YouTube is removing legacy overlay ads from videos starting on April 6
YouTube has announced via a community post that it will be doing away with the "overlay ads" format on the platform in order to improve the viewer experience. The change will take place starting on April 6th, 2023.
As detailed on the post, "overlay ads" were often very disruptive to viewers as they were overlayed on top of the content, thus interfering or blocking parts of it. The company also explained that it expects this change to cause YouTube Creators very "limited impact" as these types of ads are now only seen on desktop browsers and has not been available on mobile for quite some time now. Additionally, it appears that these legacy ads didn't perform as well as other formats on desktop and mobile devices.
Sample overlay ad (YouTube)
Instead of "overlay ads," the company will be shifting towards other ad formats that are more viewer friendly, although no specifics were detailed on what they will consist of. It is possible that YouTube will simply follow the same formula it did on mobile, by using pre-, mid-, and post-roll ads instead, all of which can typically be skipped over.
Starting on April 6th, 2023, the “Overlay ads” ad format will no longer appear on YouTube to help improve the viewer experience and shift engagement to higher performing ad formats on desktop and mobile devices. Overlay ads are a legacy ad format that only served on desktop and are disruptive for viewers. We expect to see limited impact for most Creators as engagement shifts to other ad formats.
No action will be necessary from creators that are currently using these types of ads on their videos. The ads will simply just stop showing starting on April 6th and the option to use them will no longer be available on YouTube Studio. This change will most likely be noticed by users who watch videos on their desktop computers without the need to use questionable ad-blocking add-ons.
For convenience's sake, it makes sense for content creators to begin evaluating the content they currently have on the platform and whether they need to start replacing any legacy overlay ads with other ad formats already available on the platform. The company also confirmed via the same post that there are currently no changes planned to any of the other available ad formats.
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