Sizmek To Take Video Verification Tool Out Of Beta

Ad management firm Sizmek has announced its intention to take its video verification tool out of beta in mid-July to make it available to all of its video advertising customers. The tool is meant to give advertisers a look at the quality of the video ads they are buying -- the context of the site the ad was served on, if the ads were served to proper video players, player position, size, etc.

During beta, the company found that 28% of video impressions delivered from January-May 2014 -- a sample size of 1.23 billion videos -- were shown next to negative content. The company also found that 12% of impressions were delivered in “non-video environments,” including in-banner ads, rich media video units or thumbnail-sized players, per a release.

“Verifying the placement of media is important to advertisers and is often a challenge in digital due to the complex nature of ad purchase and delivery," stated Siobhan Crowe, global digital advertising manager at Reckitt Benckiser, a health and hygiene CPG company. "In surfacing and understanding the issues in media buying, we can then take steps to manage and prevent [negative] placements."

“The initial insights we gained from the video verification tool have given us a far better understanding of how we’re spending our media dollars with online video,” stated Jonathan Zajicek, analytics and research director at Havas.

A Sizmek representative said the tool is meant to measure ad quality for all video placements, regardless of how they are bought. However, its primary application may be in programmatic environments, where marketers continue to look for ways to measure media that oftentimes jumps through so many hoops that its final destination gets lost.

"Online video" image from Shutterstock.

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