Dive Brief:
- According to analytics firm OpenSlate, over the last year ad supported channels on YouTube have increased a whopping 471%, from 146,755 to 837,738 in the U.S.
- The issue for marketers and YouTube is there are more video ad options available – Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat have all become active video ad players – and the sheer volume of YouTube channels makes it tougher for advertisers seeking an audience on the Google-owned video platform.
- The news from OpenSlate comes less than a week before YouTube launches its new ad-free subscription service, YouTube Red.
Dive Insight:
Speaking on what he called a precipitous change in ad buying on YouTube, OpenSlate CEO Mike Henry told the Wall Street Journal, “Enabling any YouTube account to receive pre-roll ads and revenue has never been easier. It’s just a few clicks. It lowers the bar to who gets supported. This is great for creators and helpful for YouTube’s growth. For advertisers, it’s an opportunity to spend more media more effectively, but at the same time, it presents a much more complicated contextual landscape to navigate.”
Even though the video ad landscape is more crowded on YouTube itself, and via competition from other social media platform like Facebook and Twitter, all video ad news isn’t bad for YouTube. It has reported that its 100 advertisers increased 60% in Q2 this year compared to 2014.
Of course, YouTube users can avoid ads altogether beginning next week with the launch of YouTube Red, a $9.99 monthly service that offers YouTube’s video library ad free as well as some additional benefits such as original content only offered to Red users and subscription to Google Play Music.
The news comes the same week that Alphabet Inc, Google's new parent holding company, reported stronger-than-expected earnings on strong mobile, video and programmatic ad growth.
