Google’s Chrome video ad crackdown is coming: Here’s what advertisers need to know

If you’re an advertiser or run a website that displays ads, it’s important to know that Google’s Chrome browser may not display ads on any site that doesn’t meet guidelines set by the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry group with Google as a member.

On Wednesday, the coalition announced its new standards, saying websites should stop including three types of ads on videos fewer than eight minutes long. Those include:

mid-roll ads, which interrupt a video that’s already started
image or text ads in the middle third of the video or covering more than 20% of the video
pre-roll ads, or ads at the start of a video, if they’re longer than 31 seconds and can’t be skipped within five seconds

There’s still some time to make changes: Advertisers, and the sites that carry ads, should stop running these videos within four months, according to the coalition.

Google announced that as of August 5, Chrome will no longer show any ads from sites that violate these standards. And, the company announced, Google’s YouTube won’t get a pass: it will be reviewed for intrusive ads on the same basis as other sites, and the company will “update our product plans across our ad platforms, including YouTube, as a result of this standard.”