the low effectiveness of advertising on TikTok is because the platform has the fewest targeting tools. That is, your videos may be seen by random users who will not be interested in your product. At the same time, YouTube allows you to fine-tune your advertising campaign and, accordingly, hit the target audience precisely.

To achieve the best results, you should carefully study all the options at your disposal. The Creatopy research is a good help in this regard. If you are a marketing expert, please share your thoughts on the results of this experiment. We would love to hear your opinion on their applicability!