Do Google’s video ads violate its standards? A new report claims the tech giant “misled” buyers.

Google‘s video ad placements on sites other than YouTube are drawing scrutiny from agency execs and analysts. The tech giant has disputed a report from Adalytics that discussed the alleged “misalignment” of those third-party placements.

Adalytics compiled its report by analyzing campaigns from 1,100 brands. In total, that data set includes billions of impressions served between 2020 and 2023.

Based on its findings, Adalytics argues that Google “misled” media buyers. Much of its analysis focuses on Google Video Partners, a program that brings TrueView campaigns to “high-quality publisher websites and mobile apps.” According to The Wall Street Journal, which cited the Adalytics report, Google Video Partners placements on third-party sites violated Google’s standards about 80% of the time.

“This report finds that advertisers including Fortune 500 brands, the US federal government, and many small businesses may have been misled for years about Google’s proprietary TrueView skippable in-stream video ads,” reads the intro to the Adalytics report. “This misalignment may have 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.”

A “major consumer goods brand” cited in the report had 75% of its TrueView budget delivered through Google Video Partners. 56% of the brand’s TrueView budget went to websites that showed ads in “muted or non-in-stream video players,” and 19% of the budget ran on “in-eligible mobile apps which are not video streaming apps.”

In its response to the report, Google issued a blog post

in which it accused Adalytics of making “extremely inaccurate claims about the Google Video Partner (GVP) network.” The post, attributed to Google Director of Global Video Solutions Marvin Renaud, claims that the “overwhelming majority” of TrueView spend occurs on YouTube, with Google Video Partners offering an “effective complement.” When the third-party solution is used, it increases reach by 20%, according to Google.

Google also reminded advertisers that they can opt out of Google Video Partners campaigns at any time, and they exert control over the distribution of those placements. Overall, Google says its video ads on third-party sites are “90% viewable,” with advertisers only paying for completed ad views.

Despite those reassurances, some agencies may still take issue with Google Video Partners. Adalytics surveyed media buyers and found that 84% of them answered “yes” to the question “If you were sold ‘TrueView skippable in-stream”‘video ad inventory that actually ran on 3rd party websites as muted, auto-play, out-stream video, would you consider that to be ‘ad fraud’?”

“I feel cheated,” said Giovanni Sollazzo, an exec at digital-ad agency AIDEM, in the Wall Street Journal. “What I requested to buy was not what I got. This should entitle me to a refund for invalid traffic.”

That refund could cost Google billions. The tech giant may not agree with Adalytics’ methods, but it will have to convince its ad partners that their third-party placements are up to snuff.