Video ads are everywhere. You can’t read a news article without closing, stopping, skipping (...or…<gasp>...viewing) an video ad. As video has become a more prevalent form of advertising, YouTube has found more placements for its videos - even placements outside of YouTube. Yes, that’s right. Just because you’ve created a video and made a video campaign within Google ads, that doesn’t mean your ad will only be showing on YouTube.com. Read on to find out where your ad could be placed.

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The big factor in ad placement will depend on what type of video ad you are running. There are currently seven different types of video ad campaigns that you can choose from in the Google Ads interface. These ad types are Skippable In-Stream, Non-Skippable In-Stream, In-Feed Video Ads, Bumper Ads, Outstream Ads and Accompanying Content, Masthead Ads, as well as most recently Google TV and Google TV Masthead.

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Skippable In-Stream Ads are the often used ads that give the user a chance to skip after 5 seconds. These ads can appear on YouTube watch pages and across websites & apps running on Google video partners. If you’re like me - upon first read - you’re wondering what Google Video Partners is. According to this support article: “Google video partners are high-quality publisher websites and mobile apps where you can show your video ads to viewers beyond YouTube. Video partner publishers are carefully vetted and must meet Google's inventory quality standards.” So - consider it search partners for video - except they aren’t other video sites, but rather - other websites on the Google Display Network that have placements for video.  

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Google Video Partners is a feature that is automatically opted in upon setup. For most YouTube campaign types, this isn’t a feature you can opt out of at this time.  You may notice Google has grayed out the button to uncheck it.

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Non-skippable in-stream ads and Bumper Ads serve similarly and appear on YouTube videos and across websites and apps running on Google video partners as well.

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In-Feed Video Ads are a bit of a different beast. That’s because they do not play before, or during a video, but rather show up as a thumbnail ad within YouTube. They can appear on YouTube search results, alongside related YouTube videos & on the YouTube mobile homepage. They also appear differently, depending on which placement they serve on. For example (taken from this support article): 

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Within YouTube Search results, they could look like this:

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On the YouTube watch page, they could look like this:

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They can also appear as a promoted video on the mobile search & watch pages.

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While all of these ad formats run both within and outside of YouTube, Outstream ads are a bit different. Just as their name suggests, Outstream ads only appear on websites and apps running on Google Video Partners (GVP). You will not see an Outstream Ad on YouTube, as they will only serve across the GVP. An outstream ad can appear within an app or within a page. Within an app, outstream ads can appear in both portrait and fullscreen modes. They start to play automatically on mute, but can be scrolled past or dismissed, if the user desires. Now, while I don’t have a list of Google’s current Video Partners lineup, I can say with some certainty that it probably consists of quite a few sites and you’ve most likely interacted with this ad format before.  The new “Accompanying Content” title Google has lumped together with Outstream Ads has very little information within the support article aside from that it can appear across websites and mobile web and apps.  The AI Overview from Google (which also told us it was ok to eat rocks) mentions that Accompanying Content is a video ad that plays within the stream of video content, but it’s not the main focus on the user’s visit - essentially a video ad within a video.

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Masthead Ads are a prominent [read: expensive] format that appears at the top of the YouTube Home Feed on desktop. They can also appear at the top of the YouTube app or m.youtube.com home feed on mobile or at the top of the YouTube app for TVs on TV Screens. 

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Lastly, we have the newest addition to the lineup, Google TV.  This one is so brand spanking new that Google labeled it with “new.”  From what I can tell from this article, Google TV is an app that is built into certain smart TVs and their network allows in-stream advertising across 125 channels.  It is currently available only in the United States and will be automatically applied to in-stream reach campaigns.

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In order to utilize this feature, you must select an “efficient” reach or “non-skippable” campaign subtype and the bidding is on a CPM basis:

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Ads across this platform will serve across a variety of placements, including these television channels.

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So, there you have it. Those are the current, available video ad formats we have available at this exact moment in time in the year of 2024. I hope this was helpful as you navigate YouTube Ads and how to be the most effective across this ad network.  

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