IAS Partners With Pinterest Over Fraud And Viewability Measurement Reporting
Digital ad verification provider Integral Ad Service( IAS) has partnered with Pinterest to able to deliver marketers access to viewability and fraud measurement reporting that covers its mobile in-app campaign.
IAS mentioned that its reporting includes standard Pinterest ads and video ads for in-app inventory, all updated on a daily basis.
This new integration will help advertisers to have access to viewability and invalid traffic monitoring and reporting across promoted pins and videos as well as Independent, third-party reporting by IAS and a global measurement that allows a holistic view across any brand’s entire Pinterest campaign.
With this announcement, Pinterest is observing an all-time high level of user engagement as well as people are searching for creative solutions to ‘life-at-home’ in this pandemic. The searches on the platform for “work from home” are up 1,411% and searches for “children’s activities” are up 4,055%, globally.
IAS also noted that 82% of users access the platform via mobile devices, and it is even more significant for advertisers to measure mobile campaigns on Pinterest accurately.
With measurement being critical to evaluating and optimizing ad quality and related media spend, Lisa Utzschneider, CEO of IAS said,
“IAS is excited to partner with Pinterest to offer marketers a mobile viewability and fraud measurement solution that works in-app, where people are engaging.”
“This partnership helps provide the transparency that marketers need to optimize their campaigns on the popular network.”
Read more: IAS Issues Threat Alert Regarding The Latest Digital Ad fraud Scheme
Your Ultimate Guide to Understanding Gaming Advertising
Of the wide economic disruption caused by the pandemic, the global gaming industry is thriving. With people sheltering at home, gaming is surging. Nielsen survey reveals that 82% of global consumers played video games and watched video game content.
The global video game market is estimated to be worth $159 billion in 2020. However, marketers are facing a distinctive challenge of activating in an environment different from traditional media. Recently concluded weeklong NewsFronts presentation discussed marketers’ approach towards the growing gaming and esports industry.
Image Credit: Newzoo
Esports has gained momentum due to the tech-savvy and digitally-advanced millennials. Currently, it is very popular and is the new epicenter.
How To Activate And Maximize Brand Visibility?
Gaming is a fragmented market. Marketers can approach in different ways to tap into the competitive industry by partnering with influencers, buying on platforms, or directly going to gaming publishers.
As per Adweek reports, Douglas Veney, influencer and esports marketing manager at Nestlé, said they have partnered with influencers to drive engagement with fans.
“We can really take it from the influencer level and then build upon that approach to move into … more platform level things that are a little bit deeper down the funnel for that.”
Contradictory, the Hershey company finds influencer marketing space is highly crowded and is hard to attract attention. Another challenge for the company is to find a cost-effective strategy to run an always-on campaign in the gaming space since a similar gaming audience can be found on YouTube at a lower cost.
Another interesting case to study is on Horizon Media’s Scout Sports and Entertainment group partnered with esports team FaZe Clan who helped Burger King introduce its new plant-based burger to a young audience with its three-step approach.
The holistic three-step approach – a YouTube taste-test video, followed by a Fortnite live stream where Burger King discounts were offered, and a meet-and-greet at a local Burger King restaurant.
Nico Amantia, senior account executive at Scout Sports and Entertainment told Adweek,
“That holistic, three-pronged activation allowed us to spread awareness digitally, but also have that face-to-face interaction with fans and really give them something back, which really allowed us to have a very successful campaign.”
Understand Its Implication:
One thing is clear that gaming and esports are an upward trend with a massive audience reach. According to eMarketer, 2020 U.S. gaming ad revenues are expected to reach $3.67 billion, and esports ad revenues are estimated to reach $214 million.
Although it is watched in a TV-like environment, it cannot expect the same response from a 15 min pre-rolled ads in the gaming world. David Messinger, CMO of Activision Blizzard quoted in Adweek,
“The major mistake that people make is to take the assumptions about other forms of media and try to take it into the world of gaming,”
Marketers should look to a long-term transformation -take time, approach things properly, and build on the bets to reap the benefits as gaming and esports ads are still in the nascent stage.
Messinger further added,
“Someone who comes in and starts today may feel like they’re behind, but they’re really at the beginning of what the future is going to be.”
Read More: Mobile Gaming Industry Bank On People Locked Inside Homes Due To COVID-19.
