Following the ongoing conversations ISBA and advertisers have had with Google over the past year, they have today announced new measures to protect brands and ensure their ads run alongside content that ‘reflects their values’.
The measures, outlined by YouTube’s Paul Muret, include:
Stricter criteria for monetisation on YouTube
- The process that determines which channels can run ads on YouTube changes from merely relying on views to include channel size, audience engagement and creator behaviour
- Starting from today, new channels will need to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months to be eligible for ads
- The platform has also committed to monitoring signals such as community strikes, spam and other abuse flags
Manually reviewing Google Preferred
- Google Preferred aggregates YouTube's top content into easy-to-buy packages for advertisers and will now include the most vetted channels
- Channels in Google Preferred will now be manually reviewed and ads will only run on videos that have been verified to meet ad-friendly guidelines
- Manual reviews of Google Preferred channels will be completed by the end of March in the UK
Greater transparency and simpler controls over where ads appear
- Plans for more transparent controls include introducing a three-tier suitability system that allows advertisers to reflect their view of ‘appropriate placements for their brand’
- Google has also begun working to provide third-party safety reporting on YouTube and will be scaling their third-party measurement offering
We have been in regular discussions with Google for some time and it’s clear from these changes that Google is listening to advertisers and ISBA in the UK, especially in increasing the availability of proactively vetted YouTube content for advertising.
We welcome the raised thresholds and additional checks for monetisation and will continue to work with members and Google to determine if the new policy proves effective.
In March 2017 Google advised ISBA and its members that they would be working with third-party vendors on brand safety, so we look forward to the successful completion of these integrations. In December’s blog, YouTube promised regular transparency reporting on brand safety and we hope to see more detail on this very soon.
We will continue to update you on all relevant developments as they occur.