Why some advertisers don’t trust their web video distribution companies

There was a great New York Times article recently by David Segal titled “The Great Unwatched,” about the problem some brands are having with “verifying” views on their online video ads. It pointed to the challenges of having clients actually know which websites or platforms these video ads had run on, and with what placement, and if they were in fact being viewed by humans or rather by illicit software running up the numbers.

The article also pointed to three “video verification companies”: BrandAds, Moat, and Veenome, whose business it is to make sure the video ad placement and distribution are running as promised. It spoke about companies like Kellogg who have found these kinds of services helpful.

At Octoly, we agree. These verification companies sound like a good idea. We’d be very happy if our clients ever wanted to use one of these video verification services, but we do offer our clients a version of this service for free. We call our free service “Google.” Or, more specifically, we use several Google products, including YouTube, YouTube Analytics, Google Analytics, and TrueView (AdWords for Video).

While as users we may enjoy visiting many of the websites mentioned in the article (except the gross ones), as a business we exclusively manage video campaigns on the YouTube platform, which has its own built-in verification system.

Yes, sometimes these videos get embedded on third party websites, and some campaigns might specify that TrueView In-Stream pre-rolls can show there. But since you, the client, have access to your own analytics, you will know it.

And, event without asking us, you can always have a general understanding of how your campaign is doing. And since Google/YouTube’s job is generally to fight spam in all its forms, these numbers are generally accepted as true. But yes, sometimes YouTube’s automated viewcounts can be deceiving.

In fact, we’ll go even further than that. Usually, the viewcount is downright irrelevant. Because the public viewcount on YouTube (or the private one on other proprietary players — they don’t give public numbers) leave out one thing: Context.

Viewcounts don’t tell you the quality of the views based on engagement, whether view rate, conversion rate, commenting rate (oops, only YouTube allows comments), and a series of other factors. We believe the YouTube Analytics, combined with proper use of Google Analytics and the additional reports we provide from TrueView, provide a much fuller picture of your campaign’s effectiveness.To be clear, YouTube has a higher price per view.

In the New York Times article, David Segal reports that the Daily Caller website sold some low-visibility video ads at $.50 to $1.00 CPM (cost per thousand “views”). That means that at the highest Daily Caller rate for that almost-hidden position. YouTube can’t get you “views” that cheap. But are you paying for price or value? And when you add in the price of the video verification company, how much money have you really saved? Importantly, what are the goals of your campaign?

We hope it was to get your customers to take some sort of action, because that’s what YouTube is all about. YouTube isn’t just a one-way television for the web. It’s about having conversations with your customers, using video as the conversation starter. We recommend brands use YouTube (now with its more brand-safe comment area post-Google+ integration), as a forum to interact with their customers much like they do on Facebook and Twitter.

Want to drive YouTube earned media for your brand? Contact us at Octoly.