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When it Comes to Programmatic Digital the “Same-Old, Same-Old” Isn’t Working

26 Feb

EinsteinMedia’s murky supply chain, wrought by fraud and congested with too many intermediaries between advertisers and publishers, continues to serve up challenges for digital media advertisers.

The fraudsters at it again with a devious approach to separating advertisers from their media spend. As if digital ad fraud practices including fake devices, fake locations, fake impressions and fake consent strings weren’t enough, the media industry now has to deal with a sophisticated domain spoofing bot.

According to an article in The Drum, fraudsters have now launched bot networks to evade ads.text protections, which was introduced by the IAB to allow publishers to “list authorized sellers” of their inventory. Both DoubleVerify and Integrated Ad Science (IAS) have unearthed fraudulent activity using 404bots, which employ domain spoofing techniques that misrepresent URLs, making buyers “believe that they are getting valid inventory, when in fact it does not exist.” IAS suggests that more than 1.5 billion ads have been impacted since September of 2019.

When will it end? Likely never. Ad fraud is to lucrative and too difficult to detect, creating a literal gold mine for fraudsters. In fact, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) estimates that “over the next 10 years, the global cost of ad fraud is projected to rise to $50 billion. The best defense for advertisers according to Shawn Lim, author of the aforementioned article, is “Brands and publishers need to work with transparent supply chains, reputable supply partners, and know what ads are appearing – and where.”

If you’re an advertiser, you would be right to pose the question; “Who has my back?” For all of the money invested by digital advertisers in specialist agency support, fraud detection services and brand safety tools, who is safeguard their funds? It seems as though the only thing advertisers have to show, for the promise of efficiency that was ushered in by programmatic digital media, is suppressed working media ratios.

The risks continue to mount as the amount spent on digital media in the U.S. is approximately $79 billion, with 85% of the total transacted programmatically (source: Interactive Advertising Bureau, February 2020). eMarketer estimates that advertisers spent 38% of their non-social programmatic display budgets on programmatic fees in 2019, a 20% increase over the prior year.

As one example of the congested digital media ecosystem, Danny Khatib, CEO of Granite Media wrote an excellent article in AdExchanger illustrating the inefficiency of the programmatic digital media supply-chain. Entitled; “Can We Please Reduce This Link In The Programmatic Chain Already?” the article advocates for consolidation between the DSPs and SSPs, long thought to function respectively as buyer and seller advocates, with “each taking a 15-20% cut and confusing the heck out of the web ecosystem in the process.” According to Mr. Khatib, “there really shouldn’t be a traditional SSP business separate from a DSP business – that distinction no longer makes sense, if it ever did.”

No wonder advertisers have stepped up compliance and performance audits of their suppliers and have heartily begun to embrace supply-chain optimization. The madness has to end and fueling investments in specialist agencies and adtech solutions is simply not achieving the desired result.

 “Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”          

~Albert Einstein

 

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Haven’t We Seen This Picture Before?

20 Dec

Frame movie, clapperboard blue neon icon. Simple thin line, outline vector of cinema icons for ui and ux, website or mobile applicationAs you are likely aware, over-the-top (OTT) television expenditures are rising incredibly fast. According to Magna Global, OTT grew at a rate of 39% this year with advertisers spending $3.2 billion in this sector of the TV marketplace. Further, Magna is projecting spend levels of $5.0 billion in 2020.

As consumer demand for viewing video content via the internet on devices such as smart TVs, gaming consoles, laptops, tablets and smart phones continues to escalate, advertisers are jumping at the opportunity to reach these so called “cord cutters.” However, while advertising demand is strong the supply of OTT impressions or inventory is limited.

This scenario has created an opportunity for fraudsters that attempt to fool advertisers into buying OTT inventory that doesn’t actually exist. eMarketer estimated that in 2018 fully 1 out of 5 OTT impressions were invalid due to “a combination of fraud and ad serving measurement errors.” Compounding this issue is the fact that approximately 40% of OTT ad impressions are served via server-side ad insertion (source: AdLedger, 2019) thus rendering traditional fraud detection services, which rely on Java script, ineffective.

