🙄 Seriously, YouTube?

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YouTube ads aren’t more effective; the “skip” button’s just smaller and harder to press. Here’s what that means for influencers

SKIP

YouTube made its “skip ad” button smaller. Again.

The new look skip button seems designed to fool YouTube video viewers into accidentally tapping through to the ad instead of skipping it. (The button’s also more translucent than the previous design.)

UM

This design change raises several significant issues in our view:

It feels like a worse user experience. YouTube, like every platform, is here to keep users engaged/satisfied.

Making it more difficult than ever to skip ads because of a smaller and less visible button, sounds frustrating —not just because of the inconvenience, but also because feeling tricked into engaging with an ad unintentionally is irritating.

Inaccurate or misinterpreted ad performance. For advertisers, accurate engagement data is critical. If this lil’ button change means more accidental clicks, advertisers are going to see a (misleading) boost in their ad performance metrics. This superficial increase would obviously not be a signal of greater/genuine interest, nor more engagement from potential customers. This, in turn, would lead to skewed marketing data, and potentially misguided strategic decisions. (And online advertising is full of enough bots and online fraud as it is.)

Trust issues. Both users and advertisers rely on a level of trust with the platform. Users trust that they can control their viewing experience, and advertisers trust in the accuracy of the data they receive. Manipulating the ad-skipping feature could be seen as a breach of this trust, potentially harming YouTube's reputation with both users and advertisers.

Long term implications/user churn. If design changes like this one lead to a decrease in user satisfaction, that could mean bad news for YouTube. Annoyed users might simply visit less often. There are no shortage of other platforms for content. Equally important: advertisers might start questioning the efficacy of their ad spend on YouTube.

INFLUENCERS HAVE ENTERED THE CHAT

What makes this whole button thing interesting, in our view, is that it coincides with the increased professionalization of a newer —and perhaps better— type of advertising: influencer marketing.

A recent newsletter from Devin Reed, an accomplished B2B SaaS influencer, and the head of content at a sales software firm, caught my eye.

Devin observes that many B2B companies choose influencers for marketing deals based exclusively on their follower counts.

That’s a mistake.

Choosing influencers based on follower count is a rookie move because, as Devin puts it, being popular and being influential are NOT the same thing —and that's without getting “into click farms, engagement pods, or the fact that most “influencers” that regularly get 500+ reactions on their post can’t get 15 people to show up to an actual event, let alone buy anything…”

What Devin is looking for from influencers in his role as head of content is is the ability to build trust at scale. What that means is he's looking for influencers “who are respected, credible, and most importantly, can create a new conversation or sway an existing one with people I want to sell to.”

OK, WHAT’S THE POINT HERE?

Devin thinks that B2B influencer marketing is going to evolve from simple paid LinkedIn posts, into bigger brand deals, not unlike the NIL deals (name, image, likeness) deals that exist in big time American college sports. That means signing top-shelf influencers with non-compete contracts, just like shoe companies do for top athletes.

Ultimately, advertising is about trust.

But that trust needs to flow in all directions: consumers need to trust the messages they're being delivered, however advertisers also need to trust the platforms they are paying to display those messages.

Look for 2024 to bring more serious and robust influencer marketing deals between brands and trustworthy people of influence to the marketing landscape.

YouTube’s playing a silly game with this Skip Ads button redesign.

If their ad stats inch upwards thanks to a smaller and more translucent button, that doesn't feel like more trust. It just feels annoying.

And adland has plenty of that already.

More:

How Devin Reed is going to structure B2B Influencer deals »»

YouTube just made it harder to avoid ads with a tiny skip button »»

Written by Jon Kallus. Thanks for reading.

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