Grow Your YouTube Subscribers and Discoverability with Google Ads

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There’s a relatively lesser-known Google Ads campaign type that we’re finding incredibly effective — and most advertisers don’t even know it exists. It’s the YouTube engagement Demand Gen campaign, and it could be a game-changer for building out a long-term owned audience strategy.

Why an Owned Audience Matters More Than Ever

The search environment is getting harder and harder to navigate. With ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Perplexity, and Google’s own AI tools fragmenting where users discover content, it’s increasingly difficult to get in front of your target audience organically. Every new tool creates another channel competing for attention — and another place where you need to figure out how to allocate budget.

That’s why building an owned audience is so valuable. Similar to an email marketing list, a YouTube subscriber base is an audience you can get in front of without paying for additional ad spend every time. We think that’s absolutely worth exploring.

What the YouTube Engagement Campaign Does

This Demand Gen campaign focuses on two specific objectives:

Getting your YouTube channel more subscribers
Driving follow-on views — when someone engages with your ad and then goes on to watch an organic video you’ve published

Both of these build long-term value that compounds over time. More subscribers means more organic reach on future content. More follow-on views signals to YouTube’s algorithm that your content is worth recommending.

How to Set Up the Campaign Step by Step

Prerequisites: Connect YouTube to Google Ads

This is critical — the YouTube engagement campaign will not work if your YouTube channel is not connected to your Google Ads account. You’ll hit a big red error flag a couple of steps in if they’re not linked.

To connect them, go into Google Ads, navigate to Data Manager, and look for the section where you can integrate your YouTube channel. Make sure these two are linked before proceeding.

Campaign Setup

Go to the campaign creation page and select Create campaign without guidance
Choose Video as the campaign type
Leave the buying type on Auction
Select YouTube subscriptions and engagements
Name your campaign and set your daily budget (we typically start around $5/day)
YouTube engagements should be checked — leave that on
Target cost per action is optional — we usually leave it off initially
For devices, we don’t mind keeping all devices on for this type of campaign, including TV screens, computers, mobiles, and tablets

Ad Group Settings

Set your target location
Change the language to English (or your target language)
For channel selection, we don’t mind having all Google channels for this campaign type, though we typically do not like running the Google Display Network within this campaign — we prefer to keep those separate
Add your target audiences
Turn off Optimize Targeting — we like to keep that off for this type of campaign

Creating the Ad

Add your URL and name your ad
Paste the link to the video you want to use — we tend to prefer engaging, shorter videos, but there’s no one-size-fits-all here
Add your logos and headlines
Leave the call to action set to “Subscribe” (automated) — this is key. Don’t change it to something else, as it likely won’t work for this campaign type if you’re optimizing for subscriptions
Add your business name, sitelinks, and any other details as you would for a regular campaign

Review and Launch

Review your campaign, fix any errors from missing fields, and launch. It’s a straightforward setup once you know where to find it.

Key Takeaways

Connect your YouTube channel to Google Ads first — without this, the campaign simply won’t work
Keep Optimize Targeting off to maintain control over who sees your ads
Use the Subscribe CTA — don’t change it if subscriber growth is your goal
Think long-term — this isn’t about immediate lead generation; it’s about building an owned audience that pays dividends over time

Building a subscriber base through paid campaigns might feel counterintuitive, but in a world where organic discoverability is getting harder every quarter, investing in an owned audience is one of the smartest plays you can make.