Who’s watching the watchers?

Following Proctor and Gamble’s call to arms about transparency in digital advertising and media buying, Google has announced plans to expand its auditing of YouTube ad metrics.

The three companies Google uses to audit its ads – Moat, Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify – will all themselves be independently audited by the Media Rating Council, the non-profit organisation that monitors the tracking of media consumption.

This comes after Facebook announced that it would have some of its ad metrics audited by the MRC, following its revelation that it had miscalculated several metrics for the performance of paid-for video content.

Google insists that their audit is not a direct result of Facebook’s admission that their video metrics have not been wholly accurate over the last two years. They claim they simply want to ensure that advertisers feel confident that they are getting the views they pay for.

With platforms like Google and Facebook increasingly relying on advertising revenue, and brands across all sectors focusing more and more on digital advertising, being able to accurately measure viewership and target audiences effectively is more crucial than ever for both sides of the marketing equation.