Yesterday I wrote a post on AdAge on “How to Spot Fake Pre-Roll,” as we have noticed a trend of online publishers and networks packaging low quality ad units as pre-roll. The article goes into detail about what to look out for and what questions you should ask to verify your pre-roll buys.
Here are the highlights:
Pre-Roll Quality Categories
1. Gold Standard: Traditional Pre-Roll, as defined above
2. High Quality: Video ads that play in the middle of long form content (such as an ad between segments of House on Hulu.com)
3. Medium Quality: Video ads that auto-start with sound in a publisher’s video section; no user initiation
4. Low Quality: Video ads that auto-start with sound on a publisher’s home page; no user initiation or attention
5. Questionable Quality: Video ads that auto-start without sound in display inventory (typically by an ad network without video technology)
6. Borderline Fraudulent: Video ads that auto-start without sound on a publisher’s video player which can be embedded by users anywhere
Key Queries to insure 100% Pre-Roll:
1. Will my video ads ever be played in the middle of content, as opposed to before content?
2. Will my video ads ever be served into an environment where video is not the main content on the page?
3. Will my video ads ever be auto-started, i.e. started without a user initiation?
4. Will my video ads ever be started with the sound off?
5. Will my video ads ever be served into display inventory?
6. Will my video ads be served into any syndicated content? (Syndication almost always means a reduction in quality.)
7. Can you provide me with a list of every URL my ads will appear on?
Call me crazy, but I thought the definitions of pre-roll and companion banners were well understood.
Unfortunately, many vendors in the marketplace have begun to offer a menu of what I call video ad sausage - a mix-mash of low quality ad units being packaged as pre-roll.
The simplest example of video ad sausage is running video and a companion banner jointly withing a 300×250 display unit and calling it pre-roll. In order to get to the bottom of this, let’s start with the proper defintion of Pre-roll:
Pre-roll - A video ad that plays before the start of a video that a user has selected to play shown prior to the user’s selected content starting to play.
Companion Banner - A banner ad that is displayed simultaneously with a video ad, often remaining on the web page after the video ad is complete.
There are a few important ingredients of pre-roll that media buyers must understand in order to avoid getting a plate of video ad sausage.
- User Initiated - if the units loads automatically, without a user selection, it is not pre-roll
- User Selected Content - if the user has no idea what video content is behind the ad, it is not pre-roll
- Companion Banner - if the companion banner is served within the same unit as the video ad, it is not a companion banner
To be more explicit, running auto-start, sound off video ads in 300×250 display inventory is clearly a violation of the definition of pre-roll. Even worse, is running the companion banner also in the same 300×250, thereby not only reducing the value of the pre-roll but also double counting impressions. These tactics are a clear disservice to both agencies and their clients.
To learn more about true pre-roll, talk to your local BrightRoll contact.
CommentRoll