YouTube renames in-stream ad format to 'skippable ads' after claims it misled advertisers

Google has removed its ‘in-stream’ classification from the name of one of its video formats and has replaced it with ‘skippable ads’ throughout display and video 360.

In a blogpost, the company said that the change will not impact campaign creation and management workflow. Instead, it was made simply to more accurately describe the ad format. Display and Video 360 are now evolving how users optimise their campaign’s performance to use advancements in artificial intelligence, customisation and transparency, it said. 

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Now, to optimise the performance of campaigns using automation, users can opt for automated bid strategies, custom bidding, enhanced automation pool and optimised targeting.

This comes shortly after Google was put in the hot seat for misleading advertisers including Fortune 500 brands, the US federal government, and many small businesses with regards to its ad viewership. The news was brought to light by advertising research organisation Adalytics.

The misalignment came from Google’s proprietary TrueView skippable in-stream video ads which Adalytics estimated cost media buyers up to "billions of digital ad dollars", which were ultimately spent on "small, muted, out-stream, auto-playing or interstitial video ad units running on independent websites and mobile apps".

TrueView is Google's proprietary cost-per-view ad format that is displayed on YouTube, apps, and across the web. With TrueView, advertisers only pay when people actually view their ads rather than impressions. That said TrueView will ask users if they want to skip the video ad they are watching after five seconds.

Adalytics said that it found out that many advertisers who were paying for TrueView ads outside YouTube were not getting what they paid for and additionally, not getting consumer experience that meets Google's stated quality standards.

For its research, Adalytics reviewed ad campaigns of over 1,000 brands and found that many TrueView ads did not meet Google’s own guidelines. Some of these ads were run in small video players at the corner of the screen, some were muted, and some has no video content between ads which resulted in them running with little user interaction. 

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Google search ads are set to use generative AI to curate ads that are of increasing relevance to a user's queries as it adapts to the rapidly evolving ad industry. Google announced that it will begin implementing generative AI to enhance and adapt search ads based on the context of the query. This will build on Google’s existing search ad engine, which already has an established foundation with the execution of automatically created assets (ACA) for search ads a year ago.

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