Youtube is a video-sharing social media platform that was created in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. It was then acquired by Google in 2006. The videos on YouTube are all user-based and are displayed through Adobe Flash and HTML5.
Over one billion unique users visit YouTube and over six billion hours of video are watched each month. It is localized in 61 countries and 80% of its traffic comes from outside of the United States. Mobile viewing accounts for much of the viewing time. With 40% of viewers globally watching on mobile devices.
YouTube is a user based sharing platform where users can upload, share, view, and subscribe to channels. Users or brands can upload video clips, television clips, music videos, commercials, blogs (Video blogging), and educational videos. It is an all around utilitarian video-sharing source.
YouTube has another component called TrueView Ads, which only charges advertisers when viewers watch allowing for advertisers to reach “highly engaged” viewers. TrueView connects with Google Adwords.
Display Advertisements:
These are the 300×250 Ad banners that are displayed throughout different areas on YouTube. When you watch a video on YouTube, the display advertisement appears on the right side of your screen.
In Video Advertisements:
These are overlay ads that appear on the bottom level of videos streamed on YouTube. InVideo ads usually appear within the first 15 seconds of the video being streamed and can be closed by viewers. The overlay ads will fade out and disappear by themselves if no actions are taken by the viewer.
TrueView:
TrueView advertisements are commonly used as in-stream ads’ that appear before or during videos being streamed on YouTube. When these ads appear, viewers have the choice to watch the entire video advertisement or skip it by choosing the option to do so. Viewers who prefer not to watch the ad, can press the skip button which appears after 5 seconds.
Non Skippable Ads:
These are also in-stream ads. Unlike the format mentioned above, these ads are not skippable. They usually appear as 15 seconds or longer. Non-skippable in-steam ads can show up before, during, or after the video being streamed on YouTube. Viewers must watch the entire advertisement in order to continue watching the video hosting these ads.
