Last updated on May 14th, 2025
There are some people who should never use YouTube Ads. Because while we talk a lot about the benefits of YouTube Ads, there are some people who should never run YouTube Ads. And who are they?
VidAction | Podcast | LinkedIn | YouTube | Newsletter
1. Creators who only want views and subs.
If you’re a creator and you’re only looking for views and subs, please do not run YouTube Ads. They won’t help you in the way you think, and they could hurt you because they deliver views and subs of people who are only sort of interested, not super interested. And that’s bad for your channel.
2. Anyone using the YouTube promotions tab.
Who else? Well, if you’re using the YouTube promotions tab, meaning you’re running ads by using that promotions tab in the YouTube interface, please do not run YouTube Ads in that case. YouTube promotions tab, no.
3. YouTube premium subscribers.
Believe it or not, if you’re a YouTube premium subscriber, you should not run YouTube Ads. And why is this? If you’re a YouTube premium subscriber, you do not see YouTube Ads. You never see them. Thus, you don’t actually know what’s good about them, what’s bad about them. You are not qualified to judge. Don’t run YouTube Ads if you’re a YouTube premium subscriber.
4. You don’t watch YouTube.
If you’re one of the 10% of Americans who never watch YouTube, you should not advertise on YouTube. Because if you don’t watch YouTube, you won’t understand what’s good about it, what’s bad about it, what works, what doesn’t.
5. You don’t know what your goal is.
You’re not sure of your goals, please do not advertise on YouTube. How are you going to know if you’re successful or not if you don’t understand your goals?
6. Bad website.
Now, if you don’t have a good website or a good landing page or a good checkout experience, you should not advertise on YouTube because you’re not ready.
7. Not enough inventory.
What if you don’t have enough inventory? That’s also a reason to not advertise on YouTube because you’re going to get leads. You’re going to get people who want to buy things, but they’re going to have a bad experience because you’re not ready to sell to them.
8. Don’t like math.
Also, if you don’t understand math, you’re not going to know if your ads are successful or not. If you don’t have someone on your team who understands math or you don’t get it. You’re going to not know if your results are good or bad, or how to improve upon them.
9. Not getting the data.
If you’re not getting the full data picture about your YouTube Ads. Some people run ads for you and they don’t show you all the data.
Now, sometimes too much data can be a little confusing, but if you’re not getting the option of having full data, you’re really not getting the full picture. Thus, you don’t know if you’re succeeding or not or how to improve.
10. You don’t have time.
YouTube Ads take a little bit of time, probably the minimum of a couple of hours a week for you to learn a new thing. You’ve got a lot of things to do, and maybe learning YouTube Ads, or at least learning how someone provides you the service of YouTube Ads, you just don’t have enough time for that.
And in this case, don’t run YouTube Ads, unless you’ve got a couple of extra hours to spend just digesting the information and making good instructions to the person who’s running ads for you.
11. You don’t need growth.
Hey, some people have enough growth. If you have enough, don’t run YouTube Ads. The whole point of running YouTube Ads is to grow.
12. You need results too fast.
Also success with YouTube Ads takes at least a couple of months. It’s very hard to succeed overnight. You can sometimes get lucky, but to do it right, you want to have a long-term plan. It really takes about three months to find out if this is going to be a success for you or not. If you’re doing it right.
13. Some Livestream promos won’t help.
Now we’ve seen a lot of people try to do this: “We’ve got a livestream event and it’s our only video we’ve done all year, and we want millions of people to show up for this event.” This is a bad use of YouTube Ads. It’s very hard to get people to show up at an appointed time with livestreams. And just because you run YouTube Ads doesn’t necessarily mean people are going to show up.
If you already have a big audience on a number of other social media platforms, YouTube can be a great way to remind people of a YouTube livestream. However, if you have not been running a lot of livestreams or a lot of videos, people may not be ready for appointment viewing. Even if you run a lot of ads about it.