IAS has long championed and actively worked towards standardization with help from trusted partners like Verizon Media who are committed to pushing the industry forward. Now more than ever, measurement standardization and transparency must become a priority for everyone.

Moderator:

• Greg MacDonald, Vice President, Ad Marketplace Partnerships – Verizon Media

Panelists:

• Lisa Utzschneider, Chief Executive Officer – Integral Ad Science
• Will Luttrell, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder – Amino Payments

The post Total Visibility: Media transparency in the era of efficiency appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

An interview with Zu Anjalika Kamis Gunnulfsen, from Marketing in Asia.

Marketing in Asia (MIA): Lisa, when I first looked at your profile, I was blown-away. You are the recipient of many titles and awards – you are Adweek 50, Business Insider’s “Most Powerful Women in Mobile Advertising”, New York Business Journal’s “Women of Influence” and also the one that truly caught my eye, Working Mother’s “50 Most Powerful Mums”, which is incredible. Afterall, it is not everyday I meet someone with this accolade. I am so excited to know; what does it entail to be one of 50 most powerful Mums?

Lisa Utzschneider (Lisa): Thank you for your kind words Anjalika! Truly humbled and honoured by this recognition several years ago. I genuinely cherish being a mum, with or without any external recognition. Mums (and dads) are powerful. Ask any working mum, or dad, about how they manage their careers and home lives, and you will hear stories of unbelievable stresses and amazing ingenuity, especially now during this global pandemic.

In that regard, I consider myself no different than any other working parent. I have also been blessed with an incredibly supportive ecosystem: my spouse, family and close friends, my bosses and colleagues, and really our entire social network as a family, which includes babysitters, teachers, coaches, my children’s friends, their families and our neighbours.

MIA: You are at the helm of Integral Ad Science (IAS), a technology company that analyses the value of digital advertising placements and definitely one that is known for addressing issues around fraud, viewability and brand risk. Tell us all we need to know about IAS.

Lisa: IAS was founded in 2009 and is the global market leader in digital ad verification. Our vision is to be the global standard for trust, transparency, and predictive science in media. Simply put, we validate the quality of digital advertising. We do this in three ways across all channels:

• Viewability. We ensure that the ads are actually viewable on the screen, so they have an opportunity to make an impact.
• Fraud detection. Our tech verifies that ads are delivered to real people and not fake traffic like bots.
• Brand safety and Brand suitability. We protect our client’s brands from appearing next to unsafe content and guide those ads to run adjacent to content that is more suitable for their brands.

Advertisers won’t see true ROI if they aren’t accounting for fraud, viewability, or unsafe placements in their digital campaigns. IAS equips advertisers and publishers with both the insight and technology to protect their advertising investments from fraud and unsafe environments, as well as help them capture consumer attention, and drive business outcomes. We have the best tech talent, and cutting edge technology powered by AI and machine learning — enabling us to bring radical transparency in the ever-complex digital advertising ecosystem.

MIA: What can we expect to see in the digital advertising space in three to five years?

Lisa: Digital advertising is an extremely dynamic industry and so it’s hard to be certain of the future. However, I’ve worked in the industry through times of great change and transformation, so I can make some educated guesses, such as:

