YouTube announces skip video ads option for mobile

PanARMENIAN.Net - YouTube will soon give viewers the option to skip video ads they don’t like on mobile, just like they can on desktop, Mashable reports.

The Google unit on Wednesday, Aug 22 announced TrueView, a format it introduced in late 2010, is now available for mobile formats.

With TrueView, viewers can skip ads they don’t like after five seconds. YouTube believes such ads lead to better engagement since viewers only watch ads they like and advertisers only pay when someone chooses to watch the ad.

Such engagement also leads to a “buy one, get one free” scenario in which viewers stick around to watch other videos they like from the advertiser, Phil Farhi, group product manager, YouTube, wrote in a blog post.

YouTube also claims some advertisers have received a boost of 4% in their click-through-rates with TrueView.

The launch of TrueView comes after YouTube introduced Promoted Video ads and In-Stream ads to mobile last November. The former are suggested videos that are based on a viewer’s searches. The latter are 15-second preroll ads.

Like Facebook, Google is grappling with a consumer shift to mobile, which so far seems to be providing fewer opportunities for ad revenues than desktop. In its most recent quarter, which ended June 30, Google announced that its average cost-per-click fell 16% vs. the comparable quarter in 2011, Mashable says.