Youtube is eliminating ad formats – wants to be less annoying

out with the old.

Do you like how overlay ads look on YouTube? So sad for you. Youtube now says they are getting rid of overlay ads as of April 6th.

What we are talking about are the ads that appear on top of the YouTube clip and thus partially obscure the content. At least in the desktop version, which is the only place where the ad format has remained. From now on, YouTube will only show ad formats before, during and after a video. The ads in the middle of the clips will be interrupts and not ads placed over the content.

According to Youtube, the reason is that the format “disrupts the viewing experience”, but in a Youtube blog post about the change, we may have found the real reason. YouTube will convert engagement into better performing ad formats.

In other words: the ads that appear on top of the video don’t work well. Probably a lot because it is only available on the computer version of Youtube, while most of the viewing takes place, of course, on mobile.

YouTube has struggled a bit with ad revenue over the past year, so it’s not too surprising that the service is now focusing more on getting advertisers to buy the formats Google is already making money on.