Effective August 5th, 2020, Chrome is retiring three ad formats from being utilized in their browser.
- Long, non-skippable pre-roll ads or group of ads longer than 31 seconds
- Mid-roll ads of any duration, interrupting the user’s experience
- Image or text ads that appear on top of a playing video and are in the middle 1/3 of the video player window or cover more than 20% of the video content
In addition, Chrome will expand its user protections and stop showing these ads on sites in any country that repeatedly show these disruptive ad types.
The three ad types have been classified as abusing the user’s web environment with annoying and harmful experiences, for example: auto-play, sound on.
Chrome’s developers stated that the changes are aimed to further crafting and curating the best possible experience for users when browsing the web.
The Coalition for Better Ads, whose members include Google, Facebook, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and World Federation of Advertisers, released a new set of standards for ads that show during video content, based on research from 45,000 consumers worldwide, as part of their Better Ads Standards.
Google is proud to promote these new standards and best practices with this current Chrome update. It was also announced that these guidelines will be applied to YouTube.
We recommend that you consult with your player and content providers to ensure that your video setup is compliant to the above changes.
You can also reach out to us with any questions.
Further Reading
Google’s The Ad Experience Report is a great tool to help identify ad experiences that violate the Better Ads Standards.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ad-experience-unverified
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ad-experience-unverified
https://blog.chromium.org/2020/02/videos-with-fewer-intrusive-ads.html