YouTube has become one of the most popular and engaging platforms. Not only for sharing videos and feedback, it is also frequently used as a platform for advertisements. Gone are the days when you had to make appointments to advertise something on television and in the newspapers. 

Today’s online world is much more responsive and easy to use. This is all possible due to the various opportunities available. Let’s come to the main point; you must have seen ad videos from 15 seconds to a minute on different platforms, but we are eager to know how it works on YouTube. 

Running advertisements on YouTube is included in the YouTube promotion. This article will show how YouTube ads work and how you get the desired audience. We will try to describe every aspect with ease. So, let’s get started.

Does YouTube Ads Generate Revenues?

No one loves to watch unbearable ads in between your video. Suppose you are watching a song, and you suddenly experience getting a pop-up of an ad in between your song; how would you feel? 

We can guess how you would feel. Everyone wants to skip the ad, and most probably, many people do this too; a question can arise in your mind. How do YouTube ads generate revenues when a large population skips the ad?

Whether you believe it or not, YouTube ads are one of the highest and ever-growing income sources for creators and YouTube. YouTube and its parent company Google started the ad work in 2006, and since then, it has grown drastically.

According to the report, YouTube generates billions yearly through ads. YouTube generated more than $ 10 billion in 2021 through ads which is quite surprising and wonderful.

Many of you can also wonder whether YouTube generates revenues through shorts. As shorts are of a small duration, it is pretty impossible to run ads on them. The popularity of shorts might get lost if You tube started running ads on them.

Irrespective of this, shorts are also the income source for YouTube. With so many views, shorts are highly liked by the audience. There are many YouTubers whose channels got famous and came into the picture only because of shorts.

Having all the estimated reports and data, we can conclude that YouTube generates revenues in billions and more than this rough figure only through ads. As the popularity of YouTube is growing daily, we can assume it will generate more income in future than in the present.

What are the Different Kinds of Ads?

Before going to our main topic, we would like to tell you about different kinds of ads that run on YouTube. This section will help you to understand better as we will include the types of ads in the next section.

1. Skippable in-stream ads

As the name suggests, you can skip the skippable in-stream ads. These ads run before, in between, or after the video you watch. The ads are as long as 30 seconds, but the audience can skip the ad after 5 seconds. Meant for brand awareness and reach, it also works to generate leads and increase traffic.

2. Non-skippable in-stream ads

As the name suggests, unlike the skippable in-stream ads, you can not skip the non-skippable in-stream ads. These ads also run before, in between, or after the video you watch. The ads are just 15 seconds long, and the audience dost not get the option to skip the ad. These are also meant for brand awareness and reach.

3. In-feed video ads

Also known as the discovery ad, in-feed video ads appear on YouTube search results and next to related YouTube videos. These ads consist of a thumbnail of the image of your video with some text.

4. Bumper ads

Bumper ads are unskippable ads that run before, in between, or after a YouTube video. The ads are of a duration of 6 seconds or less than that. These ads are meant to deliver a message to a large audience.

5. Outstream ads

Outstream ads are the ads that begin playing with their sound off. You get the option of unmuting the video. Meant as mobile-only ads, these ads provide an efficient way to expand the reach of your videos to customers.

6. Masthead ads 

You must have seen a featured video of 30 seconds without sound at the top of the home page of YouTube. That is the masthead ad. These ads get available only on a reservation basis through Google sales representatives.

How Do YouTube Ads Work?

Let us come to the main topic; how do YouTube ads work? The journey of a YouTube ad starts from a skippable in-stream ad, also known as a Trueview in-stream ad. The audience must watch these ads, even if they do not want to, as they are unskippable.

Although the advertisers only have to pay for the video if the audience has watched at least 30 seconds of the ad, there is also another benefit for advertisers. They get free brand awareness and, with this, get more visitors to their sites.

In unskippable ads, the audience watches a good portion of the ad, even if they do not want to, and some percentage of them think to check the brand, product, or site, even for once. This, in turn, can make the visitors try the facilities the website offers.

Other than this, the call-to-action extensions added to the ad can also generate enormous traffic to the website of advertisers. The extensions are the direct way to reach the website. Even if the user skips the ad, these extensions are still visible on YouTube’s watch page; hence, the extensions can be used later on as well.

Conclusion

We hope that you have understood by now how YouTube ads work. Even though it does not sound and look like a direct source of income, advertisers, creators, and YouTube know the whole reality.

YouTube ads are in great demand now and will be a backbone of direct income in the future. If you are also running a YouTube channel, you must try YouTube ads once, and then you will see the magic.