Youtube ads Formats

Nine of twelve articles in the CXL Minidegree In writing an overview about Youtube Ads.

Brands advertise on YouTube because it’s the world’s second most popular website, drawing 2 billion logged-in visitors a month.

If you’re deciding how to allocate your video ad budget, YouTube has the vast reach and powerful targeting capabilities that make it an undeniably valuable platform across the customer journey.

TrueView ads

TrueView ads are good for building awareness and gaining exposure. YouTube offers 2 types of TrueView ads:

• TrueView video discovery ads appear on YouTube where people discover video content. This might be in YouTube search results, on the YouTube homepage, or in the right sidebar next to a related video. They’re marked with a small, yellow square that identifies them as an ad. Unlike other YouTube ad formats, video discovery ads require people to click on them to begin viewing. This makes TrueView video discovery ads great at surfacing high-potential leads . After all, if someone chooses to click on your ad, it’s a strong signal that they’re interested in what you offer.
• TrueView in-stream ads play before, during, or after a video that someone watches on YouTube or across GDN. As an advertiser, you can overlay call-to-action (CTA) text on in-stream ads or, in some cases, opt to have a companion banner appear next to the ad even after it ends. Ads appear and start playing automatically when someone is ready to watch another YouTube video. They can be skipped after a few seconds. You don’t pay for skipped ads, but if your ads get nothing but skips, they may be flagged as low quality, which means you’ll need to pay more to get them in front of viewers. This is a great reason to make sure your video content is compelling.

Bumper Ads

Bumper ads have given advertisers a creative way to increase brand awareness and reach. However, these non-skippable ads can only run for a few seconds, so creating compelling ads in this format can be challenging.

Video ads that are 6 seconds or shorter can be used for bumper ads. Unlike TrueView or skippable ads, bumper ads don’t change the view count of your videos. Users can’t skip bumper ads.

You pay for bumper ads based on the CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions). This ad format works great as part of a video ad sequence to warm up an audience for a TrueView ad.

Non-Skippable In-Stream Ads

Because 76% of people report that they automatically skip ads, some advertisers choose to run pre-roll or mid-roll ads that don’t have a skip button at all.

Non-skippable in-stream ads are available only for some campaign types (Reach campaigns) and can be 6–15 seconds long. If you try to load videos that are 16 seconds or longer, you’ll see an error message. (Note: Some articles state that these ads can be 15–20 seconds but YouTube specifies 15 seconds or less.)

Discovery Ads

Discovery ads include three lines of text along with a thumbnail. When interested people click on the ad, they’re sent through to your video page or YouTube channel.

By means of the yellow icon with the mention “Ad”, the user knows that it is an advertisement. When they click, they are taken to the content being promoted, and you are billed for each click.

Finally, this type of ad is also displayed on the app's homepage, in the case of mobile devices.

?Video ad formats?

YouTube offers a range of compelling video ad formats to engage customers in different ways on YouTube and video partner sites. Explore the types of formats below.

After five seconds, the viewer has an option to skip the ad. You can optimize skippable in-stream ads to drive awareness, consideration, online sales, or leads.

Nonskippable in-stream ads

Nonskippable in-stream ads are 15 seconds (or shorter) and play before, during, or after other videos.

In-feed video ads

In-feed video ads promote video content in places of discovery, including next to related YouTube videos, as part of a YouTube search result, or on the YouTube homepage.

Bumper ads

Bumper ads are six seconds long (or shorter) and play before, during, or after another video.

Outstream ads

Outstream ads are just for mobile and only appear on websites and apps running on Google video partners. Use outstream ads when you want to expand the reach of your video ads on mobile to reach more customers at an efficient cost.