YouTube Is Ending Full-Day Masthead Reservations In 2021—But Not Because Of Donald Trump

An upcoming policy change at YouTube will prevent full-day takeovers of the platform’s pricy masthead ad, which Donald Trump’s re-election campaign bought out for today.

YouTube confirmed to CNBC that in 2021, it will begin “retiring” time-based reservations for its Home page masthead. It informed advertisers about the upcoming change back in Q2 of this year, it added to Tubefilter.

The retiring builds on ad-sales mechanics YouTube introduced in 2019. For years, it sold the masthead solely on a fixed per-day basis, so advertisers who wanted it paid the set price (reportedly $400,000 in 2015; now as much as $2 million) to fill the spot for 24 hours. But in February 2019, it changed how the masthead was reserved—and priced.

Since then, mastheads have been sold like this: Each week, YouTube opens a seven-day block of masthead space. Advertisers bid on the space, not on a per-day basis, but on a per-impression basis. These bids determine the overall cost of the space for the week,

and marketers can then pay the new set price to run their ads for a specific number of impressions, or choose to reserve the masthead for specific periods of time, from just part of a day up to entire days.

2021’s change will make buying on a per-impression basis “our primary masthead reservation option,” YouTube told CNBC. THat means the masthead will not be held for any one advertiser for a set period of time. Instead, ads will rotate, so one user could refresh the page and see a different ad from a different marketer.

YouTube said that the update is not connected “in any way” to the election. “This change gives advertisers more budget flexibility and applies across all verticals—not just political advertisers,” it explained.

Trump’s Election Day takeover of the masthead is his campaign’s 20th of this election cycle. The ad displays five different spots: two that tout Trump’s supposed popularity with Black and Latino voters, and three criticizing his Democrat competitor Joe Biden.