• Transparent, accountable, and measurable. Advertising will become less intrusive, more relevant, and of course, more measurable. Lots of advertisers have focused on lower-tier metrics, like views, impressions, and clicks. But in the coming years, the industry will focus more on real-time outcomes or on how far down the funnel these things are taking consumers. We will see a shift from vanity metrics to emotional connections with the consumer and that’s how brands will differentiate. We are working actively on raising the media quality mandate globally and in the coming years, I foresee digital media will become more transparent and accountable for results.
• Cookies crumbling and contextual targeting.  Increasing data privacy legislation, coupled with Chrome’s promise to dissolve cookies by 2022, has sparked new conversations between publishers, advertisers, and tech providers. These changes will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on the ways in which digital media is transacted. Once publishers are able to get ahead of these changes, they will be poised to take back control of their content and first-party data.
• Contextual-based advertising can help extend audience reach for publishers with rich, first-party data assets and provide an effective proxy for audiences. An increased focus on brand suitability from advertisers requires technology that does more than just protecting brands from risky content. It requires technology that enables a clear understanding of the nature of webpage content with detailed granularity and a greater scale than ever before.
• CTV/OTT- The CTT/OTT landscape will continue to grow and CTV environments will play a key role in reaching younger audiences at scale. We are already seeing direct-to-consumer brands investing heavily in CTV advertising. CTV is also becoming more of a programmatically transacted channel, bringing the risk of brand-unsafe or ad-fraud scenarios. IAS will continue to expand its CTV solutions to ensure advertisers and publishers can advertise in the new environment with confidence. We are also likely to see paid subscriptions to ad-free CTV services begin to stagnate as consumers reach their limit on paying for yet another streaming service.
• Social- Brands and people live between selfies, likes, tweets, and stories, so measuring the impact of social campaigns on actual users is more important than ever. Ad spend on social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube – will continue to increase and advertisers will need confidence that their social buys are reaching real humans and are viewable. Advertisers will need to work with verification companies like IAS that have the tech integrations with a wide selection of social media platforms to increase transparency and improve safety within the ecosystem. IAS is committed to helping brands have a consistent experience across platforms and ensuring they know the quality of their media buys.

MIA: Prior to IAS, you were with Yahoo, Amazon and Microsoft; big names in the industry. Walk us through the career path you have taken, which brings you to where you are now, Lisa.

Lisa: I joined Integral Ad Science (IAS) as the CEO in January of 2019. Prior to that I was the Chief Revenue Officer at Yahoo!. Overall, I’ve spent 20 years in the digital advertising business working for large technology companies; first with Microsoft, then with Amazon and Yahoo. I have always been based in New York City (NYC), and I consider myself a lifelong New Yorker, even though I now commute from Connecticut.

I was fortunate to start my career at Microsoft, where I learned a tremendous deal about the business of digital advertising. I joined Microsoft at the most junior level of the organisation, and I am proud of the fact that ten years later I left as the General Manager/Partner. Following Microsoft, I joined Amazon to build the global advertising business from scratch, starting with a team of eight people in NYC, and left Amazon with a large thriving global organisation in place. My experience at Amazon instilled the importance of data and experimentation in me.

After Amazon, I joined Yahoo! to lead the global sales organisation during a very critical period of the company prior to its purchase by Verizon. As the CRO and a public officer of the company, I had the opportunity to interact with Yahoo! board on a regular basis and that experience helped me develop an understanding of the financial management of a company.

A big reason that I joined IAS is that IAS is composed of highly intelligent people who are passionate about making digital advertising safer for advertisers. Marketers spent $273 billion globally in 2018 on digital advertising and they need to have confidence in the perceived integrity of their brands in the age of bots and fraud. IAS provides this needed trust and transparency. This is a very relevant and complex area, which also makes it very appealing to me.

MIA: You have broken the glass ceiling. What are your biggest pushes and motivations to be where you are now?

Lisa: I’ve been fortunate to have received guidance throughout my career by phenomenal leaders. Three pieces of useful advice come to mind. The first piece of advice that I received early in my career from a senior female executive was to be clear on your personal and professional priorities. What is negotiable and non-negotiable? What do you consider as a “sacred time” that you prioritise? For example, I have always made an effort whenever possible to get home at night to tuck our girls into bed and read them bedtime stories. I’d consider this as my “sacred time” and it’s a non-negotiable.

The second piece of advice was from one of my mentors, who challenged me to do one thing personal or professional, each day, that terrified me. It has since inspired me to be bold and push myself outside of my comfort zone. She also encouraged me to raise my hand for the job that no one else wants, and to never become complacent in my role. I’ve learned to be open to opportunities that don’t follow the natural career path and that has enabled me to develop valuable skills. 

MIA: Many companies have not much of a choice but to operate virtually, following the global Covid-19 pandemic. Do you think this will be the way the world rolls, post Covid-19?

Lisa: It is more important than ever to empower employees, prioritise their well-being, and provide them with the tools they need to thrive in their roles. During these times of disruption, what many companies have learned is that staying agile, connected, and equipped are some of the best ways to navigate the current situation and remain productive. Remote working has become a reality for companies globally. I can’t predict the future, but I’d expect that the lessons learned and the challenges met through this situation will have a positive impact on how people think about leadership, collaboration, and having an agile approach to navigating changes. 

