YouTube Ad Sizes & Guidelines

Shobu Filho

July 31, 2023

Table of Contents

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With more than 2 billion logged-in monthly users, YouTube comes out as the top platform for video content and the 2nd largest search engine in the world.

Both of these statistics make YouTube prime real estate for advertising. However, to get noticed among so many established businesses advertising their brands on this platform, you need to make sure you follow the best YouTube Ad guidelines and formats.

This YouTube Ad guide will, therefore, help ensure that the maximum amount of viewers notices your brand’s ad campaign. With YouTube ads, you can increase your brand awareness and gain new customers at an exponential rate.

YouTube Ad Guide

More than half of all the internet users in the world spend 3.7 hours daily watching videos. Additionally, experts estimate that in 2022, 82% of all the consumer internet traffic will be focused on online videos (a 15x increase when compared to 2017).

The following are a few more impressive YouTube statistics that were compiled by curated posts:

73% of YouTube users in the US are adults which, by the way, is higher than the number of users on Instagram or Facebook
70% of the videos viewers watch on YouTube are recommended by its algorithm
90% of all DIY-ers prefer watching how-to videos on YouTube

One important distinction when talking about YouTube ads is the difference between running display ads on YouTube versus video ads on YouTube. Of course, when most people think of YouTube, they think of it as a video platform and many advertisers want to run video ads on the platform; however, there is also a tremendous amount of display ad inventory available consisting of display banners and overlays that appear on top of a video or are scattered throughout the YouTube pages.

For the purposes of this post, we are going to focus on video ads only. Since this platform is bursting with opportunities for marketers, each business needs to understand the different YouTube Ad video formats, what types of campaign objectives they’re best suited for,and how the video specs differ for each. In this article, we will cover the following key video ad types:

Skippable in-stream ads
Non-skippable in-stream ads
Bumper ads
Video discovery ads

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The Basic Specs for All YouTube Video Ads are the Same

Unlike other platforms where you might upload images or videos in different sizes or aspect ratios for different ad types, all YouTube ads share the same basic specs since they have to be uploaded to YouTube in order to be used in an ad. You never upload a video into Google Ads to use it in a campaign; instead, you must link your Google Ads account to your YouTube account, and then provide a link to the uploaded YouTube video you want to use.

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Specs for Videos Uploaded to Your YouTube Account

Here are the basic specs for all videos uploaded on YouTube:

Aspect ratio: 16:9
This is the standard ratio for all YouTube videos but if users upload with different ratios (eg – 4:3, 1:1, etc.) then horizontal or vertical black bars will be automatically added to make the video fit the player.

Recommended dimensions: YouTube has seven recommended dimensions representing different resolutions with 720p and 1080p being best suited for professional HD quality videos:
240p: 426 x 240 (minimum resolution for YouTube),
360p: 640 x 360 (traditional website resolution),
480p: 854 x 480 (standard video resolution),
720p: 1280 x 720 (minimum resolution for HD),
1080p: 1920 x 1080 (maximum resolution for HD),
1440p: 2560 x 1440 (2k resolution), and
2160p: 3840 x 2160 (4k resolution).

Max file size (GB): 128GB
Max file size (Hours): 12 hours
Video file formats: MP4, .MOV, .MPEG4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, and WebM.
Recommended: MP4 is preferred due to its high-quality video and small file size. It should be encoded with H.264 video and AAC audio codecs

Visibility: Public or Unlisted
When you upload a video to YouTube you have to set its Visibility on your channel. The default setting is Public; however, when uploading videos that are intended to be used Only as ads, you may not want them showing up alongside regular video content on your channel or in searches.
By changing the Visibility setting to Unlisted, the video can still be used in your video ad campaigns BUT they will never show up anywhere else on YouTube.

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Now that we’ve provided the basic specs of any video that will be uploaded to your YouTube channel, let’s explore the differences between the video ad types available on Google Ads platform.

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Skippable in-stream ads

Skippable in-stream ads are the most widely used video ad format offered by Google. It can be used with almost any campaign objective: Sales, Lead gen, Website traffic, Brand awareness, and Product and brand consideration.

In-stream refers to where the videos are shown. These ads can be shown before, during, or after other videos play on YouTube or Google video partner websites.

The skippable part refers to how advertisers are charged. You pay on a cost-per-view basis (CPV) but are only charged when viewers watch at least 30 seconds of the video, the entire video (if it runs less than 30 seconds) or if they interact with the video such as click a link or call-to-action button that delivers them to your business’s landing page.

