AdLedger, Madhive Releases Study on Ad Tech Industry, Only 6% Satisfied with Current Digital Ecosystem

A survey by Industry Index suggests that just 6% of the industry is satisfied with the current digital advertising ecosystem. The survey was released by Adledger, non-profit research and development consortium developing the global technology solutions for the digital media in partnership with Madhive, a TV advertising solutions company.

More than 100 brands, advertisers and publishers were surveyed to understand the current and future state of adtech with only 6% are satisfied with the present ecosystem of digital advertising. Another 92% of respondents believe there is a need for an industry-wide revolution. Christiana Cacciapuoti, executive director at AdLedger said,

“Digital advertising is still suffering from the same issues of transparency, fraud and fragmentation. And it’s because we just keep slapping band-aids on a fundamentally broken system, when we need to be developing a new infrastructure that’s driven by innovative technologies.”

The figures come into light as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) commences its inquiry into the adtech industry which it has described as ‘opaque’ and also calling for feedback from the industry. 

“The AdTech ecosystem absolutely needs to be changed,” said Alysia Borsa, EVP/Chief Business & Data Officer at Meredith Corporation. She further added,

“There is a lack of transparency which leads to fraud, which leads to low quality, which leads to poor performance. It’s a really bad cycle.”

The other findings of the survey include, 83% of respondents believe cryptography can be used to create transparencies and efficiencies, most often agreeing that cryptography could improve problems associated with fraud (66%) and the ability to track results (66%). And 72% believe we will see significant integrations in the next five years.

Adam Helfgott, CEO at MadHive said,

“Sooner or later, the industry is going to realize that this dysfunctional relationship has got to end, and the only way to fix it is with next-generation technologies,”

“And with blockchain and cryptography already weeding out fraud and solving similar issues on OTT, it’s only a matter of time till the industry stands together and overhauls the system.”

MadHive, TEGNA and IBM originally founded AdLedger to unite the advertising industry towards developing next-generation technology standards that solve the current issues in the ecosystem.