YouTube Targets Music Fans with New Audio Ad Format

YouTube s announcing new ad products today, designed to help marketers reach YouTube visitors who are doing more listening than watching.

Audio ads are designed for videos where audience members may only be glancing at the screen occasionally, or might be ignoring the visuals altogether. To be clear, these ads won’t be audio-only, but YouTube says the audio should be doing most of the communication, while the visual side is limited to “a still image or simple animation.”

In addition to launching audio ads in beta, YouTube is also announcing dynamic music lineups, allowing marketers to target their campaigns at collections of music channels on YouTube. These lineups can be focused on a genre, such as Latin music or K-pop, or on an interest like fitness.