If you are currently running pay per click ads on YouTube, you should be aware that Google is reportedly launching a brand new YouTube Music Key subscription service – and the features include an ad-free YouTube, and it is free to trial for the first 90 days.
There are many advertisers who are running successful ad campaigns on YouTube – as text ads, image/Flash ads, video pre-roll ads and as advertised videos in the YouTube search results. And if a certain percentage of YouTube is essentially ad-free, especially targeting higher-income market areas who are more likely to subscribe to a subscription service, it will suddenly make it harder to reach that audience, particularly with video ads.
YouTube Music Key will reportedly cost $9.99 per month, with a 30 day free trial. It is believed the service is for both YouTube as well as for Google Play Music, which already offers a similar $9.99 per month Play Music All Access service. In addition to being ad-free, it also includes offline and audio-only modes.
With Google offering users a free month trial, it is likely that there will be many users trying out the new service. This will have a huge impact on advertisers who run campaigns on YouTube when suddenly a lot of those page views no longer have ads showing – think of it as being AdBlock on steroids, depending on the number of users who sign up to test it out.
It is unclear if this will only affect advertisers who are targeting viewers in the United States, or if they are planning to offer this world wide. With licensing issues, and because this is rolled in with Google Play, it is likely to be a US-only service, with perhaps a few other countries in there if they are able to work around the legalities of the service for the launch.
It is definitely a slippery slope when Google starts offering any of their services as an ad-free version, even if it is for a subscription fee.You also have to wonder if people will push for YouTube Music Key subscriptions to include an entirely ad-free Google product environment. But with the huge amount of revenue Google earns from ads on Google Search, it should be one that they don’t pursue. But still, advertisers are their bread and butter, and many won’t be happy with this ad-free change on a huge site that advertisers run ads on.
It will be interesting to see how this service – especially for the initial month when people are trialing it – will affect those who run extensive ad campaigns on YouTube – especially if they are unable to get some of that traffic back elsewhere.
Jennifer Slegg
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[…] August, the first rumors hit about Google offering an ad-free subscription for YouTube which would allow users to watch unlimited videos without having to watch any pre-roll advertising […]