Friday, March 9, 2018

OpenX Bans 300x250 Video, Cites Fraud

Los Angeles-based online advertising exchange and ad technology provider OpenX said on Thursday that it has banned the popular 300x250 video ad unit from its exchange, citing the extremely high video fraud rate on that format. According to OpenX, the format--along with a number of related video ad formats--costs almost entirely of in-banner videos, which it says has invalid traffic rates a third higher than the average of all other programmatic video ad units sold today. OpenX says 300x250 video ads accounts for over 30 percent of all video sold programatically today, and that what has been happening is arbitrageurs and ad network resellers have been purchasing static banner ad inventory from publishers and then resell the ads as "video ad units", which results in a higher video CPM, but are a bad experience for users.