Tag Archives: programmatic digital media

Fraud and the Lack of Transparency. What Actions are you Taking?

26 Jan

fraudsterReflecting at the end of 2022 there were two articles that piqued my interest (links below). The articles dealt with two issues that have plagued the ad industry for years now… the monetary impact of ad fraud and the lack of transparency surrounding programmatic digital media. According to Nick Swimer, an Entertainment and Media Partner at Reed Smith, LLP; “The lack of transparency is costing businesses millions and driving false impressions, which in turn is undermining trust in the industry.”

Advertisers, on the whole, currently invest more than half of their budgets in digital media. A high percentage of this activity is purchased programmatically. Based upon a review of these articles, the monetary impact and attendant risks faced by advertisers in this area are eye-opening. This is on the heels of the 2020 study by the ISBA and PwC which found that only 51% of spending in this area made it to publishers. Of the remaining 49% balance, 15% of total advertiser spend could not even be tracked or attributed.

Given the economic climate and the negative impact on marketing budgets, it is natural to wonder why there isn’t a greater proclivity for action on this front among marketers.

Support for industry trade associations such as the ANA, IAB, and their key initiatives (i.e., Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), regulatory outreach and lobbying efforts, etc.) are important steps in this area that will yield results for marketers over the long haul. However, immediate action is required if marketers want to safeguard their investments sooner than later.

Near-term, there are a few key steps that marketers can take to mitigate the negative economic impact that fraud and non-transparency related risks can have on their budgets:

  1. Update media agency contracts to secure comprehensive audit rights, establish a principal-agent relationship and clarify expectations regarding the agency’s fiduciary responsibilities.
  2. Conduct periodic contract compliance, financial management, and performance audits of media agencies.
  3. Assess and tighten media controls including Media Authorization Form language, Buying Guidelines, campaign monitoring and post-buy reporting, agency-generated third-party vendor insertion order language, and client sign-off requirements before using agency affiliates or Inventory Media buys.

Too much time has elapsed since these issues originally surfaced. And while there has been much talk about corrective measures, these trends have continued unabated. It feels as though now is the time for action, not indifference. What do you think?

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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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Exchanges Seek Outside Support to Reform

18 Oct

Tag LogoMuch needed reforms could be coming to the programmatic digital media marketplace. Earlier this week it was reported that several of the top exchanges had reached out to the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) for help in cleaning up some of the non-toward practices that have plagued advertisers.

Of note, these exchanges have agreed to not to charge hidden fees or give rebates to unduly influence agency holding companies. Further, they pledge to notify buyers in advance if they change auction dynamics, to clearly mark first-price and second-price auctions and not to bid cache without notice.  

Translation, the exchanges been employing these practices all along to the detriment of advertisers as a means of shoring up their bottom lines. Step in the right direction or affirmation of the ongoing murkiness associated with programmatic digital? Advertisers will have to decide… Read More

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Seeing Their Way to Digital Media Growth

21 Mar

Vision MissionDigital advertising spend will surpass television in 2017. This according to eMarketer, which is forecasting that digital ad expenditures will grow to $77.3 billion, while spending for television will increase to $72.0 billion.

This growth comes in spite of continued advertiser concern regarding transparency and the fact that 40% to 60% of their working digital media dollars are being absorbed into inventory margin.

With this as a backdrop, we have noted a couple of interesting trends in the digital media space, that directly and positively addresses these concerns.

First and foremost, there have been a number of agencies that have embraced a more transparent model when it comes to digital media planning and placement. They are looking to directly appeal to advertisers’ opacity-busting inclinations and their desire to improve working media ratios.

What are they offering? In short, they are structuring their service and financial management models to eliminate the hidden fees, double charging, rebates, kickbacks and media arbitrage practices employed by a host of traditional media agencies operating in the digital space.

The common link among these progressive agencies is to take more of a consultative approach to working with their clients to solve for the best method to drive brand engagement and to improve consumer experiences. These shops fundamentally understand the importance of integrating customer relationship management (CRM) and online media to create personalized customer interactions across each stage of the marketing lifecycle.

Recognizing the rapid advances occurring on the data analytics and ad tech fronts, they are agnostic when it comes to their role as a full-service or managed service provider. These agencies have come to realize the importance of integrating first, second and third party data and that from a privacy and data governance perspective advertiser ownership of such data may be a more appropriate path forward.

Additionally, they are open to working with their clients to help facilitate direct relationships between advertisers and technology providers to eliminate duplicate costs and boost transparency. They have a comfort level with direct-bill third-party media payment processing models which afford advertisers the opportunity to see exactly what the net media cost is.

For advertisers’ who are comfortable using the agency’s technology stack, no problem. For those that are interested in migrating that ownership in-house, they will consult and work to design and implement an approach that will work best for their clients. This could include everything from identifying DMP, DSP and ad server options to suggesting viewability optimization, fraud prevention and modeling tools. This new breed of agency recognizes that cutting out the middlemen from these areas can greatly enhance an advertiser’s working media ratios.

The benefit of this approach is profound when one considers that according to a recent survey by Technology Business Research (TBR) among 240 ad technology users in North America and Western Europe, they found that “only about 40% of digital advertising budgets are currently going toward working media” and that “the second biggest allocation – 31% of budgets – was going to pay for technology” with the balance being applied to “pay for agency services.”

The second trend that is having a meaningful impact in the digital advertising space is the continued expansion of services offered by technology consultants including IBM, Deloitte, Accenture and McKinsey. These firms have made strategic acquisitions and or built resource bases in the creative design area which allow them to complement their technology integration offerings and provide comprehensive end-to-end solutions. These firms’ gains will likely be to the detriment of traditional advertising agencies as the roles of data management and digital media continue to grow in the coming years.

As Jon Suarez-Davis, Chief Marketing and Strategy officer for Krux recently stated: “Marketers want absolute transparency across the value chain.” Mr. Suarez-Davis’ opinion, based upon his experience on both the ad technology and client-side, where he managed digital media for the Kellogg Company, is that advertisers “would like to have the technology and other non-working costs (that aren’t related to impression delivery) separated.”

 As the comedian Bill Hicks, so accurately opined:

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.”

The agencies and consultants that understand this dynamic and have a willingness to morph their service delivery and compensation models to address advertiser desires in these areas will be well positioned to boost their relevancy and revenue growth potential in the coming years. Those that don’t may struggle to keep pace as advertisers take a more proactive approach to optimizing their digital media investment.

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