The table compares ten categories of YouTube advertisements in terms of their average length and the typical time viewers spend watching them.
Overall, longer advertisements tend to receive relatively lower engagement, whereas shorter ones are watched for a greater proportion of their total duration. Entertainment and news ads have by far the highest viewer retention, while public service ads are considerably longer than the rest.
Focusing first on the longer ads, most show a substantial drop in viewer retention. In particular, public service ads, despite averaging 66.7 seconds in length, are watched for only about 28 seconds. A similar pattern can be seen in technology and lifestyle categories, which last 39.3 and 33.7 seconds respectively, but are viewed for only 20.9 and 14.3 seconds. The only exception in this group is business and finance ads, which show relatively higher retention, with viewers watching 24.6 seconds out of a total of 35.1 seconds.
Shorter ads display noticeably higher engagement. Of these, entertainment and news ads stand out as the strongest performers, with the average viewer watching 26.5 seconds of a 30.8-second ad. Travel and retail ads also perform relatively well, as their respective viewing figures of 23.0 and 20.1 seconds fall short of their total lengths by only about 5-6 seconds. The shortest ads, namely those for consumer electronics, clothing and pharmaceuticals, also follow a broadly similar pattern, with viewers watching at least two-thirds of their total lengths, which range from around 22 to 25 seconds. Overall, YouTube ads last 38.1 seconds on average, and the typical viewer watches slightly over half of this length.