YouTube Tests New Shoppable Video Ads Tools
Amid a pandemic that created havoc around the world that resulted in prolonged store closures. This has led brands to advertise their products online to drive sales as more people are online now. To make things easier for them, YouTube has introduced new direct response solutions that make video ads more shoppable, drive conversion, and automate content delivery across the platform.
The idea is to make video ads the new ‘storefront’ for the brands as an increasing number of brands are using video ads that connect them directly to customers. YouTube Ads director and product manager Nicky Rettke wrote in the blog post, “Last year, the number of active advertisers using TrueView for action grew over 260 percent.”
Increase in sales with Shoppable TrueView for action
In the new test, the eCommerce advertisers can show their products in their TrueView for action ads. When the user clicks on the expansion arrow, browsable product imagery appears below the video.
Image Credit: Search Engine Land
The advertisers are required to sync their Google Merchant Center feed to the video ads, expand their call-to-action button, and drive traffic to a specific product page. However, Facebook recently released “Shops” creates on platform storefronts but keep the users and transactions within Facebook.
Retailer Aerie used Shoppable TrueView for action to increase awareness and sales for its 2020 Spring campaign and saw a 25% higher return on ad spend than the previous year and nine times more conversions compared to their traditional media mix. Rettke said in the post that 70% of people bought a brand after seeing it on YouTube.
Video Campaigns drive conversions
The next tool announced is ‘Video campaigns’, a cost-effective way to drive conversions, boost web traffic, or generate leads across the platform. It automatically brings video ads to the YouTube home feed, watch pages, and Google video partners in one campaign as well as include any future inventory that becomes available like the What to Watch Next feed.
Image Credit: Google
YouTube tested the video ad campaign with a start-up Mos to help students raise funds for college to avoid debts. Rettke said in the blog post that it saw 30% more purchases at one-third of the cost of its previous ad spend.
Lead Generation to a Video campaign
The third tool is adding lead forms to a brand’s video ad campaign. Lead forms help advertisers reduce costs and obtain potential costumers. It appears below the video ad and asks the viewers to fill the form while the ad is running.
Image Credit: Google
Automobile giant Jeep tested this approach with its Korea branch and saw a 13-times increase in completed leads at an 84% lower cost per lead as well as generated more leads.
Finally, Google has included YouTube in the Google Ads attribution report that will help advertisers identify the maximum impact across YouTube, Search, and Shopping campaigns.
Shoppable Ads, a new focus for social media platforms
Shoppable ads also considered as direct-response ads have become a major focus of all social media platforms in the pandemic when ad sales went down. Facebook introduced shoppable ads on its platform and Instagram. Snapchat has in-app shopping whereas buy groceries without leaving Pinterest. Shoppable ads are also seen on Tik Tok.
DR ads have helped Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat to maintain profits, and CPM’s. As per Adexchanger reports, YouTube sales VP Adam Stewart said,
“YouTube storefront isn’t a traditional DR advertising product.YouTube has a bustling DR business, because it’s popular for app-install campaigns, especially with mobile gaming companies.”
Direct response advertising features will be the focus of YouTube’s NewFronts presentation to advertisers. As a part of YouTube’s pitch, Stewart said the storefront isn’t meant to rival Facebook-Instagram or Snapchat commerce offerings but its natural counterpart is television.
Making Video Campaigns on Spotify Is Now Easy with Sound-On Video Ads!
Key Insights:
- The Ad studio debuted in 2017 and thereafter Spotify has nearly doubled its user base.
- Spotify witnessed an 11% rise globally in mobile downloads.
- Spotify reports an average of 25% of overall ad revenue from video accounts.
- In the past one year, Spotify has witnessed a 68% increase of active advertisers, with double the ads running.
Spotify has announced video advertising on Ad studio, its self-serve platform, in Canada, the U.K, and the U.S. This update is available to select advertisers in the recently added test markets to Ad Studio in April.
The Ad Studio was created initially for small and medium-sized advertisers to connect with Spotify listeners and create budget-friendly, customized audio ads for the platform. In April, it had expanded to 18 more markets and exited the beta version.
Spotify Push into Video Ads can increase brand awareness and brand recall.
Spotify said that often users on other platforms prefer viewing video ads muted, however, Spotify listeners are’ engaging with their sounds on.’ Complimenting their audio ad offering, video ads will give brands a visual storytelling opportunity for the in-focus moments.
The streaming giant further notes that running video ads with audio produces higher brand results than going solely for video ads. Video ads with sound-on lead to 1.9x ad recall and 2.2x increase in brand awareness, according to the company data.