One cannot help but view this scenario and its similarities to the challenges and risks associated with programmatic digital media and real-time bidding. Sadly, the ad industry’s demonstrated willingness to latch on to “shiny new objects” comes with real risks and at a significant cost. Worse, once the proverbial genie is out of the bottle, the industry has demonstrated an inability to marshal its resources in a timely, efficient manner to create standardized measurement and tracking solutions to combat fraud and safeguard advertiser funds.

And, as with the meteoric growth of digital advertising, advertisers are all too willing to jump in, versus testing the waters or forgoing investing in these emerging channels while fraud prevention controls are introduced, tested and rolled out. The net result is that advertisers must spend more money spent on ad tech, fraud detection and viewability services, while the downward pressure on working media dollars multiplies.

Earlier this spring, Forbes published an article on ad fraud and the OTT market, in which it interviewed Adam Helfgott, CEO of MadHive. Mr. Helfgott identified a range of ways in which OTT ad fraud can manifest itself. These included fraudulent arbitragers misrepresenting where an advertiser’s impressions actually ran and app-based or device-based fraud which report uncharacteristically high activity levels, not reflective of human consumption patterns.

While Mr. Helfgott believes that OTT ad fraud can be combatted using blockchain-based technology, he suggested that the first step in the process is for industry stakeholders to acknowledge that OTT ad fraud can and is occurring. That said, it is scary to think that there are those who would believe otherwise.

If knowledge truly is the key to success, then perhaps the ad industry would benefit from Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s words of wisdom:

“Knowledge is in the end is based on acknowledgement.”

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Advertisers Take Decisive Action to Safeguard Their Media Spend

25 Jul

Abstract concept, fingers are touching padlock symbol, With protAdvertisers, particularly larger, multi-national advertisers are assuming a greater level of responsibility for their organization’s media investments. The goal is to safeguard those investments and to spend their media dollars wisely.

The actions being taken by advertisers are clearly the result of the media industry not moving quickly or forcefully enough to resolve key issues confronting advertisers. Issues such as fraud, brand safety, viewability, tracking and performance vouching pose serious risks that undermine media effectiveness.

On the fraud front alone, cybersecurity firm Cheq issued a report earlier this year indicating that global ad fraud will cost advertisers “an unprecedented $23 billion” in 2019. Experts have stated that the continued growth in digital media expenditures, which will top $300 billion worldwide, combined with the lack of governmental and industry oversight makes this category highly appealing to fraudsters and organized crime.

Given the complexity of the global media supply chain and the technical nature of the sector advertisers are seeking to increase the level of rigor surrounding media performance and accountability.

Advertisers seeking greater transparency and security over their media funds and data have grown weary of waiting for the requisite level of support from their media supply chain partners. This has led some advertisers to transition certain aspects of their media planning and buying activities in-house. Others have formed or increased staffing and resource support for corporate media functions to enhance controls and stewardship over the investment of their media funds.

More broadly, in the wake of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) 2016 study on media transparency, the organization in conjunction with its partner in the study, Ebiquity, issued a recommendation for advertisers to “appoint a chief media officer (in title or function) who should take responsibility for the internal media management and governance processes that deliver performance, media accountability and transparency throughout the client/ agency relationship.”

Recently, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), through its Media Board, recently announced that its members had formed the Global Alliance for Responsible Media. The Alliance will also be championed by the ANA’s CMO Growth Council, a member organization of the WFA. The council, which includes a coalition of advertisers, agencies, publishers, platforms and industry associations, will focus on delivering a “concrete set of actions, processes and protocols for protecting brands.”

We are hopeful that the initiatives being taken by progressive marketers such as P&G, Mars, Unilever and Diageo will spur the industry to action when it comes to comes to controls that safeguard media spend and improve the efficacy of those investments for all media advertisers.

While a rising tide may lift all boats, as the adage goes, we know from experience that when it comes to media accountability organizations cannot rely solely on the efforts of other advertisers, agencies or associations to protect their self-interests. This requires an ongoing commitment to improving media accountability, performance monitoring and stewardship efforts by them, their agents and intermediaries. In the words of Thomas Francis Meagher: “Great interests demand great safeguards.”

