Google YouTube To Sell New Video Ad Format – Overlay Ads
Youtube and Google announced today that they will be integrating a new type of Video ad with selected group of partners. Videos from these partners will have a new type of contextual video advertisement displayed. This is called an overlay ad.
What are overlay ads?
Overlay ads are contextually based video advertisements that are seen within the video itself. Rather than video ads inserted at the start of a video (known as pre-roll) these are horizontal banners much like promotional ads on the bottom of TV screens. One of the problems with the standard pre-roll ads is the data which suggests that users tend to not only ignore the advertisement, but often leave the page and video all together. With this ad format, users can view the video that they choose immediately and without delay. The advertisements themselves are contextually relevant and can be clicked on to view the sponsor’s advertisement or be taken directly to the advertiser’s landing page. Videos can also be animated flash movies which means that they themselves can be videos. Think about how great it would be for a movie studio to advertise movie previews within a movie itself. I expect that one would generate very nice CTRs being that users are already interested in watching video content and more willing to watch a promotional video. One additional note regarding this new ad format is that it lends itself well to both branding and direct response marketing tactics.
During the research process, You Tube’s Rajaraman said, “One of the key things we found, not surprisingly, is that when a video is playing on YouTube their attention is [locked in to the video frame]. When we came up with an ad format, we realized that it needs to be in the player.”
When YouTube tested pre-roll placements, users abandoned the video clips more than 50% of the time. The overlay format, by contrast, resulted in abandonment rates less than 10%. In addition, click thru rates (CTRs) are 5 to 10 times higer than standard display click-to-video ads, according to Rajaraman.
How do YouTube’s new overlay ad formats work?
- Videos will begin immediately as requested by users with no pre-roll advertisements
- After roughly 15 sec of the video, an overlay ad will appear in the video content and will cover approximately 20% of the video.
- This overlay animated flash ad can then be displayed for 10 seconds and will be somewhat transparent so that users can continue to view the video.
- If clicked on, the video itself will pause and the animated flash will play the advertisement.
- If not clicked on, the overlay ad will automatically close and the video will resume.
For examples of this ad format:
- View this Smosh video and watch Homer Simpson at 15 seconds in.
- Warner Bros. created such a unit where users can flip through selected album covers (click for example).
- (Not YouTube), check this site by Adjustables (which allows you to drop in various embedded ads).
Metacafe.com was the first to debut this new ad format back in May of this year but we knew that YouTube was also testing this for the past few months.
According to YouTube.com, these overlay ads are the first of several new and innovative ad formats for Video that Google and YouTube plan to introduce in the near future.
According to e-marketer, online video advertising is expected to nearly double in 2008 to $1.3 billion.
About the Author -
Mark R Robertson Mark Robertson is the Founder and Creator of ReelSEO.com. Mark has had extensive experience in online marketing, particularly in Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Local Search, Video Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can follow Mark on Twitter @markrrobertson
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