The company said in a statement,
“Unlike many other platforms, on Spotify, listeners are already engaging with their sound on, offering a valuable opportunity for a brand’s message to be seen and heard. This multisensory experience can extend a brand’s audio ad strategy, providing another touchpoint to capture listeners’ attention and share messages across all relevant moments.”
Rise in advertisers using Spotify Ad Studio’s creative perk
Ad studio that is available in 22 countries globally has leveled up the playing field in creative production by offering a free service to generate a brand’s ad spot. Advertiser on Spotify’s Ad Studio can upload a script and in as little as one hour (48 hours in some cases) they will deliver a fully produced ad that includes music and voice over.
The company said that 37% of Ad Studio customers rely on their free voiceover tool for ad creation. Additionally, 50% of its advertisers used this tool in May, which is an 11% rise from March.
Ad Studio offers two options of ad format for video ads- horizontal video and vertical video. Horizontal video can run across all platforms and vertical video is optimized for iOS and Android.
Image Credit: Adweek
Image Credit: Adweek
Why should brands advertise on Spotify?
The company reported recently that it has 286 million active users and 130 million paid subscribers. Spotify is the third-largest advertiser in the world after Facebook and Google.
Spotify Ad Studio enables brands to reach targeted and relevant customers. Their programmatic audio advertising is the best way to reach Gen X and beyond.
If you think ads may annoy the listeners of Spotify, think again. Statistics by Acquisio states, 75% of digital audio listeners think commercials are totally fine on a free streaming service. 47% think ads are even less intrusive on Spotify than traditional radio.
For instance, brands targeting the hip audience that are interested in current trends can consider advertising on Spotify. Advertisers can take advantage of the Spotify data of logged users like moods, preferences, listening habits, interests, and activities. This will help brands to create customized ads.
Learn more: Spotify Adds $1.7B To Market Cap In 23 Min Post A Deal With Joe Rogan, World’s Leading Podcaster.
LiveIntent and Rubicon Project Invest on a Non-Cookie Based Identifier
LiveIntent and Rubicon Project have agreed to help publishers and media to do business on a non-cookie-based identifier.
The idea is to bring the Liveintent Authenticated Bridge framework to the header to help marketers and publishers reap the benefits of the ecosystem. The framework will be delivered via the bidstream of the Rubicon Project. The Liveintent Authenticated Bridge – a unique, privacy-safe identifier known as nonID will connect advertisers to publishers using hashed email addresses – to support media buying and selling without dependence on third-party cookies.
The key to Liveintent’s addressability framework, Authenticated Bridge for publishers and marketers is powered by email. Additionally, it allows media traders to understand the primary email associated with the particular browser or device by connecting it to the first-party data signals.
Prior to the pandemic and civil rights protests, ad tech 2020 was looking for options to replace cookies after the largest internet browser Google Chrome announced a gradual phase-out of tech by 2022.
Google is yet to implement the planned updates like other web browsers. The market share of Google Chrome is almost 50% of all installed internet browsers which means it can have a huge impact on the industry and can lead to a closedown of many independent ad tech players.
In the interim, efforts are made to find a way forward for the $130 billion industry where online technologies are being monitored by privacy regulators. Liveintent powers marketing and advertising technology that is cross-device and cross-browser compatible and does not require the use of third-party cookies. CEO Matt Keiser described Authenticated Bridge solution as nonID which means open to all – anyone can adopt it. Liveintent works with around 2000 publishers and 1000 advertisers.
As reported in Adweek, Matt Keiser said,
So, we haven’t made it something you need to sign a contract in order to adopt. Additionally, our ID is 1:1 with an email address.
This means the days of closed solutions are over for publishers and brands as Liveintent does not encrypt its identifier per user, unlike other proprietary solutions. Publishers had to struggle to monetize the web traffic when Apple and Mozilla restricted third-party cookies. This is where the Bridge solution can help to offset such issues. Liveintent’s first-party solution is powered by its Identity Graph whose insights are directly connected with validated and active emails.
CEO Matt Keiser said,
This framework works with established vendors’ proprietary IDs but is also pen to any publisher or brand that has their own email data. LiveIntent and Rubicon Project believe in the power of open source technology and have built solutions designed for easy integration and adoption, all while adhering to data compliance.
