YouTube Now Featuring “Promoted Videos”

Perhaps the “third leg” of the new YouTube monetization stool, the site has introduced “promoted videos.” These ads are to YouTube video search results as Google paid search is to organic listings. AdAdge wrote about the new ads yesterday. This new ad unit joins “click to buy” and ads on full-length shows, which were also […]

Chat with SearchBot

Perhaps the “third leg” of the new YouTube monetization stool, the site has introduced “promoted videos.” These ads are to YouTube video search results as Google paid search is to organic listings. AdAdge wrote about the new ads yesterday. This new ad unit joins “click to buy” and ads on full-length shows, which were also introduced within the past week.

Here’s an example of the promoted videos (right column) on a search results page on YouTube:

Picture 28

In this case the search was “puppies” and only one of the ads is relevant. This is likely a function of a limited number advertisers at this point. Because promoted videos are fairly unobtrusive and consistent with the appearance of YouTube search results, they don’t impinge on the user experience. And while they could be quite effective for Google, the challenge will be to get enough coverage so that they’re relevant to queries and users click on them accordingly.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Greg Sterling
Contributor
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.