YouTube’s new TrueView for Reach option makes bumper assets skippable

On Monday, Google’s YouTube introduced a new skippable option for short-form branding ads called TrueView for Reach.

TrueView for Reach is sold on a CPM basis, and just as with other TrueView ads, users can skip them after five seconds. Advertisers pay for TrueView in-stream ads after viewers watch 30 seconds, the video ends or viewers interact with the ads. With TrueView for Reach, ads can run anywhere from six to under 30 seconds. The ads are then “optimized for efficient reach,” said YouTube video ad Product Managers Ali Miller and Khushbu Rathi in the announcement. “TrueView for Reach brings our popular in-stream format built on user choice together with the simplicity of CPM buying.”

A YouTube spokesperson explained, “With TrueView for Reach, we’re responding to customers’ requests for ways to optimize their TrueView buys based on different campaign objectives. We now have three options, based on the scenarios our customers request most often: TrueView for Views (standard), TrueView for Action and TrueView for Reach. In all cases, ads can be skipped by the user after 5 seconds.”

YouTube paved the way for shorter branding ads with the launch of its unskippable six-second bumper ads, which have proved popular with advertisers. Google says a 2017 global study showed bumper ads drove an average Ad Recall of more than 20 percent. Now, advertisers with those six-second assets can opt to run them as bumper ads or as TrueView for reach ads.

Beta tester Samsung said it was able to reach over 50 percent more people at half the CPM using TrueView for Reach to promote a phone launch last spring. Pepsi France said it saw more competitive CPMs: “This ultimately drove lower average costs on incremental reach points: -46 percent versus TV on specific target audiences.”

Going after TV budgets, Google says a study conducted with Ipsos found that people are three times more likely to pay attention to online video ads compared to television ads. The online video ads were measured across platforms such as YouTube, Hulu, Facebook, Snapchat and full-episode players like NBC.com.

Last month, YouTube added custom intent audiences which leverage users’ search history and TrueView for action ads for performance advertisers that feature more prominent calls to action and remain persistent alongside the host video while it plays.

This article has been updated to clarify the criteria for TrueView in-stream ads.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media's Editor-in-Chief, managing day-to-day editorial operations across all of our publications. Ginny writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, she has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.