That calculation no longer balances.

As the industry approaches 2026, the era of accepting opaque infrastructure has ended. For premium publishers, the definition of a modern media stack is shifting from broad connectivity to radical directness. Revenue durability now depends on ruthlessly rationalizing the supply path. Control, data, and economics must remain with the content creators.

The high cost of intermediary bloat

The systemic critique of the current programmatic environment is well-documented, yet the inefficiencies persist. Despite years of discourse regarding Supply Path Optimization (SPO), the chain remains cluttered with intermediaries. Many of these vendors function primarily through arbitrage rather than value addition.

For media executives, the issue extends beyond fees. It centers on the misalignment of incentives. When a supply chain involves multiple hops, reselling, and bid duplication, technology partners often optimize for their own volume and take rates. They rarely prioritize the publisher’s yield or the advertiser’s working media.

This complexity acts as a shield. It obscures where value leaks and complicates the auditing of revenue streams. In 2026, transparency serves as an architectural requirement rather than a sales talking point. If a publisher cannot trace a dollar from the DSP to their bank account without losing 30 to 50 percent to friction, the infrastructure has failed.

Redefining modern media infrastructure

Publishers must demand directness from the ad supply chain in the coming year. Moving toward a direct-to-publisher model represents a strategic reclamation of economic power rather than a simple technical adjustment. A direct infrastructure removes the cost of unnecessary middlemen. This ensures a higher percentage of advertiser spend reaches working media. When the path clears, yield increases naturally because the friction costs disappear.

Directness also maps to control. When publishers rely heavily on third-party legacy tech stacks, they become beholden to product roadmaps that do not prioritize their specific needs. By demanding infrastructure that allows for direct connections, media executives regain crucial operational capabilities.

• Dictating terms. Executives can structure distinct commercial agreements that remain undiluted by third-party revenue shares. This clarity allows for more accurate forecasting and P&L management.
• Protecting data. Direct paths limit the leakage of first-party data signals to unauthorized resellers. This security becomes paramount as privacy regulations tighten globally.
• Accelerating innovation. Publishers can deploy new ad formats or privacy-preserving technologies immediately. They no longer need to wait for a massive intermediary to update legacy code.

The sustainability and efficiency imperative

A secondary argument for direct infrastructure has emerged as a critical business driver: Sustainability. The digital advertising industry generates a massive carbon footprint. This is driven largely by the sheer computing power required to process billions of bid requests, many of which are duplicative. In a convoluted supply chain, a single impression opportunity might generate dozens of calls to different servers. This consumes energy at every hop, only to result in a single ad serving.

This is the very definition of waste.

Brands and agencies now face pressure to report on Scope 3 emissions. Consequently, they are scrutinizing the carbon cost of their media buys. A direct connection offers an inherently greener alternative. It reduces Hello the computational load significantly by eliminating reselling and secondary auctions.

For the publisher, this presents a dual advantage. A streamlined, direct supply chain generates higher profitability by capturing more working media. Simultaneously, it appeals to the growing number of eco-conscious buy-side partners. Efficiency serves as both a responsibility and a competitive differentiator.

The cooperative path forward

The shift away from opaque intermediaries toward transparent, direct connections is already underway. Industry bodies and specialized cooperatives are re-platforming to prioritize these direct specifications. However, the technology only functions as well as the demand for it.

Media executives must stop viewing the tech tax as a fixed cost of doing business. It is a solvable inefficiency. The goal for 2026 involves building a supply chain where value derives from the quality of the audience and the content. It should not depend on the complexity of the pipe used to reach them.

We must close the gap between the advertiser’s dollar and the publisher’s pocket. The technology to do so exists. The imperative now relies on the will to implement it.

The post The high cost of ad tech friction: Why publishers must go direct appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Yet moments of disruption can be moments of reinvention. Publishers that once relied on stability must now build resilience. They need to diversify revenue streams, cultivate loyal audiences, and lean on partners who can shoulder the heavy lift of technology, brand safety, and optimization. Survival in this market doesn’t come from standing still. It comes from adapting with speed and purpose.

