Well, this isn't good. The Wall Street Journal reports that 4 out of 5 video ads placed by Google on third-party sites violate Google’s own promised standards, according to new research quoted by the Journal.
Google's YouTube runs ads on its own platform, but it also places video ads on external sites through its Google Video Partners program. The company charges a premium for this service, promising that ads will be placed on high-quality sites, before the page’s main video content, with sound on, and that brands will only pay for ads that are not skipped.
🚨 Placements Gone Wrong
Research from Adalytics found Google violates those standards 80% of the time. They say that while Google was charging advertisers for “premium” inventory, it was serving ads in small, muted, automatically-played videos off to the side of a page’s main content, on sites that don’t meet its monetization standards, among other violations.
Ad placements appeared on low-quality sites that trafficked misinformation, “clickbait” content, and potentially pirated material.
Some of the brands with these ads included:
- Johnson & Johnson
- Disney+
- Sephora
💸 Ad Budget Fallout
The study also found that more than half of the ad budget allocated by brands in Adalytics' sample was spent on non-YouTube properties.
Now, some say they want compensation for ads that ran in the wrong places and formats.
Google has disputed these claims and maintains it has strict policies for the program that serves video ads on third-party sites.
Images: Adalytics
