YouTube Led Streaming Budget Increases; Ad Revenue Grew 13%
YouTube still has the clearest verified momentum among the streaming environments compared in a May 2026 marketer survey. A published account of the DoubleVerify findings shows that 70% of participating marketers had increased their YouTube investment over the preceding year, compared with 65% for Netflix, 59% for Prime Video and 48% for Samsung streaming environments.
Evidence released after that survey strengthens the case that YouTube remained commercially important, but it does not turn the 70% result into a ranking of total advertising expenditure. Alphabet’s July 22 earnings remarks put year-over-year YouTube Ads growth at 13% for the second quarter of 2026. The survey counted marketers who raised investment, whereas the later figure measures revenue growth across YouTube advertising; they describe related momentum from different angles.
What YouTube’s 70% lead actually measures
The headline result establishes that YouTube was named by the largest share of respondents who increased investment in the compared streaming platforms. It does not disclose the size of those increases, each platform’s total advertising revenue or how much money moved from linear television. A modest budget adjustment and a major reallocation both count as one marketer increasing investment.
This boundary is important because the services in the comparison do not offer identical advertising propositions. YouTube spans creator videos, Shorts, music, professionally produced programming and viewing across televisions, phones and computers. Netflix, Prime Video and Samsung’s streaming environments have different combinations of content, subscriptions, devices and advertising inventory, so a higher incidence of budget increases does not establish superiority for every campaign objective.
The research also extended beyond a single market or a simple opinion poll. The published survey account describes more than 2,000 marketers and 22,000 consumers across over 20 markets, together with campaign measurement and controlled tests. DoubleVerify’s official Must-CTV page identifies proprietary measurement and an annual survey of consumers and marketing decision-makers as the report’s two principal evidence bases, while highlighting transparency, fraud and viewability as unresolved concerns.
The defensible wording is therefore specific: YouTube led this survey by the proportion of marketers increasing streaming investment. “Leader in advertising investment growth” becomes misleading if it is read as the largest absolute gain in dollars, the highest market share or the best return on advertising spend. None of those outcomes can be calculated from the published percentages.
TV-screen viewing helps explain the investment
YouTube’s relevance to television budgets is supported by audience behavior on the television screen, not merely by its history as a desktop and mobile video service. Nielsen’s April 2026 Media Distributor Gauge placed YouTube first among measured distributors with 13.4% of U.S. television watch-time.
That result shows why media planners can treat YouTube as part of the large-screen video market. A platform centered on on-demand and creator-led viewing now occupies substantial attention in the same physical environment as broadcast networks, cable channels and subscription streaming services. Advertisers can consequently encounter YouTube in plans described as connected TV, social video or digital video, depending on the format, screen and buying arrangement.
The viewing figure has limits of its own. It measures time spent watching through television sets in the United States, including consumption that may not correspond to an available advertising impression. It does not reveal campaign reach, ad frequency, inventory price, conversion performance or the incremental audience delivered beyond another video buy.
This distinction prevents three different metrics from collapsing into one claim. The marketer survey measures the prevalence of budget increases, the viewing gauge measures audience attention on TV screens, and the quarterly result measures advertising revenue growth. Together they describe a platform with broad buyer interest, substantial television usage and continuing commercial expansion, but none independently proves leadership in total streaming ad dollars.
The wider video market was also expanding
YouTube’s momentum occurred inside a growing digital-video market rather than in isolation. IAB’s May 2026 U.S. forecast projects digital-video advertising above $80 billion for the year, an 11% annual increase and more than 60% of total TV and video advertising expenditure for the first time. Its digital-video definition includes connected TV, online video and social video, with YouTube included in the social-video category.
The forecast assigns 13% growth to social video and 11% to connected TV. Those category boundaries explain why apparently simple comparisons can be unstable: a YouTube campaign viewed on a television may participate in a connected-TV planning discussion while appearing under social video in a market forecast. Platform surveys, screen-based audience measurements and channel forecasts can all point toward digital video without measuring the same inventory or pool of spending.
The later 13% YouTube Ads growth figure is a firmer indicator of commercial expansion than buyer intention alone, yet it remains broader than streaming television. It covers YouTube advertising across formats and devices and does not disclose how much of the increase came from TV screens, Shorts, particular regions or the marketers included in the earlier survey. It therefore confirms continued growth through the June quarter without identifying the source of every incremental dollar.
A strong position, not a universal verdict
YouTube’s survey lead is best understood as a planning signal rather than an instruction to redirect every video budget. It indicates that investment increases were more widespread among surveyed marketers for YouTube than for the three named alternatives. The separate audience and revenue measures make that signal more consequential, but they do not supply campaign-level evidence about cost, incremental reach or business outcomes.
Those missing measures determine whether the platform deserves a larger allocation in any particular plan. An advertiser would still need comparable definitions of reach, attribution windows and conversions, as well as controls for frequency, viewability, invalid traffic and content suitability. These considerations become especially material when inventory spans many creators, formats and viewing devices.
The central conclusion is consequently narrower than an unconditional declaration that YouTube captured the most money. YouTube led the cited global survey in the share of marketers increasing streaming investment, ranked first in the cited U.S. TV-screen viewing comparison and then posted double-digit advertising revenue growth. That combination verifies sustained momentum while preserving the differences between buyer participation, audience attention and revenue.
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