Garrett McGrath, Vice President of Product Management, at Rubicon Project said,
We continue to work with industry partners to develop community-driven identity solutions that simplify and enhance the advertising experience for publishers, advertisers and consumers, all the while respecting data privacy. LiveIntent’s Authenticated Bridge framework provides an identity solution that is reliable, transparent, and streamlined.
He further added,
In addition to helping publishers make their inventory more accessible and useful to advertisers, people-based identifiers improve the end user’s digital media experience.
Meanwhile, many independent players like AT&T, Live Ramp, and the Trade Desk have built different IDs in the replacement of cookies and are eager to offer their offerings. Google has also built its own ID tech and solutions under Privacy Sandbox but the industry is calling for governance with rising concerns of continued dominance from the duopoly Google and Facebook.
Snapchat’s Automated Advertising ‘Dynamic Ads’ Is What Global Brands Need Today!
- Snapchat announced a new advertising product called Dynamic Ads. It brings automated customization to ads and is designed to make it easy for brands to set up their e-commerce business on Snapchat.
- Snap first introduced Dynamic Ads in 2019 to e-commerce retailers in the U.S and began testing the ad unit last October.
- The stock was down 1% after the company launched Dynamic Ads in the U.K, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East after being offered only in the U.S.
- Google and Facebook both offer brands Dynamic Ads.
Snapchat Dynamic Ads or Dynamic Product Ads (DPAs) allow a brand to automatically create ads in real-time based on their own product catalogs which may contain hundreds of items. This means if a price or availability changes, ads will be updated automatically with less human intervention. Dynamic ads will make selling products easier for retailers and brands and can serve Snapchat’s 229 million daily active users based on their interests. Snap offers five templates to advertisers to showcase their products in a way that they look native.
Image Credit: Search Engine Journal
Here is the example of the template after a product is populated:
Image Credit: Search Engine Journal
Brands like Adidas, FarFetch, and Topshop were amongst the first brands to test Snapchat Dynamic Product Ads and all reported positive sales results from showcasing their products and services through customized ad formats.
Image Credit: CNBC
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Adidas has further accelerated its digital business and eCommerce is their key focus in 2020. Adidas test in Europe elicited positive feedback:
“We’re excited to beta test Snapchat’s Dynamic Ads in the U.K., Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Within weeks we saw a 52% growth in ROAS (return on advertising spend) and we have subsequently grown our investment.”
“The launch of DPAs allows us a route to reach our target Gen Z and Millennial audiences with relevant product creative throughout the consumer journey.”
– Rob Seidu, Sr. Director of Media Activation, Europe
Image Credit: MediaTel
FarFetch chief marketing officer Gareth Jones said that there is a shift in consumer interaction with eCommerce as consumers are increasingly shopping on their mobile phones during the COVID-19 lockdown which is expected to continue. Jones added that Snapchat Dynamic Ads have transformed the brand’s activity across the entire sales funnel.
“We lent heavily into DPAs during the testing period and we have seen significant success that has translated into high-quality customers and ultimately transactions. We plan to continue to build on our relationship with Snapchat and we see them as an always-on partner.”
Topshop was the first brand to do a beta test and it achieved four times the UK benchmarks for ROAS within two weeks. According to Topshop,
“DPAs have allowed Topshop to reach Snapchatters with high-quality, and relevant ads throughout the consumer journey, and based on such strong results, the activity will be scaled and launched into further markets over the coming weeks.”
Implications on Business
Lockdown has forced many businesses to shift their focus to eCommerce and keep up with consumer demands. According to Interactive Media in Retail Group, online sales reached a 10-year high in April, marking a year-over-year increase of 23.8%.
Snap reported revenue of $462 million in the first quarter, up more than 44% over the first quarter of 2019 and ad revenue grew as they relied on big-spending large advertisers.
According to Ed Couchman, general manager of Snapchat U.K,
“The coronavirus has accelerated the need for businesses to look at their digital sales channels and encouraged them to be more innovative in how they do that.”
“Since we opened up the beta testing I was impressed at the number of businesses who wanted to get involved – far above what we expected – which really shows the appetite for brands to get on board with e-commerce.”
“We are seeing strong results from advertisers in multiple sectors from high street clothing stores to food delivery who have been testing the product.”
Prebid Server Aims To Ease Header Bidding For Programmatic Advertisers
Prebid Server is an open-source server-to-server header bidding solution. The prebid server gives publishers access to the largest header bidding marketplace. It’s free to use, transparent, and integrated with more than 150- demand partners and many managed solution partners. Michael Richardson, Senior Director, Product Line Management, AppNexus said,
It is an infrastructure of a streamlined adtech ecosystem that maximizes value for everyone, not just Google.
