14 DAY TRIAL // Surprisingly or not, YouTube's skippable ads have been one of the most interesting and the most profitable ad options on the site. The option to skip an ad you don't like means that you'll be a lot more interested in the ones you do watch.
Which means advertisers will pay more for those ad views while at the same time enabling YouTube to show more ads without annoying people too much.
It's no surprise then that the same video option is coming to the mobile space that is growing very fast.
People watching in the YouTube app, and eventually on the mobile site, will start seeing skippable ads more often. Early testing has shown the same positive results as the desktop version, YouTube says. The new ads will only show up in the Android app, for now.
"Today, most of us watch video on our smartphones and tablets, as well as our PCs - we watch videos when we’re out with friends, while waiting in line, or riding the bus home," Google wrote.
"We’ve rolled out a number of specific mobile ad formats on YouTube over the past year, making it easier for advertisers to reach people with great ads and content creators to monetize mobile views. Now we’re extending this further by launching TrueView in-stream video ads on mobile devices," it said.
TrueView is what Google calls its skippable ads. These ads are shown before videos, pre-roll ads, but after about five seconds users can choose to go straight to the video they wanted to see in the first place. If they like the ad though, they'll keep on watching. Google charges advertisers only for the people that watch beyond the skip point and it's able to charge more because of this.
"Giving viewers choice over ads they watch has led to a better, more engaged viewing experience, benefiting the entire YouTube community of users, advertisers, and content creators," Google explains.