It’s been quite a few years since we suspected that ads were coming to the pause screen of any YouTube video. Around 18 months ago, Google revealed that they’ve been working on something similar.
Now, YouTube has confirmed that advertisers can broadly target your paused screen time. “As we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response, we’ve since widely rolled out Pause ads to all advertisers,” YouTube comms manager Oluwa Falodun confirms to The Verge.
YouTube started testing pause screen ads in 2023 with limited advertisers. Philipp Schindler revealed that these ads were a bit hit among top ad firms and even lucrative for Google.
Last week Reddit complained about the pause screen ads showing on YouTube TV app.
Now, the company is rolling out a similar feature broadly to more YouTube users. Users have started seeing pause screen ads on the web and mobile versions of the platform as well.
Here are a couple of Reddit posts you can check out to see pause screen ads.
WHY DOES AN AD POP UP EVERY TIME I PAUSE
byu/Jeter_3000 inyoutube
Ads show up when you pause now?
byu/megaoscar900 inyoutube
The video-sharing platform says that the pause screen ads are a less interruptive experience for users. However, they haven’t said anything about the frequency of normal ads to be reduced.
YouTube has been experimenting with the new ad formats on the platform. They’ve introduced non-skippable ads in 2023.
YouTube is now following in the footsteps of Hulu and AT&T in adding pause screen ads.
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