Presumably fuelled at least partially by projections that desktops will be made obsolete by 2015 (due to cloud computing and the wide adoption of smartphones), YouTube is steeling itself to be a powerful force in the world of mobile advertising. They’re doing this by adding Banner Ads to YouTube Mobile. They’re essentially trying to lure advertisers to the promise of a young audience with access to disposable income (at least enough to spend a few hundred dollars on things like smartphones from time to time). This isn’t a brand new move for Google, YouTube’s parent company, as they purchased AdMob a year ago, and went live with AdWords on Android and iPhone, last year.

Personally, I have to wonder how effective these banners are going to be. Text links via AdWords are one thing, but I’m not sure that banners will be terribly effective on smaller screen, especially crammed around the preview of the video that brought the user to the page in the first place. Will they be sold on a CPM, basis? CPA? CPC? If they adopt the CPC model employed by AdWords, will there be a bidding system associated the keywords associated with certain videos? If so, will the cost of some of these keywords spiral out of control as they have with AdWords? I’m sure greater minds than mine are putting this whole thing together, but I’m really curious to see how it will turn out and if it’s really cost-effective for advertisers.

Last 5 posts by Jake

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