According to Prebid.org, a prebid server improves your page’s performance by running the header bidding auction on a server. This will improve your page’s load time, which should improve your users’ experience.
In recent years, it has grown alongside the programmatic market and extended support for native, video, apps, and connected TV. Sellers are used to the benefits of the unified auction offered by Prebid by adopting multiple wrappers across multiple formats. Now there are calls for simplicity from buy-side as well as platform-supported, server-side Prebid solutions to reduce the burden on publishers.
Publishers dealing with multiplying wrapper formats
Prebid’s biggest asset ‘open source’ is a limitation for some sellers. The open-source nature of Prebid leads to transparency, which means publishers should take the matter in their own hands or find an expert technology partner.
Publishers lack the expertise to manage Prebid and its open values and eventually, this has led some of them to embrace proprietary wrappers. But proprietary wrappers have their drawbacks – the disparity in counting methodology and payment can result in buyers and sellers struggling to transact. Also, some wrappers exclude certain types of demand from participating – in cases where internal teams haven’t updated or built third-party adapters to integrate proprietary wrappers into the auction.
Many publishers have been running Prebid, Amazon TAM, and Google Open Bidding simultaneously. As a result, DSPs are receiving impressions once from each SSP, multiplied by the wrappers. The growing dissatisfaction in the DSP community over duplication requests and declining to participate in Open Bidding led to initiating mandates that the SSP community and publishers pick a single wrapper format.
In the upcoming period, it will be clear how the industry adapts but many publishers are expected to choose Prebid as a primary wrapper.
Also Read: Advertisers Look For Greater Transparency In Programmatic Ad Buying
Prebid server for Mobiles and CTV, Easy-to-use formats
A narrative was out in the early evolution of header bidding that “server-to-server was the future.” By running of an auction on the server-side than the user’s device- logic is- server-side heading creates a unified auction in a new environment, reduces latency, and improves user experience.
This approach has three issues – publishers couldn’t run easily as client-side, low participation of bidders, and required an additional user-match layer, reducing revenue.
Prebid Server is the solution to all these problems. Its 60 bidding partners show demand is no more a concern. Prebid sever will not need an additional user-match layer longer as cookies decommission, Prebid Server’s advantage in user identity only grows. It also allows header bidding in mobile applications and connected TV.
Many leading providers are investing in solutions to combine the Prebid server with their own technology making it easier for sellers to run server-side header bidding across all formats and retaining the benefits of an open-source wrapper.
Future of Prebid Server
It is exciting to witness the years of investment in Prebid paying off and the Prebid.org community growing. Publishers and Adtech partners working on the web inventory have adopted header bidding as an important technology in their monetization stack.
Looking forward to seeing how TV programmers and distributors leverage Prebid to optimize their business. It will be interesting to see how different wrappers start using the bid data, and apply data and machine algorithms to further optimize for higher revenues.
Publishers looking to contribute to Prebid and learn more about it, join Prebid.org as a member company.
Publishers Withdraw Ad Inventory From The Market To Protect Ad Prices
Generally, conventional wisdom says a publisher would sell more ad units at a lower price in a weak market. However, publishers are doing the opposite and pulling their inventory to take a short-term revenue hit and protect their inventory price from falling further. This will help their business in the long run by not falling into the trap of price cuts which would be difficult to win back.
Programmatic advertising market operates under an auction system, lower advertiser demand, and higher web traffic to publishers site has pushed programmatic ad CPM’s down by 10%-20%. Since buyers are now more loyal to price than brands, publishers are preventing prices to tank further to a point of devaluing their inventory over the long term. While some publishers are reducing their inventory in the open market to keep the prices from falling further, others are using ad slots to push internal subscriptions or eliminating ad slots from the pages. For instance, Buzzfeed is getting rid of display ads that receive lower viewability scores.
Unfortunately, the publishers are acting independently and not considering the impact on the broader market. They aim to protect their own inventory prices from falling low as they fear it will take a longer time to return to the previous levels especially if advertisers are buying at a bargain now and unwilling to pay more later when things are back to normal.
As quoted by Digiday, Andy Ellenthal, CEO of the ad sales reporting platform STAQ shares a similar opinion and said, When advertisers return to their normal spending amounts, “they’re going to absolutely remember that a publisher was 25 cents in April of 2020.”
