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Google is in hot water again for its online advertising business. Research has found that the company violated its standards when distributing video ads on third-party websites. As many as 80 percent of its video ad placements reportedly don’t meet the promised standards.
Google violated its standards for placing video ads on external platforms
YouTube, the Google-owned video platform, is one of the most lucrative platforms for brands to run video ads. But the company also offers a program called Google Video Partners through which brands can place their video ads on other websites and apps. It promises to put ads on sites and apps run by high-quality publishers that are carefully vetted and meet Google’s quality standards. The company also promises to show ads before the main video content with the audio on. Moreover, brands will only pay for ads that users watch till the end without skipping.
But Google isn’t following through on its promises, research has found. Adalytics, a firm that helps brands optimize their ad placements for the best results, claims that the company violates its standards about 80 percent of the time. It often places ads in “small, muted, automatically-played videos off to the side of a page’s main content,” The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports citing findings by Adalytics. On top of this, many sites where Google shows video ads of its clients don’t meet the monetization standards defined for its Google Video Partners program.
According to the new report, Adalytics observed ad campaigns from more than 1,100 brands between 2020 and 2023 during this study. Those ads cumulatively got billions of impressions. The firm worked with various ad agencies and also analyzed data collected by companies that archive the web. Johnson & Johnson, American Express, Samsung, Sephora, Macy’s, Disney +, and WSJ are among the major brands whose ads weren’t placed according to the promised standards. Google also violated its standards for ads for government agencies, including Medicare and the US Army.
Advertisers feel cheated, but Google claims innocence
WSJ independently observed similar violations from Google but couldn’t ascertain the extent of the violations. Adalytics’ research, meanwhile, highlights the opaqueness of the digital ad business. It’s difficult for brands to track whether they are getting what they paid for. Unsurprisingly, many of them are disappointed and feel cheated. “This is an unacceptable breach of trust by YouTube,” said Joshua Lowcock, global chief media officer at ad agency UM Worldwide. “Google must fix this and fully refund clients for any fraud and impressions that failed to meet Google’s own policies.”
“I feel cheated,” said Giovanni Sollazzo, founder, chairman, and chief executive of digital-ad agency AIDEM. “What I requested to buy was not what I got. This should entitle me to a refund for invalid traffic.” Since the Google Video Partners program is an optional bundle that Google sells with YouTube ads, brands don’t even know what portion of their ad purchase is going off YouTube. At least, that’s what many ad buyers claim. The research report states that more than half of the budget that the affected brands paid for video ads went to third-party websites.
However, Google disagrees. A company spokesperson said that “the overwhelming majority of the video ads it sells are served on YouTube.” Moreover, “advertisers can clearly see that their ads might run on third-party sites, and how much is spent there, and can easily opt-out.” The company also refuted the allegations made by Adalytics. It said that many claims made in the research report are inaccurate and don’t “reflect how we keep advertisers safe.” Google plans to “take any appropriate actions” based on the full report. Time will tell whether this research leads to another courtroom fight for the tech giant.
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