YouTube‘s pre-roll ads present a mathematical quandary to advertisers: allow viewers to skip their ad after five seconds while hoping that they’ll entice them to stick around longer with solid creative, or risk annoying them with an unskippable ad? YouTube’s new unskippable six-second “Bumper” ads add a new factor to that equation.
The new format is sold through Google’s AdWords on a CPM basis. In a blog post on the AdWords blog, video ad product manager Zach Lupei wrote that the format is “ideal for driving incremental reach and frequency, especially on mobile, where ‘snackable videos’ perform well.
“Given the succinct nature of the format, we’ve seen Bumper ads work best when combined with a TrueView or Google Preferred campaign.” Lupei wrote. “In early tests, Bumpers drove strong lift in upper funnel metrics like recall, awareness and consideration. We also see that Bumpers work well to drive incremental reach and frequency when paired with a TrueView campaign.”
The company is pointing to a few early adopters such as Atlantic records and Audi, which base campaigns on longer videos, but extend reach through shorter cuts of that material. Audi, for example, is currently running a 45-second TrueView ad (a format that can be made skippable or placed mid-video) with shorter four-second Bumpers supporting it.
Lupei positions the format as ideal for an increasingly mobile-first video market that prefers more control over content.
