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Youtube Advertising Programmatic

Google curbs third-party access to YouTube inventory

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By Ronan Shields, Digital Editor

August 7, 2015 | 3 min read

Google has curbed advertisers’ access to inventory on YouTube via its DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX), which could hit the business models of third-party ad tech firms.

Google has announced it is to curb advertisers’ access to advertising inventory on its video-sharing site YouTube via its DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) in a move that is likely to compromise the business models of third-party ad tech firms, plus further increase the interest of anti-trust authorities into Google’s advertising policies.

Advertisers won’t be able to buy advertising inventory via its open ad exchange AdX, and instead will have to purchase such inventory either directly from YouTube sales people, or via DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM), or AdWords, both of which are more closed environments compared to AdX.

This move will limit advertisers visibility on ads they buy on the video-sharing site, plus ad tech companies that had relied on AdX as a means of sourcing YouTube advertising inventory (to then resell it on to other buyers) will be most threatened by this move. Such companies will now have to prove a point of difference to Google’s AdWords and DBM platforms in order to appeal to potential buyers.

However, Google claims the move is to improve user experience, plus permit it to “invest even more in creating the best and most effective YouTube advertising and buying experiences possible.”

In a blog post announcing the move, Neal Mohan, Google, ice president of display and video advertising, wrote: “To continue improving the YouTube advertising experience for as many of our clients as possible, we’ll be focusing our future development efforts on the formats and channels used by most of our partners. To enable that, as of the end of the year, we’ll no longer support the small amount of YouTube buying happening on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.”

The move, which effectively locks advertisers more deeply into its ecosystem, comes as Google faces pressure on its business practices on a number of fronts, with the EU formally investigating its search advertising policies. It also comes just weeks after a number of ad tech companies reportedly complained about its practices to the same authorities.

Youtube Advertising Programmatic

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