What’s causing the squeeze

Advertisers are consolidating spending on fewer, trusted partners—supply sources that deliver quality, brand safety, performance, and scale. For independent publishers, that means competing against much larger players with deeper pockets and more sophisticated technology.

Meanwhile, running an in-house programmatic stack has become unsustainable. Effective yield management requires continuous testing, demand path optimization, identity and brand safety investments, dynamic pricing strategies, and strong demand partner relationships. 

The result? Media companies are being crowded out. Without adapting, many publishers risk losing visibility and revenue in a marketplace dominated by scale.

The power of programmatic scale

The growth of sales houses isn’t accidental; it’s structural. As the dedicated monetization partner for multiple publishers and a one-stop shop for advertisers, sales houses combine diverse ad inventory in a single channel. The model rests on significant fixed-cost investments in technology, teams, and innovation beyond what a single publisher can rationalize. 

By aggregating supply, sales houses can unlock efficiencies and command more attractive demand relationships. At Raptive, we run over 750 optimization experiments annually across 6,000 sites, generating insights no single publisher could replicate. We believe that, by tapping into that level of learning, publishers can turn programmatic into a resilient engine of sustainable growth.

This explains why the sales house category has grown by 31% in three years: many publishers are tapping into those benefits rather than going it alone. 

The bottom line: ad management is a strategic advantage. It allows publishers to increase revenue, cut costs, compete with scaled players, and adapt to the changing flow of ad dollars. 

Four strategies for surviving the squeeze

What can publishers do in the face of so much change? The rules of digital media are shifting fast, but with the right programmatic approach, audience focus, and monetization plan, there are clear ways to stay competitive. Here are four smart moves to help publishers grow stronger and smarter in today’s disrupted media landscape.

Build your brand

Brand is the ultimate differentiator—and the most reliable antidote to platform volatility. As Gen Z matures beyond its “TikTok generation” reputation, it seeks trusted sources to guide decisions around home ownership, careers, and finances. They value authenticity and expertise, not clickbait or surface-level content. 

Advertisers follow the same logic. They value publishers whose audiences already see them as credible. And strong brands don’t just win loyalty; they also drive more direct traffic, as readers bypass intermediaries and head straight to the publisher’s front door. That kind of audience relationship is invaluable in an era of shrinking search referrals and shifting algorithms. The risk of inaction is steep: our research shows trust drops by nearly 50% when readers suspect content is AI-generated. Publishers who invest in building strong brands now will secure resilience. This results in reader loyalty, advertiser trust, and a steady stream of front-door traffic.

Diversify traffic sources

AI-generated results and the rise of zero-click searches mean that search is an increasingly unreliable source of traffic—an existential threat for publishers who lean too heavily on SEO. Expanding reach through alternatives like Google Discover—already rivaling search in some categories—along with emerging platforms such as Newsbreak, opens new pathways to audience acquisition. 

Social referrals have declined but remain a vital offset to search dependency. For lean teams, subject-matter expertise and dedicated resources are critical to uncovering and executing creative strategies that balance traffic sources and protecting long-term growth.

Prioritize direct sales

Programmatic may be gobbling up advertising budgets, but that doesn’t mean publishers should completely abandon direct sales. The 20% of ad spend not going to programmatic is worth fighting for. In fact, combining private marketplace sales with direct sales can boost inventory value to 2-3x that of the open market. For media companies, the challenge is scale: partnering with the right sales house extends your reach, unlocking premium demand without adding overhead.

Invest in identity solutions

Google hasn’t killed cookies, but that doesn’t mean publishers can afford to sleep on authenticated traffic. The pressure is still mounting—from regulators, from savvier users demanding privacy, and from the nearly one billion people worldwide now invisible to advertisers due to ad blockers. Maximizing email-identified traffic and leveraging the right technology can deliver 30–90% more revenue in cookieless environments. The challenge is scale: no single publisher can match the reach of major platforms alone. But by tapping into networks that have invested in ID solutions for years, publishers can benefit from identity matching across thousands of sites—unlocking richer data, stronger advertiser demand, and long-term competitive strength.

