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YouTube experimenting with server-side ad injection

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Re: YouTube experimenting with server-side ad injection

#3

Post by bentcorner »

I'm honestly surprised it took this long for them to do this. Knowing nothing about how ad delivery/networks work (or ad blockers, for that matter) my guess is that something fundamental with how they are delivered (e.g., 3rd party domain for tracking?) also made them detectable via extensions? Makes me wonder how they are solving the problem now.

Twitch seems to do a good job of staying ahead of extensions.

Re: YouTube experimenting with server-side ad injection

#6

Post by soared »

Youtube ads have been on an impressively consistent path of aggression. Chromecasting went from no ads as recently as a couple years ago to 30+ second unskippable ads to. The revenue firehose I’m sure is incredible though. I run some online video campaigns for work (~$300k/mo) that compete with YouTube for budget and they have incredible performance stats… as indicated by GA4.

Re: YouTube experimenting with server-side ad injection

#8

Post by soared »

bentcorner wrote: post #3

I'm honestly surprised it took this long for them to do this. Knowing nothing about how ad delivery/networks work (or ad blockers, for that matter) my guess is that something fundamental with how they are delivered (e.g., 3rd party domain for tracking?) also made them detectable via extensions? Makes me wonder how they are solving the problem now. Twitch seems to do a good job of staying ahead of extensions.

I wonder if this is related to 3rd party cookies going away and needing better ad tracking than what is available in the browser. Absolute scam to neuter competitors and then rebuild something better server side.

Re: YouTube experimenting with server-side ad injection

#9

Post by bastawhiz »

soared wrote: post #6

Youtube ads have been on an impressively consistent path of aggression. Chromecasting went from no ads as recently as a couple years ago to 30+ second unskippable ads to. The revenue firehose I’m sure is incredible though. I run some online video campaigns for work (~$300k/mo) that compete with YouTube for budget and they have incredible performance stats… as indicated by GA4.

Chromecast got ads in ~2015. I was keenly aware of this because paying for YouTube premium didn't get rid of ads on Chromecast (yet).
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