Google has broken its own guidelines by placing video ads on other websites, according to new research published exclusively by the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper raises new questions about transparency in the tech giant’s online advertising business.
YouTube, a platform owned by Google, publishes ads on its own website and in its application. The search engine also manages the insertion of video ads on other websites through a program called Google Video Partners.
For this service, Google charges a premium, promising that ads will be served on high-quality sites. That is, before or during the videos and with the audio always activated. In addition, it promises that brands will only pay for ads that users do not skip.
However, according to Adalytics, a company that helps brands analyze where their ads appear on the internet, Google breaks these rules 80% of the time. The company has accused the tech giant of placing ads on low-profile, muted or auto-playing videos, as well as on sites that don’t meet Google’s monetization standards, among other violations.
Adalytics has reached these conclusions after analyzing the YouTube campaigns of more than 1,100 brands that obtained billions of ad impressions between 2020 and 2023.
In response to this report, Google has assured in a statement that the document “makes many claims that are inaccurate.” The company has defended that it has strict policies for the system that serves video ads on third-party websites.
“As part of our brand safety efforts, we regularly remove ads from partner sites that violate our policies and will take appropriate action once the full report is shared with us,” the company said in the same statement.
Some ad buyers have reviewed the research and are now asking Google for their money back. “This is an unacceptable breach of trust by YouTube,” lamented Joshua Lowcock, global media director at advertising agency UM Worldwide. “Google needs to fix this and fully reimburse customers for any fraud and impressions that didn’t follow their own policies,” he concluded.
According to Adalytics, among the top brands whose video ads on Google did not meet the promised standards are Johnson
These breaches have also affected announcements from public bodies, such as Medicare, the United States Army, the Social Security Administration, or the New York City government.
According to Insider Intelligence, YouTube accounts for 8.3% of digital video ad spending in the United States.
