YouTube overlay ads going mainstream

Now even small advertisers can employ Invideo overlay ads that appear at bottom of video

Google, in an ongoing effort to transform the number one video site on the Web into a profit powerhouse, introduced Tuesday afternoon a new way for small advertisers to take advantage of the effectiveness of the Invideo overlay ad.

Display Ad Builder, a Google ad construction platform used by over 20,000 advertisers, allows companies with little to no experience to quickly and easily edit templates and fonts to create display ads. That's why over 80% of those 20,000 have never run a display ad campaign before.

Now, Display Ad Builder includes all the tools necessary to construct overlay ads, those little banners that appear on the bottom of a video, have for awhile been one of the most effective ad formats on many video sites, including YouTube.

"With this new format, Display Ad Builder will enable more advertisers to run display advertising campaigns on YouTube," writes Product Manager Christian Oestlien. "For example, if you’re a small business that sells beauty products, you can quickly use a template in Display Ad Builder in AdWords to create an overlay ad and then run it on popular fashion and beauty videos."

Advertisers can choose to run the ads they build on a CPC (Cost Per Click) or CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) basis and have a lot of control over which videos show their ads; advertisers can choose the videos categorically, demographically, or even individually.

Since last October, YouTube has showed ads in one billion videos a week, or one in seven videos. The site is well on its way to incorporating advertising in all the site's videos, a move that would entice even more advertisers of all sizes.

It would be interesting to see if spikes in advertising negatively affect viewership on the site.