14 DAY TRIAL // Google is launching an interesting new ad unit that will incorporate promoted videos from YouTube. The fresh AdSense ad units will run along text and display ads and will compete with them in the automated ad auctions. Google already offers a form of video ads through its AdSense program but the new product won't replace them as the two are actually rather different.
“Promoted Videos are YouTube videos - from movie trailers to product demos to really almost any kind of video on YouTube - promoted by their creators so they can reach a wider audience. (You may have already noticed Promoted Videos on YouTube.com, as they appear on partner watch pages and alongside YouTube search results.),” Arlene Lee from the Inside AdSense team wrote.
“Extending Promoted Videos to AdSense sites will enable these content producers to broaden their reach, while providing you with another way to earn from your ad space. At this time, these ads are only available in English to US publishers, but we're looking forward to expanding to additional regions and languages in the future,” she added.
YouTube is the largest video site by a significant margin and is one of the most visited websites in the world so the Promoted Videos are already exposed to a large audience but extending the reach to Google's AdSense network significantly raises their potential reach. As with all ads in AdSense, the videos will be linked to the content on the site, which should make it more likely that the users will find something they are actually looking for or at least interested in.
The ads will earn websites revenue in a cost per click system and are available in several common formats like 300x250 Medium Rectangle, 336x280 Large Rectangle, 728x90 Leaderboard, 250x250 Square, and 200x200 Small Square. Still, those who don't want the new video ads to show up on their site can choose to disable them. For now, the ads are only available in the US and in English but other regions and languages will be rolled out in the future.