Gone are the days of skipping through 5-second ads to get to your favorite vlogs, how-to’s, and AGT Golden Buzzer compilations. These days, opening YouTube on nearly any device will prompt back-to-back unskippable 15-second ads… or worse — straight to a 30. I can’t remember the last time I was even delivered a skippable ad. Here’s our take:

YouTube is getting more eyeballs

Youtube draws a wide audience — from viewers watching fully televised sports, engaging with curated content creation, or even using the platform as a pseudo web browser. Not only that, but YouTube has become the leading podcast consumption platform, surpassing Apple Podcasts and Spotify last year.

With so many consumers spending such increased time on the platform, YouTube is naturally seizing the opportunity to establish an audience willing to wait an extra 10 seconds for its beloved content. Perhaps it’s a tactic employed in an effort to beat revenue forecasts? In Q4 2023, Google reported an 11% lift in YoY advertising revenue, while YouTube fell just short of it’s forecast of $9.21B — coming in at $9.2B.

Aside from generating more revenue, YouTube can leverage this tactic to strengthen its position in contextual targeting. And it’d be smart to do so what with the cookie-related industry shifts, which affect an advertiser’s ability to obtain data and user demographic information. With this becoming the new normal, Arm Candy predicts a revitalization in contextual targeting, and with its projected 800M+ hours of content, we’d say YouTube provides the holy grail in that arena.

YouTube is more than mobile

With an estimated 150 million users to stream YouTube content on a Connected TV device in 2024, don’t count the channel out as a CTV powerhouse. Interestingly, we’re seeing more consumers spend time each day watching YouTube in CTV formats than on mobile or desktop. Advertisers can use this to their advantage: bigger screens mean bigger impact, and this provides an affordable way to invade the CTV environment over any of the premium streaming providers like Hulu or Prime Video Ads. This is also outside Google’s powerhouse, YouTube TV, which is the nation’s top live streaming TV platform holding 42% of the market share.

Overall, its a positive move for advertisers

For an advertiser, these changes to the YouTube landscape present a great opportunity to retool your strategy and capture a wide range of audiences through a very expansive and diverse platform.

30-second unskippable ads may cause some frustration for users used to the classic two skippable 15-second ads or a 5 second unskippable ad, but also it allows advertisers to get creative in their assets and testing. Longer ads lead to better brand retention and a better platform to deliver more meaningful content. I couldn’t tell you the last time I really remembered a 5-seconder or the first few seconds of the 15-second ad – honestly, I was too busy hovering my finger over the skip button. Now I guess I’ll just have to be exposed to all the things I never knew I needed but usually end up loving. Go figure, right?