Image Credit: Digi Day
As per the above STAQ graph, the average U.S. display ad CPM in the open auction has fallen from a high of $1.34 on March 1 to $0.91 on May 3.
Even though average CPM has bottomed out on April 8 at $0.83, Andy Ellenthal believes CPM’s will not experience a U-shaped recovery but more of an L-shaped recovery, a slow and steady upward trend. This means publishers whose CPM has fallen least will have to cover the shorter route to return to previous prices.
DigiDay interviewed a few publishing executives and one publishing executive said,
“I’ve got to manage my supply to keep it in balance with demand, and demand has fallen so fast that now we’re trying to get ahead of the game. How much supply can we take off the table to control the CPM without actually truly hurting our business more than it’s hurt now?”
A second publisher executive said that the removal of one ad unit across their sites is equivalent to more than 1 billion monthly impressions. It is a generous number but not significant enough to move the market. Media Math’s DSP sees more than 180 billion impressions each day.
On this Ethenall said,
“These publishers always have to strike a balance between fill and yield. Chances are they are not going to fill 100% of their ad slots right now. If you have a billion impressions that go unsold anyway, what’s the value of them if they’re only pulling down pricing for your better impressions?”
Many publishers have adjusted their floor price to a minimum level at which the inventory can be sold. However, the lower ad demand has made the publishers pull inventory and protect prices as inside programmatic advertising, everything revolves around “Price.”
One of the publishers used to increase floor price by 15% every two weeks since the beginning of Q1. However, in the second half of March, a significant number of impressions went unsold. The publisher could have reduced the price to sell his inventory but he didn’t and said, “in no way do I want to drop my floors to 25 cents because I don’t want crappy ads coming in.”
Lower the ad prices, the higher the chances of giving in to undesirable advertisers who can jeopardize the ability to attract genuine advertisers. Publishers use this opportunity of lower demand to seek out prospective advertisers, but they are wary that lower CPM can alleviate advertiser’s interest in doing programmatic direct or private marketplace deals.
Publishers are also looking at this opportunity to experiment repurposing of impressions that can boost their other businesses and become less reliant on advertisers. For instance, if a publisher can see that house ad proclaiming its subscription product can attract more subscribers and yield than those impressions to advertisers, they would monetize on house campaigns and not take revenue from programmatic advertising.
Advertisers Look For Greater Transparency In Programmatic Ad Buying
Time and again, “Transparency’ has been a cause of concern for advertisers in the programmatic ad buying. This has been a long time pending issue which still remains unresolved as advertisers try to uncover what happens to money spent on programmatic ads.
Ad spend is falling and advertisers are again seeking greater transparency into the ad-buying supply chain. Hidden fees, fraud, viewability, and brand safety are the growing concerns that need immediate attention.
Trade body ISBA studies reveal that nearly half (49%) of ad buys disappear before reaching publishers and 34% of this money is the disclosed fees agencies and ad tech vendors take for trading impressions. However, 15% cannot be attributed to what the report called an ‘unknown delta’ on the supply chain. The amount of money that reaches publishers is lower, as the report did not consider ad fraud and ad viewability.
As reported earlier, a noticeable amount of programmatic dollars doesn’t reach the publishers and it is getting increasingly harder to keep a track of where it goes. The trade body struggled for nine months to gather data from the ad tech vendors to make a report on this and when it received data is was unusable.
PwC collected information for the study was data on 267 million impressions traded between 15 advertisers, eight agencies, five demand-side platforms, six supply-side platforms, and 12 publishers from the Association of Online Publishers from Jan. 1 to 20. March. Of those impressions, only 31 million (12%) were actually analyzed by matching log-level and aggregated data across 290 different supply chains.
PwC reported that it was highly cumbersome and hard to collect data on each impression. Ad tech vendors were conservative in sharing data due non-disclosure agreements and data collected was in different formats making it difficult to trace an advertiser’s money to so many different publishers. The advertisers involved in the study were non-premium 40,525 sites on an average.
Generally, an advertiser or agency decides to buy impressions and pay for them on DSP while publishers use SSP to sell their inventory at advertisers. Data on impressions from these two platforms are matched up and PwC did the same. However, data could not give financial transparency for the advertisers and publishers There were still costs in the ‘unknown delta’ that remains unidentified on the report. For instance, hidden fees can be a combination of additional ad tech vendor fees, post-auction bid shading, trading deals, and other unknown factors.
