When should you start running YouTube Ads (and when not to)

"How much should I be spending on Google before YouTube Ads make sense?"

I got this question last week in response to my social media content about YouTube.

The short answer is…

There’s no minimum spend requirement. You can start testing YouTube whenever you want.

Of course, depending on the state of your account, there’re probably higher-leverage things to focus on.

For example:

• Setting up a clear brand vs. non-brand campaign structure

• Tightening up Search & Shopping campaigns

• Fixing conversion tracking

• Optimizing product feeds

• Etc…

For some clients, we test YouTube right after taking over the account.

That’s usually because they already have strong video creatives and their fundamentals are in place.

For others…

It’s more of a scaling lever we add later, once the core campaigns already perform well.

The reality is that YouTube is harder to crack than Search and Shopping.

And it typically takes longer to get reliable results.

So in those cases, it makes more sense to dial in the core campaigns first.

Because stacking YouTube on top of an unoptimized account rarely ends well.

Ultimately though…

I believe the earlier you start testing YouTube, the better.

Right now, YouTube Ads are in a rare sweet spot.

A lot of brands tested it before 2024, didn’t see results, and completely wrote it off.

But Google rolled out several major improvements in 2025 that made YouTube much more effective.

We’re at a point where YouTube Ads deliver better results than ever… with the least amount of competition.

That's why we're pushing hard on our creative department this year.

Last year, our focus was upgrading our landing page systems.

The results were pretty crazy. We shipped 100+ pages. A good chunk of them scaled to 6 figures and cut campaign CPAs by 2-3x.

I’m expecting the same things with our creative team heading into 2026.

I’ll share our results and takeaways as we go.

In the meantime:

If you’re thinking about running YouTube Ads… or you’re running them but not getting the ROI you want…

We made a video on how we run YouTube Ads for our clients.

Inside, we’ll cover:

• How we structure campaigns

• Which formats to run (and how we allocate budget across them)

• 3-tier targeting framework to make sure your ads reach the right audience

• Plus detailed breakdowns on budgets, scaling strategy, KPIs, and more.

Watch it here.

Jackson

Founder and CEO of Echelonn.

How we can help:

Get a free Google ads audit: For brands spending more than $20k/mo. or making over 1 million annually, we’ll identify the key bottlenecks in your account, and turn it into a free 90-day scaling plan. Click here.

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