A YouTube brand lift study is the cleanest way to answer the question every brand campaign eventually faces: did anyone actually remember it? Google shows a short survey on YouTube to people who saw your ads and to a matched group who did not, then reports the difference. It costs nothing on top of media, but it does need a minimum spend, a Google representative and a well written question.
This guide covers what a study measures, what it costs in the UK, how to set one up in seven steps and how to read the results honestly. If you are still choosing which awareness metrics to track at all, start with our brand awareness measurement report and come back here to run the test.
The short version
- It is a controlled experiment. Google surveys an exposed group and a control group on YouTube and the gap between them is your lift.
- It is free but not cheap. In the UK tier you need at least $10,000 of spend in 10 days for one question, $20,000 for two and $60,000 for three.
- Access goes through Google. Brand Lift is not open to every account; Google says to contact your account representative.
- One question beats three. Each extra question raises the budget threshold, so pick the single metric that matches your objective.
- Read absolute lift first. Relative lift flatters small baselines; absolute lift and cost per lifted user are the numbers to compare over time.
What is a YouTube brand lift study?
Google describes Brand Lift as “a free tool for measuring the effectiveness of your video ads”. Surveys run on YouTube before a video starts. One group has seen your ads; a control group was eligible to see them but did not. In Google’s words, “The difference in the responses between the group who saw your ads and the group who didn’t” shows the influence of your ads (Google Ads Help).
Think with Google calls it a “one question survey” sent to “thousands of respondents”, with results in “a matter of days, not weeks” (Think with Google). Because the control group is chosen from the same eligible audience, a YouTube brand lift study isolates the effect of the advertising rather than the effect of the season, a price promotion or a competitor going quiet.
What does a brand lift study measure?
You can measure up to three metrics per study, chosen from ad recall, awareness, association, consideration, favourability, purchase intent or a custom metric (Google Ads Help). Ad recall asks whether people remember seeing an ad for your brand. Awareness asks which brands they have heard of. The lower funnel metrics ask whether they would consider or buy. As a rule, the further down the funnel you go, the harder lift is to detect.
Brand Lift vs Search Lift vs Conversion Lift
| Lift type | What it measures | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Brand Lift | Survey answers from people who saw your ads versus a control group who did not: ad recall, awareness, consideration and more | Proving a YouTube campaign changed what people remember or think |
| Search Lift | Extra searches for your brand on Google Search and YouTube from exposed viewers | Showing video created active interest, with no survey needed |
| Conversion Lift | Extra website visits, purchases or downloads, split by users or by geography | Campaigns with a clear online action and enough conversion history |
Summarised from Google Ads Help, comparing lift types.
Search Lift deserves more attention than it gets. It needs the same minimum as a one question Brand Lift study, runs across 28 days rather than 10, and Google recommends at least 1.5 million combined impressions. Google also notes the budgets “aren’t additive”, so in the US $10,000 covers both (Google Ads Help). If your brand is searched at all, running both is close to free.
How much does a YouTube brand lift study cost?
There is no fee for the survey itself. The cost is the minimum media spend, which depends on your country group and the number of questions. The UK sits in country group B alongside the US, France, Ireland and Spain.
| Questions measured | Country group A | Country group B (includes the UK and US) | Country group C (includes Germany, Canada, Australia) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 question | $5,000 | $10,000 | $15,000 |
| 2 questions | $10,000 | $20,000 | $30,000 |
| 3 questions | $20,000 | $60,000 | $60,000 |
Minimum budget in USD that must be spent across 10 days from the study start date, converted to your account currency at rates Google refreshes each quarter. Source: Google Ads Help, set up Brand Lift, checked 12 October 2026.
Two details catch brands out. First, the spend has to land within 10 days of the study start date; days outside the study window do not count. Second, Google offers an Enhanced Lift option designed to “allow collection of significantly more survey responses than Standard Lift”. A study qualifies if its budget is 3x the minimum, and it runs for 9 to 14 days rather than 3 to 14 (Google Ads Help). For a big launch, Enhanced Lift is worth asking for, because more responses means smaller lifts become detectable.
How to run a YouTube brand lift study in 7 steps
Step 1. Choose the one question that matches your objective
Launching a new product or brand? Measure awareness. Running a big creative idea? Measure ad recall. Trying to win switchers in a crowded category? Measure consideration. Each extra question pushes the UK minimum from $10,000 to $20,000 and then $60,000, so one sharp question usually beats three vague ones.
Step 2. Check eligibility and budget
Google says Brand Lift “isn’t available for all Google Ads accounts” and to contact your account representative. You need a Video, audio or Demand Gen campaign. Brand Lift works with in stream and bumper ads bought through auction and “isn’t available for in feed video ads”; Demand Gen requires allowlisting and only measures YouTube inventory (Google Ads Help).
Step 3. Write the question and answer options carefully
Google asks for a specific product or brand name (its example is “Google Pixel 4” rather than “Pixel”), up to three competitors as answer options, the same language as the ad, spellings checked against official sources and only one opt out option (Google Ads Help). Choose real competitors people would recognise; obscure ones make your brand look better than it is.
Step 4. Set up the study in Experiments
Lift studies now sit under Campaigns, then Experiments, in a Lift studies tab. Google describes these as controlled experiments that “split an eligible audience into two groups based on users or geography” (Google Ads Help). Attach the campaigns you want measured and set the study dates to match the flight.