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YouTube Ad Specs for Skippable In-Stream Ads

The main decisions that need to be made related to your in-stream video ad, besides appropriate creative messaging, is the video length and any related creative assets that Google allows you to include:

Minimum video length: 12 seconds
Maximum video length: 3 minutes

Additional creative asset: Companion banner ad upload
Dimension: 300x60
File Format: JFG, GIF, PNG
File Size: 150 KB

Additional creative asset: Call-to-action (CTA) overlay is not an uploaded asset but rather it is created within the Google Ads platform
Headline: 15-character constraint
CTA button name: 10 characters

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Non-skippable in-stream ads

Non-skippable in-stream ads are most suitable for campaigns that want to drive brand or product awareness and consideration by ensuring that viewers are reached with your entire video ad message.

Similar to skippable in-stream, these video ads can be shown before, during, or after other videos play on YouTube or Google video partner websites.

Non-skippable means that viewers have to watch the entire ad before they can view the video they are actually waiting for. In this type of an ad, instead of paying on a CPV basis, the advertiser pays on a CPM basis, so you are bidding on and paying for impressions and not views.

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YouTube Ad Specs for Non-Skippable In-Stream Ads

Minimum video length: 7 seconds
Maximum video length: 15 seconds

Additional creative asset: Companion banner ad upload
Dimension: 300x60
File Format: JFG, GIF, PNG
File Size: 150 KB

Additional creative asset: Call-to-action (CTA) overlay is not an uploaded asset but rather it is created within the Google Ads platform
Headline: 15-character constraint
CTA button name: 10 characters

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Bumper Ads

Bumper ads are the third of our four primary ad types that run in-stream. They are best suited for brand and product awareness or consideration campaigns since they can deliver a short, memorable ad message to a broad user base.

The most distinguishing factor about bumper ads is that its length is limited to no longer than 6 seconds and users cannot skip seeing the video. Similar to non-skippable in-stream ads, the advertiser pays on a CPM basis, so you are bidding on and paying for impressions and not views.

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YouTube Ad Specs for Bumper Ads

The main decisions that need to be made related to your bumper video ad is ensuring that you convey a clear brand message in just 6 seconds, along with any related creative assets that Google includes:

Maximum video length: 6 seconds (recommended)

Additional creative asset: Companion banner ad upload
Dimension: 300x60
File Format: JFG, GIF, PNG
File Size: 150 KB

Additional creative asset: Call-to-action (CTA) overlay is not an uploaded asset but rather it is created within the Google Ads platform
Headline: 15-character constraint
CTA button name: 10 characters

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Video Discovery Ads

The video discovery ad is used to promote your videos by placing them within the YouTube search results and watch pages. Unlike in-stream ads, users cannot watch your video within the discovery ad unit itself. The ad consists of a thumbnail image and up to 3 lines of related text. If a user clicks on it, they are linked to the video’s YouTube watch or channel page where they can view it. In many ways, the discovery ad is more like a native display ad than a video ad.

From an objective perspective, the discovery ad is very different from the other video ads available on Google. While all of the other ad types are relatively short, in-stream videos intended to convey a marketing message and possibly drive a user to click through to a brand’s website, the discovery ad is actually promoting specific videos on Youtube itself.

Bumper ads, skippable and non-skippable in-stream video ads are all basically commercials. They are not a piece of content typical of what is posted on a brand’s Youtube channel. That’s why most brands will not even make their in-stream ads visible on their channel. They are only intended to be consumed as ads.

In contrast, discovery ads are promoting actual content that a brand has uploaded to their channel and which provides users a variety of useful information about their product or brand. Typical content that a brand may have on its channel which it would want to promote using discovery ads includes: testimonial videos, product tutorials, upcoming product news, among many others.

With discovery ads you bid and are charged on a CPV but since your video only starts playing if someone clicks your discovery ad and goes to the video watch page, in reality, the CPV for a discovery ad is really comparable to bidding on a cost-per-click (CPC.) You only get charged when someone clicks on your ad so that they can view your video.

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YouTube Ad Specs for Video Discovery Ads

Unlike in-stream video ads, the discovery ad spec relates to creating the native ad that will be served across YouTube to promote your video content:

Video thumbnail: Choose a single thumbnail image from 4 that are auto-generated
Headline: 25-characters constraint
Description 1: 35 characters
Description 2: 35 characters
Maximum video length: N/A
Since the ad just links to an existing YouTube video on your channel, its length has no impact