Gain power through partnerships

Sales houses provide access to expertise, technology, and scale that individual publishers can’t easily build on their own, reducing operational strain, unlocking competitive advantages, and freeing up resources to focus on what matters most—delivering the kind of authentic, trusted content that keeps audiences coming back.

In an era defined by shifting algorithms, rising privacy expectations, and tighter resources, resilience won’t come from going it alone. Resilience, and success, are built by combining authentic brands with smart strategies and the right partners.

The post How smart publishers are winning in a squeezed media economy appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Across the roughly 20 meetings scheduled on my calendar, we frequently covered the industry’s latest challenges with identity signal loss and evolving regulation. But in contrast to last year’s tone, privacy and data protection weren’t discussed as obstacles—rather, they emerged as clear strategic assets.

Yes … privacy and data protection as competitive differentiators.

Differentiation for quality ad environments

Let me rewind the tape to last June when it felt like every conversation about audience data was filtered through the lens of one company: Google. The industry’s attention was squarely focused on the slow-motion rollout of the Privacy Sandbox, and whether Google would hold the line on deprecating Chrome third-party cookies. Nearly every panel, rooftop gathering and one-to-one conversation on the topic included some version of the same question: “What’s Google going to do next … and when?”

This year, that question simply never came up.

In fact, I don’t think I heard the word Google mentioned once in conversations about identity or audience strategy. Its absence was striking.

Instead, conversations at Cannes 2025 felt more grounded—and far more strategic. Across discussions with agency leaders, publishers, data providers, and adtech colleagues, the talk shifted away from obstacles, workarounds, and Google toward the premium asset value of audience data.

Privacy shifts from constraint to catalyst

These are ideas we’ve been championing for years (and one I recently wrote about after returning from the NAI conference in May). However, it was genuinely energizing to hear the shifting tone echoed so broadly and confidently by others.

I spoke with several agency executives who described consumer data not as a privacy checkbox, but as a strategic asset. I talked with a half-dozen publishers who have recognized that freely sharing audience data contributes to the commoditization of their inventory. These media executives are becoming more assertive about protecting the proprietary value of the data they’ve earned through audience relationships.

There was also a noticeable shift in language. Words like “value,” “differentiation,” and “trust” popped up frequently, emphasizing competitive differentiation for advertisers and publishers with deep consumer insights. I also heard a clearer commitment to treating consumer data respectfully and responsibly. Thematically, the tone on data protection has shifted significantly over the past year—from seeing it primarily as a compliance issue, toward embracing it as a recognized competitive advantage.

Signal loss and the long view

That’s not to say the challenges are solved. Far from it. Signal loss continues to reshape how we think about audience targeting, measurement, and optimization. The new class of AI, for all its promise, still needs clean, compliant, insightful data to generate meaningful outcomes. In fact, as more of the industry embraces and implements AI, it’ll be the data that differentiates, not the AI models themselves.

This year in Cannes, the conversations felt like the industry was thinking long-term. The industry is recognizing that sustainable growth hinges on building robust systems founded on trust.

This evolution also aligns with our core belief that performance and privacy don’t have to be at odds. In our experience, the most performant systems are often those that respect the data they use—because respect fosters trust, and trust ultimately unlocks deeper access to meaningful consumer data.

The conversations I had at Cannes reinforced that we’re not alone in this thinking. More and more, it seems, the market is rewarding those who take data stewardship seriously. It’s not just in rhetoric, but in architecture. In short, data is finally being treated as the strategic differentiator it’s always had the potential to be.

That’s a big change from last year. And frankly, a welcome one.

Cannes will always be a place for splashy activations and creative showcases. But for those of us focused on the plumbing behind performance—on the systems, safeguards, and signals that actually make modern advertising work—it was reassuring to hear a new tone. Less fear. Less dependence. More conviction. More ownership.

