Youtube 10 unskippable ads: “Ad pods,” which can have up to 10 ads in a row that can’t be skipped, are YouTube’s latest way to increase its already large income and get people to pay for a subscription.
Everyone watches YouTube videos; some people watch much more than they realize. Still, no one likes the ads that come with the free plan. It is usually possible to skip the ones at the beginning of the video after 5 seconds, but it is not possible to skip the ones in the middle. That’s bad enough, but what if you had to watch up to 10 YouTube ads in a row that you couldn’t skip?
The Pods Are Here.
9To5Google says that YouTube has been trying out these long “ad pods,” in which each ad can last from a few seconds to a few minutes. You can’t just skip them! This is not something that will make the average user happy.
So the obvious question is: why do this if people dislike it? For one thing, it’s a way to force people to sign up for the $11.99 premium plan so they can get rid of these distractions. Also, it’s another way to ensure creators get paid better since ads that can’t be skipped mean more guaranteed royalties. And finally, having more ads in a single pod means that a long video won’t be interrupted as often.
An Experiment
It turns out, though, that this was just a test by YouTube. Only a small number of videos had the long ad pod added to them, so only a small number of viewers saw it. Also, it seems like most people’s ad pods were about 60 seconds long, so each ad was about 5 or 6 seconds long. No matter what, it’s still annoying.
YouTube announced the end of the experiment:
We at YouTube want to help brands connect with people worldwide, and we’re always trying out new ways to show ads that improve the viewing experience. We did a small global test in which multiple ads were shown in an ad pod when people watched longer videos on connected TVs. The goal is to give viewers a better experience by cutting down on ad breaks. We are done with this little test.
Even though the experiment with YouTube ads that couldn’t be skipped is over, many users say that the number of YouTube ads seems to have gone up. Again, this is generally good for creators, but it won’t make users like you.
YouTube may have reached the same conclusion that I have: increasing the number of commercials is not a smart approach to getting consumers to subscribe to a premium tier. It could be a good reason for many people to try a different platform, which might not be a bad idea.
The math behind how YouTube works
The following is a breakdown of the criteria that Google engineers Paul Covington, Jay Adams, and Emre Sargin utilize to rate films for YouTube recommendations:
- Rate of click-throughs
- Check time
- How many videos from your channel has the user watched
- How long it’s been since the user watched a video about this subject
- What the user has already looked for
- The user’s watched videos in the past
- Information about who the user is and where they are
The only ones you have direct control over are the first three. For the rest, the recommendation is based on things that have nothing to do with your channel.
These Google engineers even say their final ranking goal is “generally a simple function of expected watch time per impression.” Ranking by click-through rate often promotes misleading videos that users don’t watch all the way through (called “click bait”). Engagement is measured more accurately by watch time.
Some people might think that YouTube will punish you if you try to get more clicks, but that’s a big mistake.
YouTube only punishes people who use “bait-and-switch” tactics, which involve making big promises before someone clicks and then giving them bad content. Still as important as ever is the click-through rate. After all, you can’t get many people to watch something on YouTube without getting people to click on it first.
Even YouTube Studios, which is YouTube’s new analytics dashboard, shows how these priorities are set.
You may view the following stats under the Reach Viewers page, which together demonstrate YouTube’s increased focus on click-through rate and watch time:
Impressions: How often have you appeared in search results, suggested videos, or on the main page?
Sources of traffic for views: Where your videos’ thumbnails were shown on YouTube to people who might want to watch them.
Click-through rate (CTR): How often people clicked on your thumbnails and watched a video.
Thoughts on impressions: This shows how often people watched your YouTube videos after seeing them there.
Watch time that came from people who saw your videos on YouTube and clicked on them.
Rethinking “click bait”: How click-through rate and to watch time are related.
You may have read articles about YouTube’s fight against clickbait in the past few years when the site was full of misleading video thumbnails and titles that tried to trick the algorithm.
Consequently, the major indicator for determining a video’s quality is skewed toward view time. Many YouTube creators responded by giving up the strategies that helped them stand out among the hundreds of hours of new video content uploaded to YouTube every minute.