Youtube Ads are a VERY SMALL part of the total views of a video; an explanatory thread.

Youtube Ads are a VERY controversial element when it comes to the total views of music videos and the records these can break (and eventually set). A lot of people say that some artists have a high number of views because they use ads, but this may not be as true as they think.

We all know EVERY artist use ads to CALL THE ATTENTION OF THE PUBLIC, it's a normal thing in the music industry. However, if you're ALREADY SUBSCRIBED to an artist channel, it's pretty impossible you get an ad from them, because Youtube will filter your user.

Why would Youtube filter you and avoid you from getting an ad from a channel you're already subscribed to? Simple: it makes no sense to show you content from an artist you already follow when they can use show it to someone who's not subscribed to said channel.

Anyways, this DOES NOT MEAN YOU WILL NEVER GET AN AD FROM AN ARTIST YOU'RE ALREADY SUBSCRIBED TO, but the chances are WAY lower since ads are MAINLY aimed to show the content to people who might like it.

That said, I will now show you that these ads are a VERY SMALL part of the total views of a Youtube video (music videos, mainly, and I'll show you why ads affect MVs in a different way too).

I wanted to watch 'DDU-DU DDU-DU' by BLACKPINK, and this ad popped up. As you can see, it's an ad of Netflix's 'Stranger Things'. Netflix's ads pops up A LOT, before this one, I had one of 'El Hoyo'.

Now, since this is not the first time this specific ad plays before a video on Youtube, I was wondering how many views it has. Even more considering that Netflix plays A LOT of ads on Youtube. Maybe it has over 100M? No, that was too low, I bet it has over 200M, or even 300M.

How can you see the views of an ad? Well, it depends on the ad: some ads are public and can be found by just typing the title while others, on the other hand, are on the 'UNLISTED' category, which means only the ones who have the link can see the video.

However, you can still get the link and watch the ad's views. This is being done on a computer, so it may be different on a mobile device. All you have to do is right click on the video, and select 'STATISTICS' (my language is Spanish, that's why it says 'ESTADÍSTICAS')

After you do this, a little window will appear with some data of the video you want statistics (in this case, the ad). Among that data we can see the video ID (again, of the ad). It's the very first element we see. I underlined it in red.

That ID code is a mixture of numbers and letters in upper case and lower case. Turns out it's the last part of every single youtube video link. All you have to do is select that ID and copy it (use CTRL + C to copy it) and form the link. I will do it in a new tab.

I replaced the video ID of 'DDU-DU DDU-DU' to make sure I have no mistakes on the part of the " http://youtube.com/watch?v= ". Then I enter to the video and...

The 'Stranger Things' video. The same of the ad, but it's not the ad. As you can see, there's nothing yellow around it, those things that indicates us that we are watching an ad. Let's check the views now.

The views are currently standing at 25M, almost 26M. That's pretty low considering the video/ad was uploaded on January 20 and that it appears multiple times to MILLION of youtube users everyday since that day. In conclussion: ads are a VERY SMALL PART of the total views.

Now, as you can see in the last pic, I marked another thing of the video. There's a chain and it says "UNLISTED". People who upload youtube videos know what that is: it means that only the people who have the link can access to the video, it's somehow a "not-so-private" video.

What does this mean? It means that, if the video was never in the "public" category, EVERY SINGLE VIEW IT HAS ARE FROM ADS. What can we conclude from this? Well, firstly: the first 5 seconds of the ad probably won't count as a view, it should have over 100M if that was the case.

Second: Artists that play their videos as ads DO NOT OWE THEIR HIGH VIEWS TO THEM. It's logic:
> Netflix play ads on Youtube MULTIPLE TIMES EVERYDAY to MILLION of useres and the views of a WELL-KNOWN-SHOW are barely reaching 25M FROM ADS ALONE. The ones from 'El Hoyo' were at 11M

> Artists, on the other hand, BARELY play their MVs as ads, and if they do, they usually stop after a few days after release.

Do the math: if an ad that is playing EVERYDAY TO MILLION OF USERS SINCE JANUARY only has 25M views, how could an ad from an artist have more than that?

I think I didn't miss anything (if I did, I will add it). You can check everything I showed you BY YOURSELF since I made some kind of "tutorial". I hope this helps people to stop spreading fake information.

END OF THREAD.