Hi, welcome to another edition of YouTube Answers.
I'm Rick Silvestrini.
I help manage advertising here at YouTube, which is going to
be the topic of our conversation today.
We have seven questions from you and the first one is,
"YouTube is being taken over by advertisements and stuff.
Don't you think that's kind of pointless?"
Well, YouTube is an ever-growing platform.
We have 2 billion video views every day.
24 hours of video is upload every minute.
And it's advertising that supports all that activity.
Additionally, a lot of the money we receive from
advertising goes to the content partners who produce and upload
the videos you love to watch.
The more advertising revenue there is, the more our content
partners benefit, and the more videos they can make and
upload for you to enjoy.
Our second question, "What are the different ad formats?"
Well, there are four main types of ad formats on YouTube.
The first is homepage advertising, which are the
large banners and video ads that run across the top of
the YouTube homepage.
The second type are promoted videos that appear on the
right-hand side or across the top of the search results page.
It's very similar to Google AdWords advertising.
The third type are banner ads that run next to or across
the bottom of the specific videos that you're watching.
And finally, we have pre-roll ads, which are the 15 or 30
second videos that appear in the front or during a specific
video that you're watching.
Advertisers mix and match between the various formats
to reach their audience.
Our next question, "How do advertisers choose the channels
and videos they advertise on?" There's a couple of things
advertiser are looking for when they select where
to run their ads.
The first thing they often focus on is reaching a specific
audience, usually based on age or gender.
And they'll put their advertising into videos or
channels where they're more likely to find that
particular audience.
The second thing advertisers focus on is relevant topics.
So for example, a sports apparel manufacturer may decide
to run against basketball videos if they're launching a
new type of basketball shoe.
We offer a variety of tools that allow advertisers to pick
what works best for them.
Our next question's a little bit complicated.
"How does pre-roll revenue compare to standard revenue?"
Advertisers are willing to pay more for pre-roll advertising
than other forms of advertising because it provides a more
direct message to users.
And because advertisers are willing to pay more, those
content partners that run pre-roll advertising are likely
to make more money on a per view basis than
those that don't.
Our next question is a topic that many of you
were interested in.
"How can I make money on YouTube?" Well, the first step
to making money on YouTube is to become a YouTube partner.
For more information on how to become a partner check
out, youtube.com/partners.
I've always wanted to do that cool annotation
thing that pops up.
You'll have to fill out an application, and then we'll
review that application against a variety of factors.
How often you upload videos.
The type of content you produce.
The number of views your videos typically receive.
The number of subscribers you have, a whole bunch of things.
But once you are accepted as a YouTube partner, we'll run ads
against your content so that you can share in the revenue.
Another popular topic: "How can I advertise my videos on
YouTube?" One of the formats that we mentioned earlier was
promoted videos, which is a great way to do that.
We have a really good video that'll explain how
promoted videos works.
You can click that right here to watch that.
Or you can go to ads.youtube.com for more
information as well, and there's a link right here.
Finally, a common thread in your questions was that you
wanted more control of your ad experience and commented on
the overall quality of the ads that we showed you.
This is an area that's hugely important to us.
We constantly strive to provide you ads that are relevant and
interesting, and are working diligently to improve the
overall quality of the ad experience on YouTube.
I think that's all we have for today.
So to close, I hope this Q&A has been useful.
Stay tuned to the YouTube blog for information on the next
episode of YouTube Answers.
Thanks again.