1 billion hours. Yes, that is the number of hours that people are watching YouTube videos in a single day. The point we are trying to make here is that YouTube is going nowhere. In fact, even popular streaming sites like Netflix and Amazon Prime have dedicated YouTube channels to reach the target audience.
Even as YouTube’s watching is reaching new heights, a lot of viewers are irritated by the platform due to the increasing ads that they have to forcibly watch. As per one report, YouTube Free is silently testing 5 ads before you get to your video. This is certainly going to test some people’s patience too.
From a digital marketer’s perspective, this may open up some new avenues. The risk of people getting disenchanted by the platform due to increasing ads remains but only time will reveal what actually happens.
While one can certainly use a youtube ad blocker for android, it helps to understand the different types of ads on YouTube. In this post, we look at some of these ads that are making waves in 2022.
- Display ads – These are one of the most common ads that you will find on YouTube. Display ads are placed to the right of the video being played and can be found just above the next video suggestions.
The only limitation of display ads is that they are displayed only on laptops and PCs and not on mobile devices. At a time when the world is going big on smartphones, this is not super effective if seen from a marketing point of view. These ads make sense for those brands whose target audience spends time watching YouTube on their larger devices. - Video ads (Skippable) – If display ads were one of the most common ads, skippable video ads are in all probability the ads that you will inevitably come across on YouTube. A user can skip these ads after bearing with them for a mere 5 seconds (though these 5 seconds always feel too long).
The placement of these ads is like this. Since these are video ads, they are played on the video screen only. As regards time, they can be placed at any time stamp in the video – that is at the beginning of the video, in the middle of the video or at the end of the video.
It is important to make the ad so engaging that the viewer forgets to skip.
- Video ads (Non-skippable) – Like the previous ads, these can be placed at any point of the video but these are non-skippable, meaning that the viewer has no option but to wait for those 15 seconds.
While brands may find this to be a good thing, it has been seen that viewers often look for ways to avoid these non-skippable ads and at times may even skip watching the video altogether. Hence, it is crucial to ensure that the ad itself is worth watching. - Overlay ads – Again, these are one type of ads which appear on laptops and Desktop PCs only. The interesting thing about overlay ads is that they appear on the video itself (bottom 20% of the video screen).
Advertisers are happy because the ad appears along with the video that the user is watching. At the same time, if viewers find that the ad is interfering with their view, they can shut down the ad by clicking on the small ‘x’ button on the ad itself. - Content embedded ads – Ads that are a part of the video created by the YouTuber are known as content embedded ads. For instance, if a creator on YouTube is marketing a beauty product, then this would be a content-embedded ad.
Since these ads are inserted by the creator and are a part of the video they upload, there is no mechanism to skip the ad by clicking on any button. However, there is always the option of manually skipping the portion of the video containing the ad.
It is true that many YouTube users are opting for YouTube premium to get rid of the ads but one must remember that the number of users is so huge that there will always be an audience to target on YouTube.
