We’ve simplified the choices for ad formats that show before or after your video to improve creator revenue. We’ve removed the individual ad choices for pre-roll, post-roll, skippable, and non-skippable ads. Now, when you turn on ads for new long-form videos, we show your viewers pre-roll, post-roll, skippable, or non-skippable ads when appropriate. This change makes the recommended best practice to turn on all ad formats, the standard for everyone. Your choices for mid-roll ads haven’t changed. We’ve also retained your ad choices for existing long-form videos, unless you change the monetization settings.
Once you’re in the YouTube Partner Program, you can choose to have ads shown on your content and make money off those ads.
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Types of ads
You have options for the different types of ads you can include in your content. And these can show up before, during or after your live stream. Between all these choices, you have to decide what is the best option for you, your content, and your audience. Here are some questions that might help you choose:
| Study the specifications of various ad formats. | |
| Think about the viewer experience when trying to decide on an ad format. What is the least disruptive ad for your audience while watching the video? For example, it might be better to not have ads in the middle of a meditation or music video. | |
| Think about the kind of content. Will an overlay ad block your viewer’s screen while you’re showing an important step in a DIY video? Pay attention to what the video will look like in the player with ads. | |
| Ads can also be added at any point during a video’s lifetime. You can choose to have ads from when you stream or you can include the ads a couple of weeks after the stream has been published. This allows you to decide how many of your viewers interact with ads and the reach of the ads. |
Ads during your stream
- Pre-roll ads run automatically, and are viewable on both mobile and a computer.
- You can manually insert mid-roll ads during your live streams from your computer via Live Control Room in YouTube Studio. Mid-roll ads are viewable on both mobiles and computers.
- It is not guaranteed that all viewers will get an ad, and those who do not will continue to see your live stream. Viewers who do see the ad will rejoin the live stream once the ad ends, or if they decide to skip the ad.
Being brand safe
To increase the likelihood of having ads on your videos, they have to comply with some guidelines:
- If your video isn’t suitable for all audiences, it could be age restricted, making it ineligible for monetization.
- Videos that don’t comply with the advertiser-friendly content guidelines can get limited or no ads.
- Advertisers can choose to not run ads on content they deem misaligned with their brand.
What you can do
- Upon upload, if you feel your content doesn’t comply with our advertiser-friendly content guidelines, mark the video as not brand safe.
- Understand that videos that don’t meet our advertiser-friendly content guidelines may still live on YouTube. Keep in mind that those videos don’t make as much ad revenue as a fully monetizing video.
- If you received a yellow icon, appeal the decision if you feel the videos were marked in error and are suitable for most advertisers.
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