As quoted Sam Tomlinson, marketing assurance partner at PwC in DigiDay,
“This is more because the programmatic ecosystem is built on legacy processes that are a mess.”
Graeme Adams, head of media at BT Group said,
“We desperately need to see a common set of standards adopted and more openness in this market, so that every penny spent is accounted for. If this happens, we’ll invest more in the channel; if not, we will cut back and reshape our trading approaches.”
To conduct such high and intense study is a big expense. For instance, It costs more than £1 million ($1.2 million) to collect and process the data from different sources in ISBA’s study. A lot of emphasis is given to attain log file data by marketers. If the ISBA report proves anything that the log file data can reveal everything about transparency and nothing at the same time.
Ruben Schreurs, managing partner at digital media consulting firm Digital Decisions responds to log file data and said,
“Using the overly sophisticated approach of trying to match log-file data in real-time is like buying the IBM Watson supercomputer to calculate 1+1.”
He added that advertisers should have a sensible and valuable approach by running a periodic review of their net spend on publishers and match it with publisher data cumulatively. This will help to get the right and required output to make value-driven decisions on how to optimize the value chain and avoid complicating technologies.
Nevertheless, the report findings can help the adtech industry and give the insight to enhance financial and data transparency as regulators on impressions as regulators dominate.
Steve Chester, director of media and advertising at ISBA said,
“If the ad industry can be seen to be demonstrating that we can create a more open and transparent market then it could avoid the necessity of being regulated.”
Publishers Look For New Income Alternatives As Adtech Revenue Declines
The adtech industry has already been in an unstable situation for the past two years loaded with debt. It has been a challenging situation for major tech providers as well. Many of the companies were start-ups, fully leveraged, or hoping to come out with an IPO soon.
The COVID-19 pandemic only worsened the situation, for now, companies are to stay above water. Publishers fear that the two-year revenue gains will be over.
With the overconsumption of video content, premium ad placements have also declined. The publishers are also concerned about encountering payment uncertainty from ad exchanges and third-party revenue sources.
Co-CEO Rotem Shaul of Primis which is owned and backed by the Interpublic Group and Universal McCann.shares with Digiday the concerns from publishers and said,
The publishers we work with are prioritizing safety.
Therefore, publishers are rapidly finding new and stable ad formats and ad programs across platforms to continue with additional revenue streams ad reduce dependence on one ad format. The new ad format includes native, display, video advertising content, and scrolling videos that give way to new opportunities. Publishers are also using this quarantine time to improve and update the programmatic systems -page loading speeds, update ad tech stacks, and refresh the sales team on the latest developments.
CEO Roetm Shaul added with an increase in consumption, publishers should do everything they can and should partner with companies that will continue post-crisis too. They should look for new ways to diversify their ad tech portfolio.
All this would have been a little easier to experiment with vendors before the tightening of the economy as they had the luxury of freedom and money to test and determine the best solutions. Currently, the focus is on the cash flow with low pay or no pay, putting pressure on the managers to deliver revenue.
In this down economy, this will lead to a vicious cycle. Publishers will be hesitant to give a chance to small vendors for fear of being unpaid or will be enforced to replace ad tech. With these concerns, publishers will leave small companies and they will lose more money and business which will lead to bankruptcies or shutdown. This will create more worry over working with small vendors and publishers moving to bigger vendors.
Present scenario of publishers
According to Digi Day, Shaul said, “Publishers are frantically moving their businesses to safe havens like Google, Verizon, and other big companies.” Companies may not offer the best deals but have no uncertainty over the payments.
However, there are vendors like Freewheel (owned by Comcast), SpotX (owned by RTL), or Primis that can offer similar levels of stability. They are equipped to offer attractive deals and keep the revenue stream intact.
Again, Shaul said to DigiDay that at Primis, all publishers want to hear is about security and safety in these uncertain times. He added,
Even we feel the concerns from publishers. Fortunately, they do categorize us as a big company, as we are a part of IPG, and once they see the letters IPG and know that they will back us up, they relax.
This unpredictable time will teach new learnings. To drive fresh revenue streams, new ad programs are set up. For ad tech and publishers, these new practices for stability and innovation will be carried forward. The revenue-strapped publishers and vendors will stabilize, then sustain, and once again grow and prosper. It’s all these important learnings that will lay a new foundation for their relationships and campaigns in the future and make stronger business for both sides- vendors and publishers.
