YouTube may introduce ‘ad pods’: two ads stacked back to back

YouTube is perhaps the most popular website on the Internet next to Google, the giant video streaming platform boasts of having the most watched time on a streaming platform. However, a feature that is least liked on YouTube is those forceful ads that plague the audience’s video streaming experience and it becomes even more annoying when the viewer is binge-watching on YouTube. However, things are about to change, for the better.

On Thursday, YouTube announced a new “ad pod” delivery experience which will show two skippable pre-roll or mid-roll ads – one after the other. The feature is currently being tested only for the Desktop version, however, ad pods are expected to roll out soon for smartphones and TV screens. These ad pods will create an ad experience that is similar to a TV. The viewer will have the option to skip directly to the content if they do not want to watch the ads in their entirety. YouTube in a blog post announced this and further explained the reason for this decision. According to YouTube’s research, the reason why this change makes more sense is less ad-rate leads to better user metrics meaning when a user sees two ads in a break, they are less likely to be interrupted by an ad later thereby including lower rates of content abandonment and higher rates of ad viewing. Statistically, these viewers will be interrupted by 40% less by ads in a single session. This change has been made while keeping the audience and the advertiser both in mind.

Some statistics

• Ad pods will only be delivered to specific videos i.e. they’ll only be delivered based on the length of the video
• According to YouTube’s Data analytics viewers experienced up to 40% fewer interruptions when two ads were played in a single break as opposed to being spread throughout the video
• Experiments also showed that there was a 5 to 10% increase in the frequency for advertisers