YouTube's new TrueView Video Ads are skippable

by Vlad Bobleanta on December 2, 2010 at 03:34 PM

As expected, YouTube has introduced a new ad format called TrueView Video Ads. The big novelties that this product brings is the viewers' ability to skip ads (after watching a minimum of 5 seconds, though) or even select which ad they would like to watch from a list. Advertisers are charged only when a viewer has chosen to watch an ad, and not per impression.

Allowing people to choose the ads they like to see or just skip ads that aren't interesting to them helps advertisers too, apparently, no matter how counterintuitive that may seem at first glance. Using this system, they can target their ads better, which results in higher click-through rates, which is what all advertisers want after all. While this is clearly a step in the right direction, from all points of view, don't expect such ads to be in every ad-filled YouTube video you'll watch from now on. Over time, if the advertisers continue to be pleased with the new format, such ads may become the most widespread on YouTube.

TrueView Video Ads are only available to advertisers with managed accounts at the moment. Also, using this format is the advertisers' choice -- they may opt to stick to more traditional, non-skippable ads. Let's hope they won't.

Tags: advertisements, advertising, adwords, skippable ads, SkippableAds, streaming, TrueView, video on demand, VideoOnDemand, Web, youtube