 

 

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Advertisers: What Does the Department of Justice Know That You Don’t?

19 Oct

FBI LogoIt has been two years since the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) published its blockbuster study on media transparency in the U.S. marketplace. Among the study’s findings were that the use of media rebates paid by publishers to agencies was “pervasive” and that there was a “fundamental disconnect” regarding client-agency relationships and the agencies assumed fiduciary obligation to act in an advertiser’s best interest.

Later that same year, December of 2016, the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced that it was conducting an investigation into the practice of “bid rigging” by agencies for TV and video production jobs. The bid rigging was allegedly being done to favor the agencies in-house production groups over independent production companies. This was done by urging outside production vendors to artificially inflate their bids, creating a reason and a paper trail for supporting the agency’s decision to award the production job to their in-house studio, which coincidentally bid a lower price for the work. At least four of the major ad agency holding companies were subpoenaed as part of this ongoing investigation.

One year after the release of the ANA media transparency study the ANA conducted research among its members that found:

  • 60% had taken “some” steps to address the study’s findings
  • 40% had not taken steps or weren’t sure if their companies had taken action
  • 50%+ of those that had taken steps indicated that had revised agency contract language
  • 20% of those that had taken steps had conducted audits of their agency partners

Given the $200 billion plus in estimated U.S. media spending (source: MAGNA, 2018) and the $5 billion U.S. commercial production market the aforementioned numbers are stunning in that more advertisers have not taken action to safeguard their advertising investment by implementing controls and oversight actions that mitigate risks and improve transparency.

It would appear as though the Department of Justice is taking these matters more seriously than many advertisers. The reason that the DoJ and FBI have undertaken probes of U.S. media buying and creative production bidding practices is quite simple… fraud, price fixing and bid rigging are prohibited under federal law.

The question is; “Why haven’t more advertisers, whose media and production dollars are at risk, been more proactive in constructively addressing these issues with their agency partners?”

The fact that the federal government has determined that it was necessary to launch two separate investigations into U.S. advertising industry practices is a clear signal that marketers should reinvigorate their oversight and compliance efforts. The stakes are high and the risks have not abated since the aforementioned practices first came to light.

If federal investigations into ad agency practices in these areas isn’t enough to spur advertisers to action, perhaps the words of Jon Mandel, former CEO of Mediacom in an interview with Mumbrella following his whistleblowing presentation regarding media agency “kickbacks” at an ANA conference in 2015 will provide the necessary incentive;

“Clients need to stop suspending disbelief. The agency is supposed to be a professional providing you with proper advice not tarnished by their own profit. Marketers need to know the limits of that.”

 

 

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4 Questions That Can Impact Your Digital Buys

15 Nov

four

According to eMarketer, in 2017 advertisers will spend 38.3% of their ad budgets on digital media – in excess of $223 billion on a worldwide basis. Yet, in spite of the significant share-of-wallet represented by digital media, there is generally little introspection on the part of the advertiser.

Looking beyond the “Big 3” [ad fraud, safe brand environment and viewability concerns], the lack of introspection begins much closer to home. Simply, in our experience, client-agency Agreements do not adequately address digital media planning / placement roles, responsibilities, accountability or remuneration details.

Standard media Agreement language does not adequately cover digital media needs – specific rules and financial models need to be included in Agreement language that covering each potential intermediary involved in the buy process and to guarantee transparent reporting is provided to the advertiser. It is our experience that Agreement language gaps related to “controls” can be much costlier to advertisers than the aggregate negative impact of the Big 3.

And, regardless of Agreement language completeness, a compounding factor is that too few advertisers monitor their agencies compliance to these very important Agreement requirements.

To assess whether or not your organization is at risk, consider the following four questions:

  1. Can you identify each related parties or affiliate that your ad agency has deployed on your business to manage your digital spend?
  2. Does your Agreement include comprehensive compensation terms pertaining to related parties, affiliates and third-party intermediaries, that handle your digital ad spend?
  3. Is your agency acting as a Principal when buying any of your digital media?
  4. What line of sight do you have into your ACTUAL media placements and costs?

