San Francisco — The price of any freebie in online visual-media has long been ads that run before your favorite clips. Now, the Google-owned video-sharing hub on Wednesday announced that it is now offering advertisers its TrueView in-stream video ad format for mobile devices, which allows users to skip ads in which they do not have an interest after five seconds.
As more and more people pick up tablets and smartphones, those ads are following us to our mobile devices on services like Facebook and YouTube is making all video ads optional on mobile, which users can skip within five seconds, just like they can on desktop.
Interestingly, describing the feature, the company executive said, “With TrueView, we have developed a model where user engagement matters — people can skip ads they are not interested in after five seconds,” says YouTube group product manager Phil Farhi.
Farhi further added, “Entrusting viewers with choice over ads as they watch has led to a better, more engaged viewing experience, benefiting the entire YouTube community of users, advertisers, and content creators. Advertisers only pay when someone chooses to watch the ad, so their budgets go toward the people most interested in what they have to say.”
With TrueView, viewers can skip ads they are not interested in just after five seconds. YouTube expect such ads lead to better engagement since viewers only watch ads they like and advertisers only pay when someone chooses to watch the ad. Such engagement also leads to a “buy one, get one free” scenario in which viewers stick around to watch other videos they like from the advertiser, Farhi, wrote in a blog post. YouTube also claims some advertisers have received a boost of 4% in their click-through-rates with TrueView.
In fact, TrueView ads are cost-per-view that should be plus point for advertisers, as they only pay when viewers actively select their videos or choose to continue watching them, once they are initially loaded while they browse content. The content has to be hosted on YouTube, but they can appear on both YouTube and other publisher sites in the Google Display Network.
YouTube has been experimenting with a slew of mobile ad options over the last year — from promoted videos atop search results to banner ads. “This is because after a user watches a video ad, they can stick around to watch more content from that brand, visit their website, or share the video with friends. Many of you are seeing this in action today — TRX, for instance, saw the greatest ROI from their TrueView campaign during their busy season promotions.”
Surprisingly, akin to Facebook, Google is grappling with a consumer shift to mobile, which so far appears to be providing fewer opportunities for ad revenues than desktop. Google claims that brand recall improves when ads are run across TV, PC, phone and tablet screens.
With that in mind, Google says that the new offering will enable easier creation and management of multi-screen campaigns. “Bringing TrueView video ads to mobile devices will make it easier to create and manage multi-screen campaigns and will give you additional reach,” the company said.