Google has notified some ad agencies about a “technical issue” with campaigns that ran from July through December last year, and said they will be credited, according to multiple advertisers. On Thursday, Google sent an email to the affected advertisers alerting them to overcharges billed to them during that time frame. The glitch occurred within Display and Video 360, Google’s demand-side platform that agencies and brands use to run programmatic ad campaigns.

“Some customers were overcharged for a subset of impressions served via Display & Video 360,” Google’s email to agencies said, adding “the issue has been resolved.”

Google will “compensate for the overcharges,” issuing credits to the affected advertisers, the email said.

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Multiple advertisers alerted Ad Age to the notification, but it’s unclear how much money in credits advertisers were owed or how many advertisers were affected. “We just received automated emails, nothing from the [ad sales] reps, bizarrely,” said one advertiser, who spoke with Ad Age on condition of anonymity.

Google’s memo told the advertisers to contact Google sales teams for more information.

"We detected a bug that resulted in a limited number of partners being overcharged for a small number of impressions on Display & Video 360,” a Google spokesperson said by email on Friday. “These overcharges were minor. We resolved this issue in December 2023, and ... notified impacted advertisers that we have issued them credits for the overcharged amount."

It’s not uncommon for advertisers to encounter billing errors and malfunctions with ad tech platforms, and they sometimes lead to platforms issuing ad credits to those affected. In August, Google reconciled an issue with clients following a report about ads appearing on low-quality websites, with claims that video ads ran in settings that fell short of viewability standards. At the time, a Google spokesperson told Ad Age the company issued “goodwill credits” of less than $1,000 to some advertisers.

Google’s latest ad issue follows a recent restructuring of its advertising organization. In January, Google laid off parts of its ad team, reducing staff on its “large customer solutions” team, which works with major enterprise clients. Meanwhile, Google said it would focus on developing its “global customer solutions” team, which services millions of smaller clients and businesses.

Philipp Schindler, Google’s senior VP and chief business officer, addressed the changes to the advertising sales force in a fourth-quarter earnings call in January. “The [global customer solutions] is really then scaling growth by dynamically delivering really the right treatment for every customer,” Schiller said according to the earnings call transcript. “And important to note, it’s also our fastest-growing channel and it delivered particularly strong growth in Q4. So, we have done adjustments here to focus more resources on the GCS side.”

“But I also want to be clear, when we restructure, there’s always an opportunity to be more efficient and smarter in how we service and grow our customers,” Schindler said. 

Contributed: Jack Neff