Home » Ad & Media Strategies » Google Ends AdSense for Video Units, Effective April 2009

Google Ends AdSense for Video Units, Effective April 2009

Otilia Otlacan | March 30, 2009

1.5 years – this is how long the Google AdSense Video Units survived before succumbing to lack of vision of where video monetization is going, how publishers would use YouTube videos, and what advertisers expect.

AdSense Video Units were launched October 2007, with quite some bang. The feature allowed English-language AdSense publishers to add video content from YouTube partners to their sites in a customizable player. The video would then display text overlay ads and a companion banner above the video.

It all came to an end on March 27, when an official announcement on the Google AdSense blog informed that:

“As you may know, we frequently review our products and features to ensure their effectiveness. After reviewing our AdSense video units feature, which allows you to show YouTube content and ads on your pages, we’ve found that it hasn’t had the impact we had hoped for. As a result, we’ve decided to retire this feature at the end of April so we can focus our resources on other opportunities to help publishers earn from their sites.

[...] please note that this change won’t affect the availability of other video-related ads options — video ads may appear in your AdSense for content ad units if you’ve opted into image ads, and AdSense for video is still accepting applications from eligible publishers who produce video content.”

Signing up for video units is no longer available to new publishers, and publishers who currently use video units are asked to remove them. Once video units are retired at the end of April, remaining video units in skyscrapers and leaderboards will direct to YouTube.com, while other ad slot sizes will automatically be changed to standard embedded YouTube players displaying top YouTube videos – without generating any revenue, though. Publishers are also advised to change their video units to standard ad units if they have less than 3 such units per page.

There’s no surprise in this announcement, I believe: what originally appeared to be a good idea, was poorly implemented and developed as a product, with little regard to the market conditions and usability. If anything, it’s a surprise that the video units weren’t retired earlier. The remaining question is “What’s next?” – my bet is on the AdSense for feeds product to make a more or less elegant exit.

Otilia is the founder and editor of AdOperationsOnline.com, launched in 2008. She currently provides online business consulting through her company, RightFit Media, and blogs about all things online at www.otiliaotlacan.com.

Otilia Otlacan

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