MIA: How has the global pandemic affected the digital advertising space?

Lisa: Our customers are telling us that the advertising industry continues to seek guidance on how to best meet these unprecedented challenges as we all acclimate to the “new normal” together. Brand safety and suitability remain top of mind for our clients, as well as maintaining scale for both audience reach and inventory monetisation.

IAS has been doing our part to ensure marketers and publishers are equipped with accurate data and tools to navigate this “new normal”. This includes sharing educational content and releasing our Media Quality Report, which shows, for example, that programmatic viewability rates are improving worldwide. Additionally, we recently developed our own bot technology to pressure-test our machine learning algorithms vs. competitors, showing how marketers could be at risk for bot fraud. Our partners trust us to provide them with relevant information and learnings about the industry and we will continue to update them with research and further insights as the situation unfolds.

MIA: With the world constantly changing and people evolving, what is the most effective way to lead and inspire the workforce of today and tomorrow? 

Lisa: As the leader of a diverse global team, I lead with empathy, transparency, and accountability. Each employee at IAS can reach out to me at any time whether it’s through my #ask-lisau Slack channel or during our weekly global town hall. Having multiple touchpoints with the team ensures that I am accountable to our team and helps me keep a finger on the pulse of the organisation. At IAS we have a company value that We Are One Team. This means wherever we are located, whether virtual or in the office, we are in this together and will come out of this unusual experience even stronger.

The post Get to know Lisa Utzschneider, Chief Executive Officer, IAS appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

The digital advertising market can be a murky one, with increasing calls for more transparency and trust issues over brand safety and ad fraud. The programmatic scene has once again been thrown into the spotlight and questions about the transparency of its supply chain have recently arisen.

According to a report titled “Programmatic supply chain transparency study” by UK advertising body ISBA, done in association with the Association of Online Publishers and carried out by PwC, publishers received half of advertiser spend. Meanwhile, 15% of advertiser spend could not be attributed and the report labelled this as “the unknown delta”, which forms around one-third of supply chain costs. That said, the study only takes into account disclosed programmatic models, in which advertisers are able to access the transaction data, fees, and costs across the supply chain.

The study, however, was unable to say with certainty what the unknown delta represents. It could reflect a combination of factors – limitations in data sets, demand side platforms (DSP) or supply side platforms (SSP) fees that are not visible in the study data, post-auction bid shading, inventory reselling between tech vendors, or other unknown factors, the study explained.

Meanwhile, out of 100% of the advertiser spend, 7% went to agency fees while 8% went to DSP and SSP fees respectively. Also, 10% of the spend went to demand side tech fees.

According to the study, publisher revenues ranged from 49% to 67% of advertiser spend for each individual publisher. When giving equal weight to each supply chain, the average was 51%.

For identifiable impressions, 65% of advertiser video spend reaches publishers while display stands at 54%. The study noted that the same is true of private marketplace spend (54%) compared to open marketplace (49%). On the other hand, unidentifiable impressions which are not labelled by format or marketplace, generally had a smaller proportion of advertiser spend reaching publishers, lowering the overall study average.

The study obtained data from 15 brands including British Airways and Tesco, five DSPs, six SSPs, eight agencies and 12 publishers. It noted that standardisation is “urgently required across a range of contractual and technology areas, to facilitate data sharing and drive transparency. Additionally, all industry participants should collaborate to further investigate the unattributed costs and agree upon industry-wide actions to reduce them.

Although the study was only conducted in the UK and hence the UK-focused statistics, programmatic allows for global activation, Laura Quigley, managing director, Southeast Asia at Integral Ad Science (IAS). Hence, ramifications would also be felt in Asia Pacific. Citing a recent World Federation of Advertisers poll on programmatic proficiency and practices in Asia Pacific, Quigley said that programmatic media buying has become commonplace for marketers in the Asia Pacific, with nine out of 10 currently buying media programmatically.