If you answered “No” to any of the questions, then there is a high likelihood that your digital media budget is not even close to being optimized. Why? Because the percentage of your digital media spend that pays for actual media is likely much lower than it should be, which is detrimental to the goal of effectively using media to drive brand growth.

Dollars that marketers are investing to drive demand are simply not making their way to the marketplace. Often a high percentage of an advertiser’s digital media spend is stripped off by agencies, in-house trading desks and intermediaries who have been entrusted to manage those media buys. A recent study conducted by AD/FIN and Ebiquity on behalf of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) estimated that fees claimed by digital agencies and ad tech intermediaries, which it dubbed the programmatic “technology tax” could exceed 60% of an advertiser’s media budget. This suggests that less than 40 cents of an advertiser’s investment is actually spent on consumer media.

A good place to begin is to ask your agency to identify any and all related parties that play a role when it comes to the planning, placement and distribution of your digital media investment. This includes trading desk operations, affiliates specializing in certain types of digital media (i.e. social, mobile) and third-party intermediaries being utilized by the agency (i.e. DSPs, Exchanges, Ad Networks, etc.). The goal is to then assess whether or not the agency and or its holding company has a financial interest in these organizations or are earning financial incentives for media activity booked through those entities.

Why should an advertiser care whether or not their agency is tapping affiliates or focusing on select intermediaries to handle their digital media? Because each of those parties are charging fees, commissions or mark-ups for services provided, most of which are not readily detectable. This raises the question of whether or not the advertiser is even aware charges are being levied against data, technology, campaign management fees, bid management fees and other transactional activities. Are such fees appropriate? Duplicative? Competitive? All good questions to be addressed.

When it comes to how an agency may have structured an advertiser’s digital media buys, there is ample room for concern. Is the affiliate is engaged in Principal-based buying (media arbitrage)?  Is digital media being placed on a non-disclosed basis, versus a “cost-disclosed” basis where the advertiser has knowledge of the actual media costs being charged by the digital media owner?

Evaluating your organization’s “risk” when it comes to digital media is important, particularly in light of the findings of the Association of National Advertiser’s (ANA) “Media Transparency” study released in 2016, which identified agency practices regarding non-transparent revenue generation that reduces an advertiser’s working media investment.

The best place to start is a review of your current client-agency Agreements, to ensure that the appropriate language safeguards are incorporated into the agreement in a clear, non-ambivalent manner. Once in place, monitoring your agency and its affiliates compliance to those contract terms and financial management standards is imperative if you want to assure compliance, while significantly boosting performance.  

“Today, knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.” ~ Peter Drucker                                                                                                                    

Interested in learning more about safeguarding your digital media investment? Contact Cliff Campeau, Principal, AARM | Advertising Audit & Risk Management at [email protected] for a complimentary consultation on this important topic.

 

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Is Programmatic Advertising Worth the Risk?

26 Jul

dreamstime_xs_50082776Conceptually, it is easy to understand the potential of programmatic media buying. It is obvious to most that using technology to supplant what is a manual, labor intensive process to drive efficiencies and improve media investment decisions could be a plus for advertisers, agencies and publishers (not to mention ad tech vendors).

The only question to be addressed is “when” will the benefits of programmatic outweigh the costs and the risks to advertisers?

Proponents of programmatic will argue that this buying tactic has already generated economic benefit for advertisers when it comes to digital media buying. After all, streamlining the processes related to the issuance and completion of RFPs, buyer/ seller negotiations and preparation of insertion orders clearly saves time and reduces labor costs for all stakeholders.

No one would argue this premise. However, reducing labor costs associated with traditional buying is but one component of programmatic buying costs. Consider the broad array of programmatic buying related fees and expenses currently being born by advertisers:

  • Data Management Platform (DMP) fees
  • Demand Side Platform (DSP) fees
  • Data/ Targeting fees
  • Pre-Bid Decisioning/ Targeting fees
  • Ad Blocking (pre/ post) fees
  • Verification fees
  • Agency Campaign Management fees

It should be noted, that there are “other” non-transparent charges and fees linked to sell-side platforms (SSPs), bid processing, real-time bidding auction methodology and principal-based buys (media arbitrage) that are born by advertisers and limit the percentage of their digital media spend that actually goes toward inventory.

