Google has promised advertising on quality sites and ads that require commitment. In reality, 80 percent of ads have ended up on sites that do not promise.
The damage caused to advertisers is estimated to be around 18.3 billion euros. Dmitry Melnikov / Alamy Stock Photo
Google has violated its advertising policies for its video ads on third-party websites. It turns out American From Adalytics research.
Some third parties do not live up to the company’s quality promises. Customers are promised that ads will be shown on high-quality pages, require viewing with sound and require commitment.
In the investigation, it was noticed that the company in a large number of cases rotates advertisements on the side of the sites that are small, muted and are on continuous playback. Among other things, the websites may have shared misleading information or distributed illegal material.
According to the study, this applies to about 80 percent of Google ads displayed on third-party sites.
Advertisers are being pulled
One of the advertising services offered by Google is proportional to the number of times the ads are played. The service is called by name TrueView.
– TrueView ads were played as hidden video players on their own sites. There was little or no video content between the ads, the video players only played ads, the study states.
According to Adalytics, more than 1,100 advertisers have received billions of ad impressions during the years 2020 and 2023.
According to advertisers, about 90 euros are paid for every thousand impressions, if the service is of high quality. For lower-quality pages, the same amount is around 5 euros.
The money is demanded back
The American Federation of Advertisers estimates that the amount of damage is around 20 billion dollars (18.3 billion euros). Several advertisers are outraged by the results of the study and are demanding their money back.
– This breach of trust from YouTube is unacceptable. Google should fix this and compensate its customers for its false advertising practices, head of international media at UM Worldwide advertising agency Joshua Lowcock stated.
Lowcock was a speaker at last year’s Advertiser Week event in New York. AWNewYork/Shutterstock
TrueView-advertising services have been purchased by, for example, the European Parliament, the US government, Samsung, Disney+ and Mercedes-Benz.
Google has not disclosed how much advertising revenue they have received from third-party sites.
Google considers the claims inaccurate
Google claims to keep a strict line on the quality of third-party advertiser sites and periodically remove ads from various sites.
– The statements made are inaccurate and do not describe how we keep advertisers safe, the company said in its response to the investigation’s claims.
Google said it would take the necessary action once it got hold of the full investigation.
About that reported the Wall Street Journal.