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?
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