“Now, when we think about programmatic, you have got hundreds of thousands of websites. You have got billions of impressions that can be bid on at any time. You are going to have some issues across those billions of impressions. So, it is about how do we identify those potential problems and how do we deal with them on behalf of our advertisers and clients,” she explained. That said, there are tools available in DSPs that can help advertisers improve programmatic buying by targeting brand safe pages, humans and not bots, as well as improve viewability. Quigley added that each step is a building block to connecting brand and consumer through more authentic, viewable, and transparent means.

Advertisers need to use the platform to understand where to drive more efficiencies and where the loss is coming from.

For example, this means buying from the same publisher from one DSP which is more efficient, as opposed to buying the same publisher across four different DSPs. Hence, making the decision to optimise towards the best option.

Where does the unknown delta go to?

On the other hand, PubMatic’s chief revenue officer Jason Barnes said it is difficult to speculate as to whether the Asia Pacific market would see similar trends. To get to the bottom of this, the IAB in Australia has formed a working group to look into the findings of the report and Barnes said PubMatic will be supporting this effort and looks forward to seeing the results.

The delta could be attributed to a variety of factors, such as platform reporting discrepancies, non-transparent vendor rebates or fees, post-auction trading deals, or fraud, among others, Barnes said. He added that further analysis of the data needs to be undertaken to fully determine and understand the identified delta. Only then can a robust conclusion be delivered and an industry-wide effort to address any anomalies, led by the relevant trade organisations, be undertaken, he said.

Meanwhile, Hemant Menon, associate director, programmatic at Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) Singapore said current programmatic buying practices rely heavily on ads.txt to verify the authenticity of the inventory. Ads.txt is an IAB-approved text file that aims to prevent unauthorised inventory sales. According to Menon, the heavy reliance on ads.txt makes it easier for plenty of supply mediators or resellers who follow malpractices to manipulate the bids, hence resulting in “unknown deltas” in the order of 15%.

Is programmatic a risky space to spend on?

The report’s results might leave some wondering if they should reconsider their spend on programmatic. However, players in this space believe that there is no need to push the panic button. PubMatic’s Barnes said while the report found that 50% of spend did not go to publishers, the alternative is not that 100% goes to publishers. “Agencies, DSPs, and SSPs, among others, all provide value, and that value is not free,” he said.

The alternative is a non-programmatic approach to buying media, in which advertisers spend significantly more to reach their target audiences in a more inefficient way. 

According to him, buyers have the tools to make intelligent decisions about the ROI benefits they receive from the address-ability and granularity of programmatic versus direct insertion orders.

Likewise, IAS’ Quigley said programmatic is not a risky space to spend on. In fact, programmatic advertising plays an important part in supporting an ad-funded open web. “Ad technology can be a powerful lever in improving automation and efficiency for publishers, agencies, advertisers, and consumers. However, industry alignment around standards, harmonisation, and collaboration should be used to address many of the issues identified in the ISBA report. We need to use verification to buy quality inventory,” she explained.

There needs to be more cross-platform transparency and media measurement and programmatic allows for that, Quigley said. With new platforms being bought programmatically such as connected TV and digital out-of-home, this will allow for more transparency in the evolving mediums, she explained. “Creating clear industry standards and guidelines about supply chain remunerations will also go a long way in cleaning up the accountability,” Quigley added.

 Meanwhile, DAN Singapore’s Menon explained that programmatic buying gives brands and agencies more control and flexibility on what they actually buy. Hence, it is a better choice when it comes to advertising investments.

Whose responsibility is it to ensure transparency?

The report certainly proves that more transparency is needed in programmatic. To do so, IAB Southeast Asia and India’s regional VP education and industry initiatives, Laura Greally, said the first step is to come together as an industry and recognise this is a shared responsibility for all involved.

As the lead for IAB Southeast Asia and India committees and working groups, Greally and her team has uncovered the first few steps of the process to achieve transparency and they are “seek to understand and then to be understood” with extensive regional research.

“Now we are looking to the future and what real solutions are needed so we have formed sub groups to tackle this with perspective from agencies, ad tech vendors and publishers speaking as one voice,” she said.

Some ad tech platforms currently have transparency built into their products from major solution partners such as Google and Oracle, to verification partners such as DoubleVerify and White Ops, Greally said. She explained that technical initiatives such as ads.txt and app-ads.txt help improve transparency in the programmatic ecosystem.

Have the mindset that transparency is a valuable investment as opposed to an additional line item cost on an invoice.

