YouTube advertising formats

Starting in November, we're simplifying the choices for ad formats that show before or after your video to improve creator revenue. In November, we’re removing the individual ad choices for pre-roll, post-roll, skippable, and non-skippable ads. Going forward, when you turn on ads for new long-form videos, we'll show your viewers pre-roll, post-roll, skippable, or non-skippable ads when appropriate. This change makes the recommended best practice to turn on all ad formats, the standard for everyone. Your choices for mid-roll ads are not changing. We will also retain your ad settings for existing long-form videos, unless you change the monetization settings.

To help improve the viewer experience and optimize for higher performing ad formats across desktop and mobile devices, YouTube will no longer run overlay ads starting April 6, 2023. Overlay ads are a legacy ad format that appears on desktop only and we expect limited impact on earnings for most Creators as engagement shifts to other ad formats.

There are several types of ads that may appear during or next to your videos when you've turned on video monetization.

The table below reflects Watch Page ad formats you’ll see in YouTube Studio, including ads before (“pre”), during (“mid”), or after (“post”) the video.

Video ad format	Description	Platform	Spec
Skippable video ads	Skippable video ads allow viewers to skip ads after 5 seconds.	Computer, mobile devices, TV, and game consoles	Plays in video player (option to skip after 5 seconds).
Non-skippable video ads	Non-skippable video ads must be watched before a video can be viewed.	Computer, mobile devices, TV, and game consoles	Plays in video player. 15 or 20 seconds in length, depending on regional standards.
Bumper ads	Short, non-skippable video ads of up to 6 seconds that must be watched before a video can be viewed. Bumper ads are turned on when skippable or non-skippable ads are turned on.	Computer, mobile devices, TV, and game consoles	Plays in video player, up to 6 seconds long.

Learn more about managing mid-roll ad breaks in this article: Manage mid-roll ad breaks in long videos.

Update type of ads in bulk

You can set which ad formats appear on all or some of your videos at once.

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. In the left Menu, click Content.
3. Check the Select all box at the top to select all videos, then click Select all.
4. Click EditAd settings.
5. Check the box for Update type of ads, then choose which ad types you'd like.
6. Select Update videos to apply the new settings.

YouTube Shorts ads

Ads on Shorts are immediately swipeable video or image ads that appear between Shorts in the Shorts Feed. Learn more about how ads work on Shorts in our YouTube Shorts monetization policies.

Default ad settings

To set the default video ad types for your channel for new uploads, refer to this article in our Help Center: Set your default ad formats.

Ads outside the video player

Watch feed ads are ads that appear in the feed of recommended videos below the player on mobile and next to the player on computers. These types of ads cannot be controlled from within YouTube Studio.

Back-to-back ads

Also referred to as ad pods, two back-to-back video ads can occur when you turn on skippable or non-skippable ads on your long-form video (at least 5 minutes in length). Ad pods help reduce interruptions for viewers of longer videos, resulting in a better viewer experience.