Goodbye Overlay Ads – Loud Mouth Media uncovers what this means for YouTube

15 Mar 2023

It won’t be news to you that YouTube is one of the most popular websites in the world – behind Google.

In fact, YouTube has over 122 million active users daily and over 1 billion hours of content being watched across the world every day… So, when it comes to Digital Advertising, if you can harness the power of video advertising, YouTube is a channel with huge potential for your brand. 

Why you should consider YouTube Advertising

YouTube doesn’t just offer a quite frankly, ENORMOUS, reach. There are many positives to investing in YouTube Ads, including: 

• YouTube advertising is cost-effective –

YouTube Ads use a PPC model, and if you’re familiar with PPC advertising, you know that it’s an extremely cost-effective strategy – because you only pay when someone clicks your ad. Not only that, but you choose exactly how much you’re willing to pay when someone clicks. These two characteristics mean that you’ll never over-spend on PPC ads, and you never waste money on advertising space. 

• YouTube advertising provides fast results -

Since YouTube has over 2 billion monthly users, it’s easy to understand why you’ll see fast results. YouTube guarantees fast results since a large audience means more users interested in your brand, and ultimately more access to high-intent viewers. 

• YouTube advertising is highly targeted -

Granular targeting is crucial for a successful campaign, and YouTube ads allow you to get extremely detailed when it comes to targeting the exact audience that you want to reach. You can target your audience by:

• Demographics: Target users based on factors like location, age, gender, parental status, and more.
• Topics: Reach audiences based on topics of interest.
• Customer Match: Using first party online and offline data, you’ll be able to re-engage with customers who have shown interest in your company in the past.
• Similar Audiences: Similar Audience targeting allows you to use Customer Match data to target users that are similar to those who typically show interest in your ads.
• Video remarketing: Target users who have interacted with your videos or YouTube ads in the past.
• Affinity audience: Target your affinity audience, which includes users who have a strong interest in topics related to your business.
• Custom affinity audience: Target users in an even more granular way with custom affinity audiences that allow you to target a group of users with an extremely specific set of interests relating to your brand.
• In-market audience: Target your in-market audience by advertising to those who are currently searching for products or services that you offer.
• Life events: Target users based on life events that they’ve recently experienced. Life events include milestones like moving, getting married, or having a child. 

Goodbye Overlay Ads

BUT we aren’t here today to talk about WHY you should consider YouTube Advertising, we want to discuss a significant change happening early April – YouTube is saying goodbye to overlay ads!

Those familiar with the YouTube ads landscape will know that overlay ads were removed from mobile some time ago, and perhaps due to no one kicking up a storm – and the layout of the ads making them a somewhat unsuccessful form of ad space – they will no longer exist from April 6^th, 2023 in YouTube Studio.

For those wondering what overlay ads are, the answer is very much in the name, they appear on the top of the video (at the bottom edge of the frame). Now in true YouTube form, they are announcing only limited impact for creators / advertisers as these ads will be replaced by other ad formats, which will ultimately be designed to continue to drive efficiency and conversions. 

So, what does that mean for YouTube Advertising?

This could be a move to focus on ads either before watching video content, during video content (ad break style) or post-video. But, we can confirm the following ad formats will remain: 

• Skippable video ads - Skippable video ads allow viewers to skip ads after 5 seconds.
• Non-skippable video ads - Non-skippable video ads must be watched before a video can be viewed.
• Bumper ads - Short, non-skippable video ads of up to 6 seconds that must be watched before a video can be viewed. Bumper ads are turned on when skippable or non-skippable ads are turned on. 

Regardless, we’re excited to see what new features come into play as a result of this change. With a team of YouTube Advertising experts and award-winning PPC talent, we will make sure to keep you in the loop for all the latest digital advertising innovations.

Want to discuss PPC / YouTube Advertising in more detail? Get in touch with us today and let’s talk!