YouTube has revealed that it is planning to provide users with a choice to watch two ads at once before the start of a long-format video. YouTube calls it Ad Pods and this will let you watch longer videos without interruptions.
As of now, YouTube allows users to watch a long format video if they watch an ad at the start of the clip and during the middle of the video as well. The latest move thus shifts the two separate ads service and fuses it into a single session which will be displayed before the original video starts.
The two ads which will be played consecutively will be non-skippable in nature watching which will result in less annoying pop-ups in the middle of your video playing experience. YouTube says that it expects to offer 40 percent lesser interruptions through this feature. The news will also work in favour of advertisers as YouTube expects an 8-11 percent increase in an advertiser’s reach.
Speaking about their development, Google Video Ads Product Manager, Khushbu Rathi said “Our recent user experience research suggests that in addition to factors such as the length of ads, viewers are quite sensitive to the Frequency of ad breaks, especially during longer viewing sessions. We learned that fewer interruptions are correlated with better user metrics, including less abandonment of content and higher rates of ad viewing. To respond to this, we will begin testing ad pods–two ads stacked back to back, where viewers have the option to skip directly to the content if it’s not the right ad for them”.
Youtube plans to force the Ad-pods service on desktops initially and will, later on, release a similar strategy for the YouTube App on smartphones and TVs.