In a recent Ad News article by Arvind Hickman, the author referenced studies conducted by both the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) that demonstrate the magnitude of these programmatic fees and expenses. The WFA study determined that $.60 of every dollar spent on programmatic digital media buying goes to cover “programmatic transactions and fees.” The ANA study suggests that advertisers could be paying between $.54 – $.62 of every dollar on digital supply chain data, transaction fees and supply side charges.

Bear in mind that neither of these studies addressed the impact of media arbitrage or ad fraud. Industry studies, focused on assessing the level of digital ad fraud, fielded by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and WhiteOps found that fraudulent non-human traffic in the form of bots was “more prevalent in programmatic environments.” According to the research, display ads purchased programmatically were “55% more likely to be loaded by bots” than non-programmatic ads.

And yet, in-spite of the challenges still being faced with programmatic digital media buying, this media investment model is being rapidly rolled out to out-of-home, print and television.

Who do you think will bear the learning curve costs and risks associated with expanding programmatic to other media categories? The answer, is primarily advertisers and to a lesser extent, publishers.

We certainly understand that programmatic is the future of media buying. That said, rushing headlong into this arena, without satisfactory levels of transparency and or fraud prevention, combined with the upfront costs of the industry’s investment in technology, that are ultimately passed through to the advertiser, are both risky and costly to advertisers.

Is there a need to reach and take risks in order to secure positive progress? Yes. But, it might be best to follow the approach advocated by one of this country’s greatest military leaders, General George S. Patton:

“Take calculated risks, that is quite different than being rash.”

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It’s Only Money…

5 Jun

digital mediaThere was one particularly startling revelation that came from the ANA’s recent Agency Financial Management conference in San Diego. During the presentation of this year’s “Agency Compensation Trends” survey results it was noted that the ANA found that almost half of the members it surveyed had not reviewed the findings of the ANA’s 2016 Transparency study.

Think about that. If an organization did not review the Transparency study’s findings, that means that there must not have been any resulting internal dialog with or among marketing’s C-Suite peers, no direct interaction with their agency network partners, no review of existing Client/Agency contracts, no improvements in reporting and controls in which to illuminate how an advertiser’s funds are being managed.

This, in spite of the level of trade media coverage regarding transparency issues ranging from rebates, discounts and media arbitrage, to the Department of Justice investigation into potential ad agency bid rigging practices or the level of ad fraud, traffic sourcing or non-disclosed programmatic fees on both the demand and sell side of the ledger.

There is only one conclusion that can be drawn from this remarkable revelation…many marketers simply don’t care how their organization’s advertising investment is being allocated or safeguarded. Unfortunately, we regularly see the ramifications of this attitude of indifference in our contract compliance audit practice:

  • Client / Agency agreements that haven’t been reviewed or updated in years
  • Failure among clients to enact their contractual audit rights with key agency partners
  • Limited controls regarding an agency’s use and or disclosure of its use of affiliates
  • No requirement for agency partners to competitively bid third-party and affiliate vendors
  • Lack of communication to media sellers regarding ad viewability standards
  • Failure to assert an advertiser’s position on not paying for fraudulent and non-human traffic
  • No requirement for publishers to disclose the use of sourced-traffic
  • Incomplete instructions on buy authorizations to media vendors, minimizing or blocking restitution opportunities
  • Poorly constructed media post-buy reconciliation formats that lack comprehensive information and insights

Interestingly, there have been many positive developments from key industry associations such as the ANA, 4A’s, IAB and public assertions from leading marketers such as P&G and L’Oréal to further inform and motivate marketers on the topic of transparency accountability. Yet, given the materiality of an organization’s marketing spend and the publicized risks to the optimization of its advertising investment, many organizations have not yet taken action, tolerating the risks associated with the status quo. As the noted British playwright, W. Somerset Maugham once said:

“Tolerance is another word for indifference.”