If last year was about reacting to Google, this year was about reclaiming the narrative. If this shift continues, we’ll have finally entered an era where privacy isn’t a burden—it’s a genuine brand asset.

The post Cannes highlights: privacy, performance, and the power of trust appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Why traditional data providers are falling behind

The first question you might be asking is: Why does the industry need commerce data at all? Don’t we already have plenty of data providers in market right now?

In short, yes. But not all data is created equal.

Traditional data providers have historically faced significant challenges which, over time, have undermined the quality and effectiveness of their insights.

Here are a few examples of areas where current data models fall short [FH1] [GI2] from the demand-side perspective:

Data quality and accuracy

• Incomplete data. Modeled data often leans on partial information, leading to inaccurate insights.
• Outdated data. In fast-changing markets, stale data can lead to ineffective targeting.
• Data silos. Data often lives in silos, making it hard to create a cohesive model that works across platforms.

Algorithmic bias and transparency

• Biases in data. If the data used to build models is biased, it can lead to skewed targeting that reinforces biases.
• Discrimination. There’s a risk of unintentionally excluding or targeting specific groups, leading to unfair practices.
• Transparency. A lack of transparency around how models operate can erode trust from consumers and regulators.

Introducing commerce data—a new approach to data-drive marketing

In today’s digital world, commerce is everywhere.

Shoppers generate a wealth of information at every touchpoint, from their first product search to their final purchase. This rich data reveals not just what people buy but how and why they make decisions.

Commerce data combines consented purchase and intent signals, built on real-world consumer behaviors. It covers everything from demographics and location to product views, last purchases, offline sales, and ad clicks. Layer in some AI, and patterns begin to emerge which can supercharge audience targeting and ad strategies.

In the context of programmatic, commerce data is made up of various events and signals based on consumer behavior, including:

• Product views and cart additions
• Purchases and ad clicks
• Contextual data like URLs, categories, and keywords
• Product details like categories, SKUs, prices, and descriptions
• Identifiers like hashed emails and visitor IDs
• Offline sales

Putting commerce data to work

When combined with commerce-focused AI, commerce data powers some of the most effective advertising strategies for today’s modern marketer. That includes:

• Identifying in-market consumers: Knowing who’s ready to buy and the best time and place to reach them.
• Product recommendations: Suggesting products and bidding based on the value-to-cost ratio of each impression.
• Audience building: Creating lookalike audiences to find new prospects and zero in on people actively shopping for specific products.

How to get the most out of commerce data

When you’re evaluating a commerce data provider, asking the right questions is essential to getting the best results. You’ll want to dig into a few key areas to make sure you’re making the right choice.

First, consider data collection and sources. It’s important to understand where the provider’s data comes from and how it’s gathered. Is it collected directly, such as onsite, or inferred through modeling? Knowing this helps gauge the reliability of the data you’re working with.

Next, think about data quality and accuracy. You’ll want to ask how they ensure their data is accurate and complete. Are they refreshing it in real-time, daily, or on another schedule? Consistency here can make or break the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Then, there’s data segmentation and customization. How is the data broken down, and what criteria are used for segmentation? Can the provider integrate data across multiple devices and channels? Flexibility here can be a big win when you’re targeting your audience across platforms.

Of course, data privacy and security is the cornerstone of any digital activation. You need to know how your provider protects the data they handle. Is personal data anonymized or pseudonymized, and can they offer you transparency into how they’re collecting and processing that data?

Time to leverage the commerce data opportunity

There’s no doubt that commerce data presents a huge opportunity for brands to enhance targeting, personalize messages, and drive better results. By working with the right DSP, you can quickly and effectively leverage these new data signals in order to help your advertising partners more effectively achieve their objectives.

The post Is your programmatic data strategy missing the commerce connection? appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Even those working with programmatic advertising every day were surprised at how it can actually undermine the journalism ecosystem. It has created a marketplace in which blue-chip advertisers unknowingly finance the worst peddlers of misinformation and disinformation at the expense of publishers who still care about informing readers.

