• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, July 18, 2013

Sure, the online video ad market is growing like crazy, with the latest statistics citing the market as slated to hit $4.6 billon next year, up from $3.6 billion this year.

But you get what you pay for -- because some of that money is being thrown away. Video ad management platform Vindico has estimated that as much as 30% to 40% of video ad impressions are fraudulent or poor quality, and in a study released this week it specifically reports than major media sites outperform ad exchanges in the number of quality placements by two to one. High-quality ad environments are those that mimic TV. The video ads are front and center and usually contained in a large player, Vindico explained. These type of ads are also often user-initiated.

Via its new Adtricity tool that tracks and measures the quality of video ad placements, Vindico reports than 93% of video ads running on major media sites are treated as high quality. That compares to 79% of the video ads on Internet brand sites, while a less than 50% of the impressions on ad networks and ad exchanges are treated as high quality. What’s more, about one in four impressions on ad networks are poor quality, which means they are often below the fold or alongside inappropriate content. Mid-level quality placements are usually of the in-banner video variety. “The ad is not necessarily tied to content but is often cleanly executed and viewable on the page,” Vindico explains.

Major media sites usually have the highest CPMs for videos at more than $30, according to eMarketer data cited in the report. But they do have the least amount of waste. The video ads running in poor quality environments waste about $400 million annually, and 80% of those wasted dollars are with ad networks and exchanges, Vindico said.