Amy Gesenhues says, “YouTube says people around the world are now consuming a billion hours of video content per day on the site. According to the announcement, the milestone was reached last year, but YouTube only shared the news yesterday. “If you were to sit and watch a billion hours of YouTube, it would take you over 100,000 years,” writes YouTube’s VP of engineering, Cristos Goodrow, on the Official YouTube Blog, offering a frame of reference for the billion-hour statistic. YouTube says its focus on time spent watching a video, versus video views, helps drive the number of hours... [...]

James McQuivey says, “Watch out, cable TV. Today YouTube shared it’s newest subscription service — YouTube TV — with a hundred or so journalists at a live event at the company’s headquarters. This is different from YouTube Red, the subscription version of YouTube enjoyed by at least 1.5 million people and focuses mostly on ad-free access to short-form videos along with a few exclusives. Instead, this new service is aimed squarely at pay TV. It does so by offering three things that cable TV has previously been best at: Live TV. YouTube announced deals with the major... [...]

Nikki Gilliland says, “In a bid to enhance the user experience, Google has announced that it will be removing 30 second unskippable adverts from YouTube at the end of 2017. While this decision might sound like bad news for advertisers – forcing them to win over consumers within a shorter time frame – it could in fact be a positive. Here are a few reasons why. Taking context into consideration YouTube’s 30 second ads have become a go-to option for brands, with many simply transferring their television ads online. However, this means that many fail to take into consideration... [...]

Patrick Kulp says, “Starting next year, you’ll no longer have to sit through a half-minute of advertising to watch a YouTube video. On Friday, the Google-owned video giant announced that it will no longer offer its 30-second pre-roll ad format without a “skip” button in 2018, Campaign first reported. It will, however, continue to show 15- and 20-second ads without the option to bypass them. “We’ve decided to … focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers,” a Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The change is part... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “YouTube has announced that it will no longer support 30-second video ads that users can’t skip, starting next year. “We’re committed to providing a better ads experience for users online. As part of that, we’ve decided to stop supporting 30-second unskippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. The change, first reported by Campaign, will not affect shorter ads, such as 20-second videos. Advertisers will continue to be able to set those units as unskippable on... [...]

Anna Shirley says, “A 2016 study by comScore showed that adults are 30 percent more likely to choose online video over TV when given a choice of where to watch video content. Many of us have been running TrueView campaigns on YouTube from within AdWords for a while, but how many of the newer or updated features are you taking advantage of? First, let’s take a step back in time and remember what TrueView was like back in the day: There was a separate interface for TrueView campaigns. Reporting options were pretty limited and very clunky to use. Optimization was limited, with very few bid... [...]

If you want to protect your business from computer outages and if you use YouTube to promote your business, then you may want to check into TubeSYNC, software that automatically backs up all your new YouTube videos. Every business needs to make sure its assets are safe. For a YouTube marketer, your videos are some of your most important assets. Backing them up is important because your rankings, your ads revenue, your free traffic and more are at stake. This cloud-based application lets you easily backup everything you upload to YouTube onto your Amazon S3 or Dropbox account you can have 100% control... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Google-owned YouTube made several announcements on Friday. The most immediate update is that Google account data can now be used for ad targeting and measurement across search and YouTube. The changes come as over 50 percent of YouTube views now happen on mobile. Google user account data now used for YouTube targeting A little over a year ago, Google folded the YouTube advertising interface into AdWords. Now it’s taking further steps to integrate targeting and measurement across search and video campaigns. Ads on YouTube will now be able to use data such as demographic... [...]

Rich Drees says, “With so many online sharing platforms available today and the rising costs of producing great content, it is essential to track your traffic to see which methods are getting the most results for your campaign. Tracking this gives you data to make informed decisions about which channels to focus your marketing efforts on, based on traffic and user engagement. For brands and business that use YouTube’s open platform, getting enough traction for your video marketing efforts can now be done through the use of UTM parameters. What are UTM parameters? UTM (Urchin Traffic Monitors)... [...]

YouTube is one of the most visited sites in the word. People from all over want to see the latest videos, to keep up with the news, to learn about their hobbies, to be entertained and more. The traffic it receives is almost beyond belief. That’s why savvy marketers are using YouTube to sell their products and services. Not all marketers are savvy, though, even some of the ones that are using YouTube. You want to be one of the savvy ones, not one of the hapless ones who, without the right forethought, upload a random video, hoping it will do them some good. Smart marketers find out which marketing... [...]