A striking example of this phenomenon occurred in 2019 when my team discovered that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway was the biggest advertiser on Sputnik News, a Kremlin-controlled disinformation website, through its subsidiary Geico. This was, of course, not because of a deliberate decision made by Buffett or executives at Geico. Instead, Geico’s funding for Sputnik came in the form of ads the company inadvertently placed on the Russian disinformation site because of the black hole that is programmatic advertising. Comscore and (my company) NewsGuard have estimated there is $2.6 billion a year in programmatic advertising unintentionally going to publishers of misinformation—revenues that quality news publishers badly need.

Companies like Geico use ad tech tools offered by “Demand Side Platforms” — DSPs — to buy these ads. The largest DSPs, as you might know, are Google and The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk (now a partner with NewsGuard in helping to combat this issue) has real-time bidding technology that uses advanced algorithms and extensive data to place ads across the web at the scale of 5.4 million ads per second. But for all the sophisticated data powering the operations of the DSPs, one crucial detail was overlooked as programmatic was invented and flourished: The identity of the websites where a brand’s ads are placed. This has left advertisers flying blind, sending hundreds, thousands, or even millions of dollars into the ether without knowing where their ads will appear. The result: Ads appearing in environments where studies show they are less likely to get cost-effective responses – and also likely to embarrass the brand.

Exclusion and blocking: Blunt, ineffective advertising tools

Seeing how brands have been burned by placing their ads alongside unsavory content, many advertisers and agencies have taken blunt approaches that range from bad to worse:

• One approach involves using “exclusion lists” — a list of websites that an advertiser deems inappropriate — instructing the DSP to block the brand from running its ads on any sites on the list. This approach has some appeal, but it is reactive and never fully effective because, new, hoax websites crop up daily, wreaking havoc on our information ecosystem long before they make it onto an advertiser’s exclusion list. This is true now more than ever as phony websites created by generative AI looking to get in on the programmatic gravy train are popping up every day.
• Another approach involves using “keyword blocklists” — lists of sometimes thousands of keywords like “Ukraine,” “war,” “gay” or “Black” that the advertiser deems dangerous. These blocklists instruct the DSP to block ads from appearing on any webpage that contains even just one of these keywords. But studies have shown that news — especially news serving minority or underserved communities — are disproportionately harmed by keyword blocklists.
• Worse yet, some advertisers have decided to remove their ads from news altogether by blocking their ads from the entire category. This has the obvious effect of harming the news industry, slashing already dwindling revenues for news outlets. But it also has a negative, dollars-and cents impact on advertisers themselves: Missed opportunity.
  
  According to studies, such as those from the IAB and Stagwell, advertising on news can be highly effective. In a 2020 study, the IAB found that “nearly half of consumers find brands that advertise in the news to be more customer-focused and engaging, more innovative, and relevant to them.” Newsreaders are a large but overlooked demographic: 25% of Americans are “news junkies,” according to recent research by Stagwell. Therefore, any strategy that simply avoids or excludes news is failing to reach a large, engaged audience.

Inclusion creates a better ad ecosystem

There is a better way: Website inclusionlists. Inclusion lists allow advertisers to focus their ad spend on pre-vetted, high-quality websites that align with their brand values and target audience. This ensures better placement and engagement, and ultimately increases the return-on-investment (ROI) of ad campaigns. And, of course, this proactive approach reduces the risk of a brand having its ads appear on low-quality or inappropriate sites, including sites propagating misinformation.

My company, NewsGuard, offers one solution for building a high-quality publisher inclusion list. We deploy a team of expert journalists to rate and review the reliability of news sources across the open web based on a set of apolitical criteria of journalistic practice. Using these ratings for more than 10,000 top news and information sources, NewsGuard offers inclusion lists of highly credible news publishers, which can be activated via pre-bid segments through The Trade Desk, Peer 39, and Comscore, or via private marketplaces of trusted news domain lists in SSPs including Pubmatic, OpenX and Magnite.