She added that to ensure a smoother process when delivering at scale, there needs to be a premium inventory to begin with. The challenge, however, is how “premium” is defined as there is a range of interpretations at the global, regional and local levels. “This means there is a responsibility for all players in the ecosystem to agree to a definition and then make this the standard to accelerate scale across the open marketplace without compromising trust and transparency,” Greally explained.

Citing programmatic guaranteed (PG) as an example, Greally said it is premium inventory negotiated at a fixed price directly between media agencies and publishers. According to her, it offers the advantage of ensuring that ads are served in a familiar brand safe environment with the practical benefit to monitor campaigns from a single platform across publishers, channels and devices.

(Total Visibility: Learn more about the exclusive, industry-first partnership to close the transparency gap)

As the proverb says, it is quality not quantity and investing adequately up front increases marketers chances of trackable and measurable successful business outcomes.

Meanwhile, Greally explained the “lost 15” is a symptom of a larger issue – the industry thinking that reach and impact can be achieved through low cost inventory and simply comparing rate cards or net CPM positions, rather than selecting a supply chain based on the true outcome. According to her, this can also be seen as “spray and pray”. She added that marketers should recognise that each ad tech partner brings a different value proposition to the table and that unique insights, offerings and relevance to the business that should be used to distinguish the vendors.

“Choosing a vendor simply because they offer the lowest price, and look great initially for your bottom line, will only end up costing you more in lost brand effectiveness, and cold hard cash, further down the line,” she added.

Adding on to the discussion was PubMatic’s Barnes, who said marketers should be critical of their supply partners to ensure transparency and efficiency of their media spend. “Buyers who have a clear view of their digital supply chain are more likely to know exactly where and when their media investment is going, and are less likely to be exposed to bad outcomes like having ads end up on fraudulent or low value environments,” he added.

At the end of the day everyone in the chain needs to be held accountable for transparency in the programmatic space – from the brand and the agency, to the publisher and all the ad tech partners in between. There is “no one major solve” that will remove this problem, IAS’ Quigley said. Instead, it requires everyone to conduct their day-to-day work in a more transparent manner.

“But I do think that brands own this more and will need to push for this mandate further. Previously thanks to P&G and Unilever, vociferously propagating for transparency, we have seen standards and best practices develop, and it just needs to get more structured and audited with the entire supply chain being held accountable,” she said.

Similarly, DAN Singapore’s Menon said the industry needs to work as a collective by adopting technology solutions, the likes of sellers.json and RTB supply chain object, as enablers to transparency. “Along with technology, it is a dire need for buyers and sellers to establish direct relationships to ensure less involvement of resellers,” he added.

True transparency is driven by data which in turn provides visibility into every transaction in the digital supply chain. 

Different types of transparency

Separately, a recent blog post by IAB programmatic committee members – Xandr’s account director Eimear O’Rourke and Spotify’s head of automation, SEA, HK and Taiwan Diogo Andrade, identified four different types of transparency in the programmatic space:

1. Media transparency: Offering visibility and analysis on what was purchased. While impression by impression log level data offers this information, O’Rourke and Andrade said this still requires investment in resources and systems to ingest and analyse it.

2. Auction transparency: This covers the type of auction that occurred – whether it is first or second price, who participated in the auction, and if the price floors affected the auction outcomes. According to O’Rourke and Andrade, not every auction is properly declared in Asia Pacific, and it can be difficult to spot overpaying without detailed analysis.

3. Fee transparency: This represents the ability to view how the monetary transaction occurred throughout the transaction between the buyer and seller and know what was deducted and when. O’Rourke and Andrade explained that in Asia Pacific where there is a higher share of app inventory, publishers are often new to ad monetisation and need to know the right questions to ask on how and when fees are taken.

4. Data transparency: This concerns the type of data that is probabilistic and deterministic and how is it all collected and compiled. O’Rourke and Andrade said that some audience based panels are small in this region, so not as reliable as they may be globally. It is important to understand how data is collected and how to interpret it, country by country.

Interested to find out how you can get more visibility into your digital ad supply chain? Speak with us today.

The post The transparency gap: Exploring the unknown delta where 15% of ad dollars vanish appeared first on Integral Ad Science.