A conversation about trust and transparency in digital video advertising from New York Advertising Week
You’re a media buyer. You’re trying to place a video ad online. It goes into the rabbit hole of agencies, ad exchanges, servers, data aggregators, and a myriad of other agents before it makes it to the consumer. At the end of it all, you’re left wondering, Where did my ad actually run?
At New York Advertising Week’s panel “Programmatic Video in the Converged World,” September 28, 2017, industry experts from across the online video landscape—including JW Player COO Bill Day—explored how the latest trends in digital advertising impact trust and transparency in the ad ecosystem.
With the rise of automation through programmatic advertising, marketers have less control over how, when, and where their ads appear. Sometimes these ads end up on sites and placements that compromise brand safety. As Shenan Reed, President of MEC Global, summed up, a chief concern for buyers is: “Are my media dollars really working for me?”
This “whole new world” of digital advertising has “created more questions,” said Phil Cowlishaw, Head of Advertising Cloud Consulting Solutions at Adobe. “Not just about CPM (cost per thousand impressions), but what is the user journey? Did the ad drive conversion or was the person going to convert anyway?”
Middlemen complicate the process. “There are many layers to the onion,” said Day. When an ad passes through several hands on its way to the publisher, the risk of false impressions increases.
Combating fraud is “everybody’s job,” said Reed. One way that panelists lauded was the recent partnership between Trade Desk and White Ops to block false impressions before purchase and clean up fraudulent ad inventory.
Another key step in combating fraud? A mutual acknowledgement from publishers and advertisers that the problem affects both and not only the buy-side. “If you’re a seller (publisher),” Day continued, “you have to understand you must be vigilant too.”
To dive deeper into digital video advertising and discover how you can maximize your ad fill and CPMs: