Two weeks ago we shared our point of view on the importance of IAB’s definition changes related to in-stream and accompanying video.

Now Google recently announced significant updates to its Video Publisher Policies across advertising platforms like AdSense, Ad Manager, and AdMob. Taking effect in April 2024, these changes adopt the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) Revised Video Ad Standards, which is a huge signal and change that could produce a catalyst for broader industry change for video publishers and advertisers.

With Google dominating over 90% of internet users globally and over $250 billion in annual digital advertising revenues, this decision holds immense influence. It could be the signal the publishing industry was waiting for, but not necessarily prepared for. Experts have claimed that the widespread adoption of standardized video advertising terminology and eligibility criteria relies on key players like Google formally integrating these standards. Google can account for 80%-100% of the video ad demand source. If they decide a publisher’s inventory is not compliant with their video publishing policy, there could be a massive revenue impact.

Google's Video Publisher Policy Updates

The goal is to simplify video compliance for publishers while enhancing transparency for advertisers.

Specifically, Google's 2024 video publisher policy updates focus on:

  • Standardized vocabulary defining video ad placements like "in-stream," "accompanying content," "interstitial," etc., based on IAB specifications 
  • Mandating the use of Google's proprietary SDKs and libraries for eligible video ad formats to enable verification and analytics
  • Guidelines around optimizing user experiences with video ads via restrictions on autoplay behavior, visibility thresholds, etc.  
  • Enhanced signals for assessing video ad inventory quality and viewability to unlock premium monetization

Learn more about the Google policy changes here.

Industry Adoption Remains Slow

Though introduced in March 2023, adopting the IAB's revised video ad taxonomy has lagged across the publishing landscape.

According to Adweek's report from last August, only 20-30% of publishers on major supply-side platforms have embraced the new classifications.

Multiple factors explain this gradual alignment:

  • Lack of financial incentives: Publishers must see sufficient incremental revenue uplift or other monetary motivations to prioritize migrations to updated terminology. With no mandate from Google or other key players thus far requiring compliance by a specific date, the status quo persists.
  • Unclear accountability: There is uncertainty around who "owns" driving this change across the labyrinth of publishers, SSPs, agencies, DSPs, etc. Each player waits for the others to get on board before fully adopting themselves. This distributed accountability has bred collective inertia.
  • Varying timelines: Given the involved technical integrations to ingest enhanced signal parameters, different ad tech vendors are adopting bespoke schedules based on roadmap priority. This Hessian of readiness introduces hesitancy for partners dependent on downstream compatibility.

Why Industry Adoption Matters

While the IAB is well respected, it is not an enforcement agency. And so, their industry standards ultimately depend on the industry's embrace of its guidelines for any benefit to occur. 

Jenn Chen explains that getting publishers and ad platforms to incorporate these updated classifications is pivotal.

Supply-side platform executives acknowledged to Adweek that "publishers are misclassified and that we need to enforce." This indicates that across major SSPs, there is recognition that existing video inventory labeling needs correction - even if enforcement mechanisms currently remain vague.

By compelling publishers on its network to comply, Google's changes can incentivize adoption even without other market pressures. And subsequently push supply-side platforms to enforce and perpetuate updated taxonomy.

Why Google Matters

Essentially, Google is a middleman, connecting a vast network of publishers with advertisers. Publishers who need teams to sell ad space directly often rely on large ad networks or platforms to fill this space. Through services like Google AdSense or Google Ad Manager, Google is one of the largest and most popular platforms for this. 

AdSense reaches over 90% of Internet users worldwide. It has over 2 million publishers as customers, with the U.S. leading in usage with over 430,200 websites.

Google pays more than $10 billion annually to its publishers. For AdSense for content, publishers receive 68% of the revenue; for AdSense for search, it's 51%.

And so, Google is putting roughly 500,000 US websites on notice that they must update their compliant video content or lose revenue. 

If a publisher's video content is deemed non-compliant, Google may refuse to place ads on that content or might place lower-value ads. For publishers who rely heavily on Google for ad revenue, this can lead to a significant decrease in earnings. This is because the number of ads shown might decrease, or the ads shown might be of lower quality (leading to lower CPMs).

Preparing for the Shift

To avoid revenue loss, publishers who have yet to adapt to the IAB standard will need to adapt. This could involve reformatting their video content, changing how and where ads are displayed, or altering the types of videos they produce. This adaptation process can be challenging, especially for smaller publishers with limited resources.

Tips For Publishers

  1. Audit Your Videos: Publishers should audit existing video inventory health metrics, site experience factors affecting viewability, demand partner compatibility, etc., and construct a product roadmap toward policy readiness.
  2. Adopt Recommended Tools: Engage with services like Aeon to generate high-quality videos to live in a premium location on pages. This gives orders of magnitude more revenue possibilities (10 times the videos, at 5-10 times the CPM), and user engagement numbers also rise. Users expect to find, engage, and share videos more than any other type of content.
  3. Align Content with Audience Preferences: Tailor your video content to viewer interests.

Tips For Advertisers

  1. Strategic Ad Placement: Choose placements wisely to align with target audience preferences.
  2. Construct Engaging Ads: Focus on creating ads that resonate with viewer interests.
  3. Stay Informed: Keep abreast of policy updates to leverage new opportunities.

Looking Ahead: Navigating the Future Together

These policy updates offer a fresh opportunity for all involved in digital media advertising to refine their approach towards more engaging, viewer-centric content. Success hinges on informed adaptation, creative engagement, and collective effort towards enhancing the digital experience.

Aeon enables digital publishers to future-proof their revenue lines by quickly integrating a compliant and scaleable video strategy. Producing contextually relevant videos that accompany every piece of written content will help ensure no revenue is lost but, more importantly, assist publishers in uncovering net new ad budgets they otherwise would never have secured.