YouTube, via a community post, has announced that it will be doing away with the overlay ads format on the platform in order to improve the viewer experience.
The change is scheduled to take place starting on April 6th, 2023.
Overlay ads are banner-style pop-up ads that are often very disruptive to viewers as they are overlayed on top of the content, thus interfering or blocking parts of it.
The Google owned company explained that it expects this change to cause YouTube Creators very “limited impact” as these types of ads are now only seen on desktop browsers and has not been available on mobile for quite some time now.
Additionally, it appears that these legacy ads didn’t perform as well as other formats on desktop and mobile devices.
Overlay Ads Replacement
To combat this, there will be a shift toward “other ad formats” that are more viewer friendly, although no specifics were detailed on what they will consist of.
YouTube might simply follow the same formula it did on mobile, by using pre-, mid-, and post-roll ads instead, all of which can typically be skipped over.
Starting on April 6th, 2023, the “Overlay ads” ad format will no longer appear on YouTube to help improve the viewer experience and shift engagement to higher performing ad formats on desktop and mobile devices. Overlay ads are a legacy ad format that only served on desktop and are disruptive for viewers. We expect to see limited impact for most Creators as engagement shifts to other ad formats.
Will Creators Be Required To Do Anything?
No action will be necessary from creators that are currently using these types of ads on their videos. The ads will simply just stop showing starting on April 6th and the option to use them will no longer be available on YouTube Studio.
This change will undoubtedly benefit desktop viewers because intrusive elements will no longer obscure or clash with video content. Certain ad-blocking plugins can already block such content, and it remains to be seen how this will be replaced.
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