The Cross Industry Programmatic Taskforce has released a “toolkit” to help advertisers and publishers stop potentially wasting millions of pounds a year in online advertising on the open web.
The toolkit comes nearly two years after a landmark study revealed how little money in programmatic advertising goes to publishers. The study, carried out by PwC and commissioned by advertiser trade body ISBA, found that 15% of the £2bn programmatic supply-chain costs are “unattributable” – known as “the unknown delta”.
The kit comprises three instruments that the Taskforce hopes the advertising industry will adopt:
Audit Permission Letter
An “Audit Permission Letter”, which would enable demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs) to share the data needed for a full financial audit. The ISBA/PwC study had found that it was only possible to match 12% of ad impressions between an advertiser’s DSP and a publisher’s SSP.
The Data Fields List
This is an agreed list of “essential” and “supporting” data fields which would provide the data to enable auditors to match impressions along the supply chain between advertisers and publishers.
“Essential” fields include the time stamp of the ad impression, the campaign ID, and the financial exchange rate if either the advertiser or publisher are located in different countries.
“Supporting”, or non-essential, fields include what price floor the ad impression had in the bidding auction, the price for the winning bid, and whether the impression auction was “first price” or “second price”.
Principles
The Taskforce has also produced a “Principles” document which summarises how the documents are intended to be used.
ISBA members are preparing a controlled test-and-learn study from live audits, the trade body added. It is hoped this will deliver evidence to show expected improvements in match rates and thereby reduce the “unknown delta”.
Wayne Blodwell, founder and CEO of the online advertising consultancy TPA Digital, told Mediatel News it was “great” that the Taskforce has created standardised documentation to help advertisers seeking transparency.
He said: “Oftentimes advertisers who have sought transparency have been unable to, and go through a merry-go-round of meetings and email chains. This toolkit will certainly help speed up that process.
“It’ll be interesting to see the case studies that come from the back of this and how transparency works against the backdrop of an increase in walled gardens and data science in media buying.”
Meanwhile, Nick Manning, founder of media agency MG OMD and former chief strategy officer at Ebiquity, described the move as “a step in the right direction”.
“Great news, assuming that the individual companies involved actually adopt these protocols,” Manning said. “There appears to be a growing recognition in the industry that the current lack of transparency in the programmatic market cannot be allowed to continue.”