The failure to proactively embrace transparency accountability can pose perilous risks to an organization’s marketing budget which in turn directly impacts its company’s revenue. Many would rightly suggest needlessly.

In these instances, the fault for the increased level of attendant financial risk, fraud and working media inefficiencies lies squarely with those companies that have adopted an attitude of indifference toward these very real proven threats. One cannot blame an ad agency, production house, tech provider, publisher or media re-seller for taking advantage of the status quo and acting in manners that, while not in the best interest of the advertiser, are not expressly contractually prohibited.

The good news is that advertisers can address these issues head-on in a quick and efficient manner, mitigating the risks posed by transparency deficiencies. It all begins with a review of existing Client/Agency contracts and engaging one’s agency partners in dialog regarding the adoption of industry best practice contract language to facilitate an open, principal-agent relationship. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has a wealth of information on this topic and can also recommend external specialists to assist an advertiser with agency contract development and or compliance auditing.

Interested in safeguarding your marketing investment? Contact Cliff Campeau, Principal at AARM | Advertising Audit & Risk Management at [email protected] for a no-obligation consultation on this topic.

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May You Live in Interesting Times

23 Dec

confuciousOften referred to as the “Chinese Curse” this popular saying derives from the English Politician Sir Austen Chamberlain in the early twentieth century. Used ironically, the phrase has been used to suggest a set of outcomes that are a little more ominous, “May you experience much disorder and trouble in your life.”

As we reflect on what has been a tumultuous 2016, those working in the marketing and advertising industry most certainly would agree that we are living in interesting times. Recent news suggests that the industry’s troubles will not abate much in the coming year. The year began with evidence suggesting that the level of digital ad fraud would eclipse $8.0 billion in 2016, this was followed by the blockbuster findings from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) / K2 study on “Media Transparency” which rocked the global ad industry.  Sadly, the industry is winding down 2016 with a litany of additional actions and outcomes that pose serious threats to the level of trust, already shaken, between stakeholders in the $540 billion global advertising marketplace.

In the last two weeks, the industry heard once again from Facebook that it had made yet another audience reporting faux pas, its third of the year, which many in the ad agency community have been all too willing to forgive. Who could possibly be surprised with advertisers for being genuinely perplexed as to why the media agency community hasn’t more thoroughly scrutinized Facebook’s audience measurement reporting or pushed more aggressively for independent verification of those results.

Concurrently, halfway around the globe, Australia’s three largest magazine publishers (News Corp, Bauer Media and Pac Mags) decided to cease their participation in the Audited Media Association of Australia’s (AMAA) magazine circulation service leaving advertisers no other choice but to rely on these publishers’ self-reported “readership” numbers, rather than audited circulations figures.

In the United States, the federal government’s Department of Justice has subpoenaed agencies from four of the world’s largest holding companies; WPP, Omnicom, IPG and Publicis as part of its investigation into illegal bid-rigging for commercial production jobs. It is alleged that these agencies coerced and or rewarded independent production houses to submit inflated bids, ostensibly to manipulate the process in favor of agency in-house production resources. Many believe that the DOJ’s investigation will have a profound impact on both the estimated $5 billion production sector and potentially the rest of the business. Let’s not forget, the DOJ has not yet weighed in regarding agency practices identified in the ANA/ K2 study on media transparency.

Most recently, WhiteOps, a U.S. a cyber security firm providing ad viewability and fraud detection supporting the advertising industry, announced that it had uncovered a Russian led digital fraud effort that was literally stealing up to $5 million per day from advertisers. It was reported by the NY Times that the fraudsters impersonated more that “6,100 news and content publishers” while delivering up to 300 million fake ad views per day. How were they able to do this? By creating over one-half million bots that replicated the web surfing patterns of humans, starting and stopping videos and moving and clicking the cursor. 

If client organizations were experiencing a “crisis of trust” hangover following 2015, it certainly wasn’t remedied in 2016. Going into the New Year advertisers have every right to step back and ask, “Who can we trust?” Our agency partners? Ad tech vendors? Media Owners? Measurement Services? And who would blame advertisers for taking matters into their own hands and make a New Year Resolution to more directly deal with these issues. After all, it is their monetary inputs that fuel the entire industry and they certainly deserve better that what they’re getting right now. In the words of the iconic American actor, Clint Eastwood: “Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.”

