YouTube adds a ‘skip’ feature to pre-roll ads

YouTube has added a ‘skip’ button to selected pre-rolls in a bid to improve user experience and encourage brands to create better adverts.

The new feature forms part of the video sharing site’s new strategy to allow advertisers to only pay for the ads that users engage with and want to watch, according to reports.

“We want to learn who skips, which ads they skip, when do they get skipped, and how can we use that skip as a quality signal,” YouTube’s Phil Farhi said.  “We want to educate advertisers about what makes high-quality and engaging ads.”

The move suggests that the Google-owned site still isn’t happy with pre-roll advertising, a format that was introduced last year despite scepticism.  It claimed that users abandon video clips with pre-rolls at a rate of 50%.

YouTube has instead been pushing InVideo advertising, which is a semi-transparent overlay that appears while video clips are playing.  However, advertisers so far favour pre-rolls.