The Most Recent YouTube Scandal Explained -- Digital Ad Fraud Short by FouAnalytics

The latest YouTube scandal that has been extensively covered by the media in recent weeks was precipitated by a 200 page report from an independent researcher Khristof Franachek, founder of Adalytics. The detailed report showed many screen shots, code snippets, and lists of affected advertisers. All told, some eleven hundred advertisers over the course of the last three years paid for ads that were MISrepresented as TrueView ads.

Google's proprietary ad format called TrueView ads are, in theory, a highly efficient way of buying video ads, where advertisers only pay for ad views that users DON'T skip. Most people are familiar with this format when watching videos on YouTube. Before the video they want to watch runs, an ad appears, along with a black button that says "Skip Ad." Some people skip the ads; these impressions are not paid for by the advertiser.

The main issue that was uncovered and documented by the Adalytics research was that billions of video ads ran out-stream, off-page, muted, auto-played, and non-skippable, but were sold as if they were TrueView ads. The advertiser thought they were paying for TrueView ads that were visible, audible, and not-skipped; but they didn't get this. Instead, the vast majority of the ads that ran on video partner sites and mobile apps did not meet Google's own definition of what a valid TrueView ad should be.

Despite the extensive evidence presented by Adalytics, Google's blog post attempted to misdirect readers -- for example, by claiming 1) "most campaigns run on YouTube" and 2) "advertisers can see what portion of their ads ran OFF of YouTube on GVP, the video partners network." While the first statement IS true -- that all campaigns run ads ON YouTube and OFF YouTube -- far MORE ad impressions were run in non-compliant ways outside of YouTube. Further, even though advertisers can see what ratio of ads ran outside of YouTube, the issue is that they can't easily opt out of GVP, to avoid all the problems documented by the research.

Google also attempted to hide behind what they called "independent, third party" verification vendors like DoubleVerify and IAS. This is a lie, because none of the outside vendors independently measured anything. They were given data by Google through Ads Data Hub (ADH) and quote, "performed calculations" and quote, "provided reporting" on viewability, audibility, and IVT ("invalid traffic"). They did not measure anything with a javascript tag to collect data on YouTube or on the outside sites and apps. No one would consider this "independent, third party verification."

The best way for advertisers to avoid the majority of the issues around ads misrepresented and sold as TrueView ads is to turn off GVP - video partner sites and mobile apps. This forces all of the ads to run on YouTube itself. Most of the ads that run on YouTube are valid TrueView ads, that advertisers pay a premium for. This helps avoid 90% of the fraudulent impressions; but that also means the quantities of viewed ads will be far smaller. Advertisers should realize that the massive quantities of ads they were previously paying for were useless anyway, because they ran on sites and apps that no humans had ever heard of, ran muted, auto-played, and off-page -- i.e. not viewable. Turn off GVP. If you can't find that in the campaign set up, ask your Google rep to help you turn it off. Note that you will be lied to even more by those reps, in their desperate attempt to prevent you from saving money (and reducing Google's revenues and profits).

What will YOU do, now that you understand the issue at hand?