YouTube responds to advertisers clamor for more data transparency

YouTube, a Google-owned company, is preparing to provide more transparency to advertisers on their advertisement data. Based on this new plan, advertisers will be able to get data such as the amount of view they receive on the platform. YouTube is also allowing a third-party feature to be used for that purpose.

YouTube advertisement have been under lots of pressure lately as more brands are demanding for transparency in their data. Among those that have been actively voiced out their concern is Kellog's and the second largest advertiser in the world, Unilever.

According to Financial Times, Kellog's has taken a drastic measure and stop buying any ads from YouTube this year causing a loss to the company.

YouTube said in a statement that they are "taking clients' feedback into account as we continue to roll out new solutions".

Advertisers are looking for reliable data since YouTube might consider their ads have been watched even though the ads fall outside of the viewer's screen when the video was loaded from a different platform.

Another problem is the use of ads blocker and the tendency for the user to minimise their tab when an ad is playing.

Advertisers also voiced out their concern regarding the definition given by certain agency on what is considered as viewed ads. According to Media Rating Council and Interactive Advertising Bureau, and ads is considered as viewed when half of its pixels have been loaded and viewed for two consecutive seconds.

Google do provide some data through its Active View feature according to VentrueBeat. However, information provided are still lacking the important data needed by advertisers.

Advertisers prefer to use third-party software such as from ComScore and DoubleVerify for their online advertisement as reported by Reuters since their data are considered more reliable for advertisers to understand and improve their campaign.

According to Google's report, the Active View found that ads watched through DoubleClick and YouTube are quite high. As of May this year, it was reported that a total of 54 percent of ads runs through DoubleClick has been viewed while for YouTube, 91 percent.

Companies such as YouTube and Facebook are not fond to the third-party group inserting their code in the website as this would put users' data in vulnerability and also slow down viewers' experience. However, Facebook is hoping that the company will be able to work with the third-party group without giving them direct access to YouTube's back-end development.

According to Financial Times, YouTube makes roughly around $4 billion per year in revenue through their advertisement service only.