YouTube may be the biggest platform for sharing videos and the go-to website for hobby filmmakers, but the newest upcoming change regarding the ads has audiences and content creators alike unsure about what's to come.
In early September, YouTube shared the new plans regarding the ads – not everyone was enthusiastic about them, to say the least. The changes take away some control from the creators, but YouTube calls that "Simplifying & Improving Ad Controls." Sounds better, I guess.
The feedback has been mixed, to put it lightly. Some think these are some nice quality of life changes, others ask if the "YouTube bosses just sit round a table and decide how to annoy everyone more." But what are the changes, exactly?
These Are The Ad Changes YouTube's Making
First of all: the changes will not be implemented overnight. It's going to be a progress for the coming months and the changes will only affect new uploads or older ones if creators choose to edit their older video's monetization settings.
According to Google's blog post regarding the changes, most creators shouldn't even notice the changes as they already have the new ad formats turned on by default. They just took away the opportunity to change some of them manually.
YouTube is changing how Ads work: - New uploads will only have the option to have ads that appear before or after a video either On or Off - No more options for Pre-roll, Post-roll, Skippable and Non-skippable ads (mid-roll control stays the same) - New Livestream Ad... pic.twitter.com/oDcR8JXAEE
— YTAnalytics (@YouTubelytics) September 6, 2023
Most importantly, though, the mid-rolls are not affected by these changes and YouTubers will still have control over them – that's important for the video's suspense. Imagine not being able to place ads by hand and having the suspense in your video killed off by an ad for some skin cream. So, good call from YouTube to let creators have that much of control at least.
Creators will even get one more option to control the mid-rolls: in addition to selecting the ad placements by hand or automatically, they soon can do a combination of both options. Because everybody loves ads, or rather: "Mid-rolls have become part of the viewing experience," as Google puts it.
Streamers will get the option to completely skip mid-roll ads when they're live, delay them or roll them out whenever they please.
How these changes will play out over the next month remains to be seen. The changes will start in November.
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