 

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Is the Ad Industry on the Verge of a Revolution?

25 May

White clock with words Time for Action on its face

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Charles Dickens evocative opening to his book; “A Tale of Two Cities” described the period leading up to the French revolution. It may also be an apt description of where the ad industry and advertisers stand on the topics of transparency, fraud and trust.

As an industry, all stakeholders, including advertisers, agencies, ad tech firms, media sellers and the various associations, which serve these constituencies have long been talking about the need to implement corrective measures. Joint task forces have been formed, initiatives launched and guidelines published, yet little progress has been made in addressing these issues. As evidence of the quagmire, one need look no further than the 2016 Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and White Ops report on digital ad fraud, which saw the estimated level of thievery increase by $1 billion in 2015 to an estimated $7 billion annually. This led Bob Liodice, CEO of the ANA to boldly and rightfully tell attendees at this year’s ANA “Agency Financial Management” conference that; “marketers are getting their money stolen.”

The ANA’s message has resonated with the C-Suite within advertiser organizations the world over as CEOs, CFOs CIAs and CPO’s are working with their chief marketing officers to both assess the risks to their organizations and in fashioning solutions to safeguard their advertising investments. From this pundit’s perspective, it was refreshing to see the ANA take such a strong stance and a welcomed leadership position on remedying these blights on our industry.

Some may view the ANA’s recent stance on fraud and transparency and the upcoming release of its study with K2 on the use of agency volume bonuses (AVBs) or rebates as incendiary. However, in light of the scope of the economic losses, financial and legal risks to advertisers and the havoc which transparency concerns have wreaked on advertiser/ agency relationships we view the ANA’s approach as a rational, measured and necessary stake in the ground.

Mr. Liodice was not casting blame when he suggested that the K2 survey would “be a black and white report that for us (ANA) will be unassailable documentation of what the truth is.” It is refreshing to see an industry association elevate dialog around the need for full-disclosure, moving from disparate opinions to establishing a fact-based perspective on the scope of this practice. To the ANA’s credit, this will be followed by a second report, authored by Ebiquity/ Firm Decisions, introducing guidelines for the industry to proactively address the issue.

To be clear, it is not a level playing field for advertisers. There are many forces at play as a variety of entities look to siphon off portions of an advertisers media investment for their own financial gain. Thus, we’re hopeful that the ANA’s message to marketers to “take responsibility” for their financial and contractual affairs when it comes to protecting their advertising investment takes hold.

In our experience, the path forward for advertisers is clear. It begins with re-evaluating their marketing service agency contracts to integrate “best practice” language that provides the requisite legal and financial safeguards. Additionally, this document should clearly establish performance expectations for each of their agency partners, introducing guidelines to minimize the impact of fraud, including mandating the use of fraud prevention and traffic validation technology, banning the use of publisher sites that employ traffic sourcing and establishing a full-disclosure, principal-agent relationship with their agency partners.

Experience suggests that another key element of a well-rounded accountability initiative should include the ongoing, systematic monitoring of agency contract compliance and financial management performance to evaluate progress. Of note, wherever possible, these controls and practices should extend to direct non-agency vendors and third-party vendors involved with the planning, creation and distribution of and advertisers messaging.

The advertising industry is on the verge of a revolution and for the sake of advertisers we hope so. One that can usher in positive change and allow all legitimate stakeholders to refocus their collective energies on building productive relationships predicated on trust. It is our belief that knowledge and transparency are critical cornerstones in this process:

“I believe in innovation – and that the way you get innovation is you learn the basic facts.”

                                                                                                                                                  ~ Bill Gates

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Advertisers Can Shield Themselves From Digital Ad Fraud… Somewhat

19 Jan

Fraud PuzzleLet’s set the stage, so that we are all clear on the risks faced by advertisers when it comes to digital media in general and programmatic digital media buying in particular. Consider the following quote from Bob Liodice, President and CEO of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA):

“The level of criminal, non-human traffic literally robbing marketers’ brand-building investments is a travesty. The staggering financial losses and the lack of real, tangible progress at mitigating fraud highlights the importance of the industry’s Trustworthy Accountability Group in fighting this war. It also underscores the need for the entire marketing ecosystem to manage their media investments with far greater discipline and control against a backdrop of increasingly sophisticated fraudsters.”

