YouTube Expands Appeals To Cover Videos That Lost Revenue After The Adpocalypse

Earlier this year, YouTube‘s decision to respond to the so-called “adpocalypse” by implementing new safeguards for brands resulted in a perceived loss of revenue for many creators whose videos were deemed to not meet the guidelines for ad-friendly content.

Recently, YouTube has looked to allay the frustration of its creative community by giving them new tools to work with, and the video site has now taken a big step forward in that regard. It has announced that the monetization status of individual videos will now be clearly displayed by a series of icons in each creator’s Video Manager. In addition, videos that have been partially demonetized because of the post-adpocalypse safeguards will now be eligible for appeal if a creator believes his or her work has been inappropriately marked as unfriendly for advertisers.

Once the new icons are installed, creators who log into their Video Manager suites will see each of their uploads classified according to its monetization status. A video will a green dollar sign next to it will be fully open to ads, while a yellow dollar sign will indicate a video that has been partially demonetized because it either does not meet YouTube’s ad-friendly guidelines or has been indicated as inappropriate for certain advertisers. Of those two “yellow dollar sign” cases, the first has always included the option to appeal. For the second — the new class of video that came in after the adpocalypse — the ability to appeal is new, and creators will be able to launch those challenges directly from the Video Manager.

In either “yellow dollar sign” case, videos will still be able to earn money through YouTube Red viewership, which generates revenue via subscriptions rather than ads. Some uploads, however, will be marked by a dollar sign with a line through it. Those videos are the ones that are not eligible to earn any YouTube revenue due to a copyright strike, Content ID claim, or Community Guidelines strike.

For the creators who believe their videos have lost revenue after the adpocalypse even though they meet all of YouTube’s ad-friendly guidelines, the ability to appeal will be a powerful asset. “Creators have asked for a more detailed understanding of how well their individual videos are monetizing,” reads a statement offered by a YouTube spokesperson. “While we’ve always provided notification when a video is fully demonetized, today’s icon changes will help creators identify and appeal videos that are earning less money because they’ve been deemed by our systems as not being suitable for all advertisers.”

The decision to offer creators a new tool comes days after a study reported that brands are returning to YouTube’s Google Preferred advertising program months after participation declined due to the adpocalypse.

YouTube has not yet revealed when exactly this change will go live, but a blog post indicates that the new icons will show up in each creator’s Video Manager “over the next few weeks.”