Because the focus is on websites that pay attention to best journalistic practices, every member of DCN is probably on NewsGuard’s highest-quality inclusion list.

You should brag about It!

Quality publishers can play their part in advocating for the use of inclusion lists as the superior advertising strategy. Publishers can make advertisers aware of inclusion lists in their advertising marketing materials. Many publishers now signal their trustworthiness to advertisers and readers by including their high score from an independent third party in their marketing materials. They can encourage ad agencies to end the harmful practices of boycotting news or using overly broad keyword blocking. They can work with the supply-side platforms to ensure that only other quality news websites are included in ad buys.

This next, logical evolution in programmatic advertising requires that everyone in the process step up to do their part.  Publishers and advertisers would be the most immediate beneficiaries, with news departments getting the revenues they need and brands getting the more efficient purchases they seek. Especially in an election year, we should also keep in mind that democracy will function best with more news resources to support an educated public. Democracy matters. The news matters. And it pays to be the smartest players in the programmatic marketplace

About the author

Steven Brill is the co-founder of NewsGuard. His new book, ”The Death of Truth,” comes out June 4 from Penguin Random House.

The post How inclusion lists fight misinformation appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Curation: A programmatic advertising multi-tool

Programmatic curation can be an indispensable tool to alleviate some of the issues created by the deprecation of third-party cookies.

But what is curation? Programmatic curation is the process of packaging data and supply from a variety of partners into unique private marketplace-based deals, which can then be activated on the buy side though any DSP.  This process is different from simple deals-based trading, where a publisher packages its own inventory into a deal ID to offer buyers.

Curation creates a more fluid and interoperable supply and data marketplace. A publisher can package its own supply with someone else’s data to satisfy advertiser needs. Or a data owner can package its data with supply from publishers they don’t know to create a data-enriched inventory package to satisfy advertiser interests.

Because curation relies on existing programmatic processes, it’s a quick and straightforward way for both the sell and buy side to transact. In fact, curated deals can be created and activated in a matter of minutes using the same programmatic platforms and pipes which already power thousands of private marketplace (PMP) deals every day.  It also ensures that publishers are on the receiving end of premium media budgets from advertisers without worrying about data leakage.

By bundling premium data—including addressability signals—with media, curation can act as a bridge between ad inventory and audience data, something that becomes increasingly important as third-party cookie deprecation draws closer.

Layering advertising addressability signals

Programmatic curation is being used by advertisers to test out various addressability solutions, as they map their approach to a post-cookie world. Working directly with a single publisher or across a network of preferred publisher partners, advertisers can curate inventory based on the presence (or absence) of specific addressability signals. This allows them to run side-by-side tests to understand the relative impact and scale of each solution. Some of the signals that advertisers are using curation to test are: Alternative IDs, Google’s Privacy Sandbox, and first party data.

Alternative IDs

There are several dozens of Alternative IDs in use today across the programmatic ecosystem, looking to replicate much of the third-party cookie’s functionality in more privacy-preserving ways. These IDs can be free or can come at a cost. They can be deterministic or probabilistic. They can be open sourced, or privately operated. In all cases, though, they require some level of effort by both brands and publishers to implement, maintain, and evaluate for efficacy.

Advertisers can use programmatic curation to test the effectiveness of different ID solutions by creating unique supply packages, executed via a deal ID, based on the isolated presence of a specific ID in the bidstream. Keeping everything else the same, advertisers can see how effective different IDs are at driving specific campaign outcomes. Once they’ve determined what works best for them, they can then work directly with publishers to increase the penetration of those IDs in the bidstream to ensure scale.

Google’s Privacy Sandbox

Like Alternative IDs, addressability signals from Google’s Privacy Sandbox APIs can also be packaged with publisher supply. These signals are currently available on 1% of traffic from the Chrome browser and can be used as a point of comparison with other addressability signals to see which drives better outcomes for the publisher’s demand partners.