Step 5. Launch early and hit the spend
Surveys take up to 48 hours to be approved, so submit before launch. The start date locks once the first response arrives, and the minimum budget must be spent in the first 10 days. Front load the budget rather than spreading it thinly over a month.
Step 6. Keep the creative and targeting stable
This is our guidance rather than Google’s rule: avoid swapping creative or changing audiences mid study. If you want to compare two edits, ask your Google representative about a multi cell study instead, so each version gets its own control. Our guide to YouTube hooks is a good place to find the opening that is worth testing.
Step 7. Read the results and record them
Studies usually run 10 to 14 days and can end early once enough responses arrive; some keep collecting for up to 14 days after the campaign ends. Record absolute lift, relative lift, lifted users and cost per lifted user in one place so the next study has something to beat.
How to read brand lift study results
Google reports several numbers from the same survey. Its own worked example makes the differences clear: if 20% of the control group and 40% of the exposed group answer positively, absolute lift is 20 points, headroom lift is 25% and relative lift is 100% (Google Ads Help).
Google’s worked example: how one result becomes three lift numbers
| Metric | How Google defines it | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Absolute lift | Exposed positive rate minus control positive rate | The headline change, in percentage points |
| Relative lift | Absolute lift divided by the control rate | Comparing campaigns with very different baselines |
| Headroom lift | Absolute lift divided by the share of people who had not yet answered positively | Big brands with high baseline awareness |
| Lifted users | Estimated number of people whose perception changed because of your ads | Scale, alongside reach |
| Cost per lifted user | Total campaign cost divided by lifted users | Comparing efficiency across studies |
Definitions from Google Ads Help, lift measurement metrics.
Watch the status labels too. “Not enough data” means responses are still below the threshold; “No lift detected” means there was “no statistically significant difference” between the groups. Google says lift results use 80% two sided confidence intervals, which means a 90% chance that the true lift is above the lower bound.
How many responses do you need?
Small lifts need very large samples. Google says high performing campaigns usually show lift at about 2,000 responses per metric, the minimum budget typically needs 4,100, and if nothing shows by 16,800 responses per metric, “you may not be able to detect your lift”.
Survey responses Google says you need to detect a given absolute lift
What is a good brand lift result?
Google does not publish a universal benchmark, and any single number quoted online should be treated with care. Baseline matters enormously. Upwave, a brand measurement vendor, gives the example of a 3% lift in ad recall that could be “a red flag or money well spent” depending on the starting point, and describes category leaders as brands with over 80% baseline awareness (Upwave). A household name has little headroom; a challenger brand can move fast.
The useful comparison is with yourself. Run the same question on every major flight, and compare absolute lift and cost per lifted user across creative, formats and audiences. As an illustration only: a $30,000 campaign that Google estimates produced 150,000 lifted users has a cost per lifted user of $0.20. A later campaign at $0.12 is working harder, whatever its relative lift says.
The limits of brand lift studies
“These studies only capture what occurred within the confines of the vendor’s channel.” Nielsen on single platform brand lift
Nielsen’s point is the big one (Nielsen). A YouTube brand lift study tells you what YouTube did, measured by Google. It cannot tell you how much of the effect your TV or social spend would have delivered anyway, and it measures memory and attitude, not sales. Pair it with a business measure such as share of search (see our guide on how to calculate share of search) or a revenue based view such as social media ROI.
Connected TV adds a wrinkle. Google says surveys are optimised for TV screens and remotes, but “there’s no way to guarantee that we get enough results for CTV only campaigns” (Google Ads Help). If most of your spend runs on the living room screen, include mobile and desktop inventory in the study.
Brand lift on other platforms
The same method exists elsewhere, with different access rules. TikTok says its brand lift studies “can only be set up by your account manager” (TikTok Ads Help). Meta publishes country by country minimums for its brand lift tests (Meta Business Help). The numbers are not comparable across platforms, because each one builds its own control group and asks its own questions.
YouTube brand lift study checklist
Our working checklist (Advertain guidance) for every study we plan:
- One objective and one question chosen before the media plan is final.
- Spend confirmed above the country minimum within the first 10 days.
- Google representative contacted and study approved at least 48 hours before launch.
- Full brand or product name and up to three real competitors in the answers.
- Campaign uses in stream or bumper ads bought through auction, not in feed.
- Creative and audiences locked for the study window.
- Search Lift added if the budget already qualifies.
- Absolute lift, relative lift and cost per lifted user logged next to share of search and sales.
This is how we approach measurement on campaigns like Formula E, which reached 7M+ views across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. See more of our work, or talk to us about planning a study.
Frequently asked questions
What is a brand lift study?
A brand lift study is a survey based experiment that compares people who saw your ads with a similar group who did not. The difference in their answers to a question such as ad recall or awareness is the lift caused by the advertising.
What is the minimum spend for a YouTube brand lift study?
In the UK country group, Google lists $10,000 for one question, $20,000 for two and $60,000 for three, spent across 10 days and converted to your account currency. Search Lift needs $10,000 across 28 days in the same group.
How long does a brand lift study take?
Approval takes up to 48 hours. Studies usually run 10 to 14 days and may end early once enough responses arrive, with some responses collected for up to 14 days after the campaign ends.
What questions are asked in a YouTube brand lift study?
Up to three, from ad recall, awareness, association, consideration, favourability, purchase intent or a custom metric. Each question names your brand or product and offers up to three competitors plus a single opt out.
What is the difference between brand lift and conversion lift?
Brand lift measures what people remember and think through surveys. Conversion lift measures extra actions such as website visits and purchases, and its budget is set from your historical conversion data.
