New YouTube tools put eyes on your eyeballs

YouTube is looking for a bigger piece of the advertising pie — and that means collecting more of your data.

With hundreds of billions of dollars up for grabs, the Alphabet-owned video site is slated to announce Monday that it’s rolling out new tools to help advertisers better reach customers.

One new feature will allow viewers to watch movie trailers while simulta- neously giving them the option to buy movie tickets.

In order to pull that off, YouTube said it will collect data on user locations.

Other tools will deliver beefed-up information about the demographics of users, as well as the visibility and impact of an ad campaign.

The idea, YouTube said, is to give advertisers more insight into how to reach more eyeballs.

Data collection isn’t anything new, but advertisers are more willing to throw money at new, shiny tools.

YouTube already claims a sizable chunk of the video advertising sector, which racked up $11.9 billion in revenue last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

YouTube declined to provide figures, but data from eMarketer said the San Bruno, Calif.-based-firm nabbed $3.5 billion of the industry last year. This year, it’s on track to increase revenue to $3.96 billion , according to the firm.

To put the dominance of YouTube and internet juggernauts like Facebook, Google and Amazon into focus, a recent study from Magna Global said online advertising overall will increase 16 percent in the US to $106.6 billion this year.

That’s more than half of the total US advertising market, which is estimated by the research firm to be $207 billion.