Prepare for YouTube's unskippable Bumper ads on your phone

In the last several years, more and more people have started watching videos on their phones. While the screens are much smaller than your TV or computer, it's much more convenient to pull out your phone and watch something, wherever you are. Unfortunately for mobile YouTube viewers, you're going to start running into unskippable ads a lot more on the platform.

Today, Google posted an AdWords blog post where they outlined their plan for unskippable "Bumper ads", which they think are the perfect answer to advertising on mobile devices. The ads are short – just six seconds long, and will be sold through the AdWords auction on a CPM basis.

"We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads – and we're excited to see what the creative community will do with them," said AdWords Project Manager Zach Lupei. The company has already started testing them, in conjunction with Atlantic Records. These Bumper ads were apparently quite successful, especially when used in conjunction with full-length ads.

Google is still testing out the Bumper Ads, but starting next month, you can expect to start seeing them rather frequently. Users might not enjoy unskippable ads, but 6 seconds isn't terrible, and you're still helping bring revenue to the creators of the content that you're watching.

Source: Adwords Blog