What prompted Mr. Liodice’s comments? Quite simply, the ANA and White Ops updated their 2015 “BOT Baseline: Fraud in Digital Advertising” study, which suggested that the ad industry would see $6.3 billion in digital ad fraud in 2015. In light of the fact that the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) reported that digital ad revenue surged almost twenty-percent through the first half of last year, can we be surprised by the fact that the level of fraud escalated as well. To what, you ask. According to the ANA report, it is estimated that the level of digital ad fraud will grow to $7.2 billion in 2016.

The challenge for individual advertisers is to determine how best to insulate their organizations from digital ad fraud, while continuing to support industry initiatives focused on the same end.

For many advertisers the question is quite simply; “But where do we begin?” The answer as the late Stephen Covey once intoned is to; “Begin with the end in mind.” So what is the end goal? For most advertisers the aim is to focus digital media investment on media sources that can reliably drive the highest level of effectiveness using the best quality inventory at the lowest possible price.

One important component of this challenge is obviously the continued growth of programmatic digital media buying. It should be noted that of the estimated $60 billion in digital media spend, programmatic will account for $15 billion or 25% of the total spend. However, one must consider that programmatic buying represents a very high percentage of digital ad fraud, up to 90% according to some industry experts.

The range of tactics employed by entities and individuals seeking to profit from the growth of digital spending are many and varied, they include; click-fraud, the use of BOTs, hidden ads and impression laundering. However, the primary source of digital media fraud is in the form of URL masking, which makes it impossible for advertisers or their agencies to know where their digital ads are running. Studies have shown that nearly 45% of transactional digital URLs do not match the URL where the impressions were actually served… a sobering statistic to be sure.

In our experience there are three things that advertisers can do to mitigate the level of risk posed by fraudsters.

First and foremost, advertisers must improve the level of transparency between their programmatic buying partner and their own organization. This can be done by employing contractual language and controls which narrow the transparency gap that more than likely exists today. Too often, agencies simply introduce their trading desk operation to their clients, without amending their current agreement or allowing the advertiser to contract directly with the trading desk entity.

Contract language should provide limitations on the percentage of total digital media spending that can be allocated to programmatic and impart clear “signing authority” guidelines in the event those levels are to be altered. Additionally, the agency should be required to provide a staffing plan, which includes data scientists and data analysts, along with the team’s estimated utilization rates and hours by individual. Complement this by incorporating copies of the media verification and performance tracking reports that will be utilized to monitor impression delivery, ad viewability and fraud detection. Finally, we suggest requiring the agency to separate the costs for media, data and technology licensing from agency fees, each of which should be reconciled to actual.

The second line of defense for advertisers comes in the form of requiring their programmatic media buying partners to utilize a Media Rating Council (MRC) accredited digital technology/ platform provider. Firms such as Integral Ad Science and Double Verify, for example, have a range of tools that can integrate with pre-bid platforms to provide real-time impression authentication to improve the odds that an advertisers impressions will be delivered in a contextually relevant, brand safe and fraud free environment. When nefarious behavior is identified, these tools can block impressions from being delivered there and dynamically blacklist those sites. In addition, there are tech solutions now available, which can assess inventory hygiene within ad networks and exchanges, allowing advertisers to target higher quality impressions.

Finally, advertisers must apply their buy-side leverage and demand that their agency partners and third-party vendors work collaboratively to optimize their digital media investment. Those parties that cannot demonstrate that they are continuously improving their tools, methodologies and compliance monitoring processes should be dropped from consideration set. Voting with one’s dollar has always been and remains one of the best ways to incent the behavior and secure the types of results that diligent advertisers deserve.  

In the words of Samuel Johnson, the celebrated eighteenth century English writer:

“What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.”

 

 

 

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