YouTube’s monetization policy currently only allows for videos above 10 minutes to have ads cut through the middle. However, the video-sharing platform seeks to amend this and allow for videos with lower durations to have mid-roll ads.
For YouTubers who want to make YouTube an income-generating platform, the length of their videos needs to span at least 10 minutes minimum to allow ads to cut through certain timestamps of the videos. That means they have to fill their videos up with as much content as they can muster or stretch out available content, which might not always turn out well for the creators or those who follow their channels.
YouTube announced that it will revise its monetization policy. Videos 8 minutes and above will be eligible for mid-roll ads, as opposed to the old scheme of 10 minutes and above. This could impact the duration of many YouTube videos to come as shorter videos can now be monetized. However, YouTube will also be adding mid-roll ads into videos that are 8 minutes long – regardless of whether or not the creator intended for the video to have an ad. This is an effort to boost ad presence across YouTube.
YouTube may be doing this in response to its drop in advertising rates. OneZero reported that the advertising rates on YouTube have dropped by almost 50%, despite the increase in traffic into YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fewer advertisers mean that there is less money to go around and less money to distribute among YouTube content creators. The revised monetization feature aims to address this and allow YouTube and its creators to keep earning from the platform.
Implication for Marketers:
More ad spaces allow marketers to reach more people across the platform. YouTube has become an effective tool for marketing products and services, and it has a wide variety of audiences that it can reach. Marketers can use these ad spaces to beef up their marketing campaigns.
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