Why You’re Seeing More YouTube Ads on Your iPhone and How to Stop Them

Today, digital lives are completely integrated with YouTube. YouTube maintains more than 2.74 billion active users in 2024, who watch over 1 billion hours of videos daily. However, in recent years, iPhone users have started to notice more ads while browsing or streaming YouTube videos.

Several factors have caused YouTube advertisements to show up more often on your iPhone screen. The primary factors include:

• Increased monetization by creators
• YouTube’s push for more revenue
• Limitations of ad blockers on iOS
• Use of targeted and personalized ads

This article will discuss these reasons in more detail and provide actionable tips on how to reduce ads on YouTube, including with the help of YouTube ad blocker on iPhone and other methods.

Increased Monetization by Creators

YouTube ads have become more frequent on mobile devices because creators have intensified their efforts to generate income through their content.

YouTube allows video creators to make money from their content by placing ads through the YouTube Partner Program. YouTube creator revenue at the $10,000 threshold grew more than 40% annually throughout the year. YouTube channels that earn six figures through ad revenue now exceed 2 million in number.

YouTube’s creators are increasingly motivated to monetize as much as possible as the site gets more lucrative for them. YouTube makes more money with the increased number of video advertisements. Even if you are a subscriber and loyal viewer of a creator, you can still see pre-roll, mid-roll or display ads on their iPhone videos.

YouTube’s Push for More Revenue

YouTube owner Google has been pushing for higher revenue from the platform, which is contributing to more ads, too.

While YouTube has over $2 billion monthly active users, it hasn’t been a huge direct revenue driver for Google yet. Google is aiming to change this.

YouTube ad revenue is projected to be around $36 billion in 2025. But Google′s total ad revenue in 2024 was over $250 billion. So, there is plenty of room for YouTube ads to continue growing in the next few years.

Part of this involves showing users more ads, especially on mobile. Google knows that smartphones are where users spend most of their YouTube viewing time.

More ads per video mean higher revenues for both Google and video creators. But this comes at the cost of users having to view more ads, even within short videos.

Limitations of Ad Blockers on iOS

Unlike Android or desktop devices, putting ad blockers on iPhones is challenging due to Apple’s policies. This forces iPhone users to view all the ads that YouTube serves.

Apple has very strict guidelines on what third-party apps can access or modify on iOS devices. These policies restrict the functioning of ad blockers that are available for Safari or other browsers.

For example, most ad blockers on the App Store can only block ads within the app itself – not systemwide. So, the YouTube app still serves ads that cannot be blocked. Jailbreaking used to help, but not anymore on modern iOS versions.

This limitation forces iPhone users to view all YouTube ads, whether they like it or not. Some ad blockers claim to block YouTube ads on iOS, but most don’t work as advertised.

Use of Targeted and Personalized Ads

Modern digital advertising relies heavily on targeting users based on their interests, demographics, behavior and browsing history. YouTube uses this to serve personalized ads to each viewer.

The depth of data that Google has on users allows for the provision of granularly targeted ads. Coupled with Apple’s restrictions on ad blocking, this leads to iPhone users seeing more relevant ads on YouTube.

Data points used for targeting include:

• Videos you have watched on YouTube based on history
• Videos you have liked, disliked or added to playlists
• Your interactions with creators like subscriptions, shares etc
• Other sites you visit and ads you click on the web and in apps
• Demographic data like age, gender, location etc.

The upside for brands is that more effective ads result in higher ROI on YouTube. The downside for users is more ads that feel creepily targeted, even if they are relevant.

How to Reduce YouTube Ads on Your iPhone

While iPhone users can’t block YouTube ads totally, here are some legit ways to reduce the ads you see:

Use a Premium Account

The simplest way is to sign up for a YouTube Premium ($13.99 per month), a YouTube Music Premium ($10.99 per month) or LIte ($7.99) subscription.

Premium members get an ad-free viewing experience without video or display ads. You can sign up via iTunes on your iPhone. There is also a 1-month free trial to test it out.

Other perks include the ability to download videos, play videos in the background and access YouTube Originals shows.

Reset Advertising ID

Resetting your iOS Advertising Identifier clears the prior ad tracking associated with it. It also gives apps like YouTube a new set of data to target ads.

To reset:

Go to Settings > Privacy > Advertising > Reset Advertising Identifier

This will wipe your Ad ID and pause personalized ads for some time till tracking resumes. Do this once a month to see lesser-targeted ads.

Use YouTube in Safari

When you watch YouTube videos in the Safari browser instead of the app, the ads might be less on certain types of videos.

But Safari has limited YouTube features. You can’t sign in, comment, get recommendations or use PiP mode. Still, it may show fewer ads on music videos or short trailers.

Also, try experimental ad blockers like AdGuard that claim to function on Safari despite the restrictions.

Set Watch and Search History to Off

If you turn off watch history and search history in YouTube settings, it limits the data needed for personalized ad targeting.

To turn this off:

In-app > Account > Settings > History > Watch history OFF

In-app > Account > Settings > History > Search history OFF

Of course, this will impact your recommendations too. But it does reduce the inputs for targeted ad algorithms.

Use Google Account Controls

Visit adssettings.google.com on Safari to see ad topics based on inferred interests from your activity and demographics. You can turn off sensitive categories here.

Also, on your Google account, you can pause YouTube search and watch history. This will reduce YouTube’s understanding of your preferences, which will aid in ad targeting.

However, this requires you to sacrifice personalization, which helps YouTube serve you better recommendations and search results.

Send Feedback in the App

Within the YouTube app, go to account settings and click “Send feedback”. Here, you can share that you are seeing too many ads and would prefer fewer ads.

If many users give this feedback, YouTube may tweak its algorithms over time. But no guarantees here, of course.

Don’t Click on Ads You Don’t Like

When you click on YouTube ads on your iPhone and actually visit advertiser sites or install their apps, it signals relevancy to Google. This leads to more such ads.

By not clicking or engaging with certain ad types, their frequency may reduce over time. For example, if you never click on mobile game install ads, you may see fewer eventually.

Conclusion

YouTube ads on iPhone can feel interruptive, but creators rely on them, and Google wants higher revenues. Thankfully, users aren’t totally helpless in reducing the ads they see.

Trying solutions like Premium accounts, resetting Ad ID, using Safari, disabling histories and sending feedback can help mitigate ads. But most require some trade-offs on personalization and convenience.

At the same time, users must understand the role advertising plays in keeping YouTube free and funding creator incomes. But there certainly is scope for optimizing relevance while reducing excessive frequency.

The platform hopefully realizes that balancing user experience and monetization is key to continued growth over the next decade. However, if ads continue increasing, applying the tips in this article should provide some respite for iPhone users.