Advertisers can leverage Google Topics signals in curated deal IDs to test the scale across multiple publishers within their preferred DSPs. While limited to the signals collected from the Topics API, advertisers can begin building out A/B tests with curation to compare addressability and performance without relying upon their DSP to fully support PSB.

While stable testing has only begun in March 2024, publishers should prioritize analyzing PSB signal impact and assessing performance as the PSB may be a key driver in a publisher’s addressability strategy after the full deprecation of third-party cookies on Chrome. In addition, as PSB testing scales, advertisers should be able to capitalize on using other addressability signals from the Privacy Sandbox APIs.

Publishers’ first party data

The first-party data publishers hold on every visitor to their website(s) is incredibly valuable to advertisers. And their ability to use that audience on other supply go double once third-party cookies disappear for good. Historically, this has been a sticking point with publishers. That’s because to allow advertisers to target their audiences outside of owned and operated environments (aka audience extension), they would traditionally need to relinquish some control of their data—and they won’t necessarily get it back.

With curation, first-party data can be protected. By layering publisher first-party data into curated deals using third-party inventory, or using it as a centralized match key, publishers can drive incremental revenue without the need to give media buyers direct access to their audience data. They’re always in the driving seat.

Addressability testing and timelines

Curation can package these data signals within existing programmatic workflows that media buyers use day in, day out. That means that programmatic curation is a natural fit for publishers looking to monetize their audiences in a low-friction way. 

Future-focused digital advertising solutions

Third-party cookies have already been deprecated on Safari, Firefox, and Edge browsers, as well as on 1% of Chrome traffic. This provides a unique time-limited opportunity for publishers to test out what works best for their inventory, and for media buyers to partner with publishers to activate these strategies closer to supply. 

Nonetheless, there will not be a panacea for addressability: Digital media companies will need to combine different addressability solutions to ensure that they are maximizing the return on their inventory. By using curation, publishers can test different strategies within their existing programmatic workflows to ensure that they are not leaving revenue on the table.

The post Addressing uncertainty: testing addressability with programmatic curation appeared first on Digital Content Next.

When the ANA’s findings rocked the industry in June 2023, media buyers and ad tech platforms quickly vowed to eradicate MFA from their supply chain. Nine months later, it’s clear that their efforts are still a work in progress. All seven agency holding companies were found to be transacting on MFA for prominent clients, as were the top DSPs, ad networks, exchanges, yield optimization services and most SSPs (save for two). Most confounding, many ads on MFA sported tags from vendors meant to combat this problem, including Integral Ad Science (IAS), DoubleVerify (DV), Oracle Moat, Fou Analytics, Pixalate and HUMAN (formerly White Ops).

With so much talk of MFA, these results leave us wondering: “Why is this still happening?” And more importantly: “How do we fix it?”

You get what you pay for. Except when you don’t

No one should be more perturbed by all this than advertisers, whose money is being wasted. Next up are premium publishers, who aren’t seeing the kinds of media budgets they deserve. 

Media buyers meet MFAs

It’s easy to blame media buyers who have an unquenchable thirst for cheap CPMs. However, it’s unlikely that any brand cited in the research said to their agency, “Let’s buy some MFA.” Most who publicly stepped up and vowed, in good faith, to stem the flow of ad spend to made-for-advertising content likely took steps to do so only to be foiled by an overreliance on MFA exclusion lists and misaligned incentives that prioritize cheap reach over more costly quality. Also to blame is the inherent complexity of the adtech supply-chain, which thrives on secondary, multi-hop auctions through which even the most carefully-curated domain inclusion list becomes lost.

Case in point: across all of the SSPs evaluated by Adalytics, the only two that were totally free of MFA inventory were the two that represented exclusively premium inventory and did not permit secondary auctions: TRUSTX (the company of which I am CEO, which represents premium news, sports and entertainment content publishers across North America) and The Ozone Project (which represents UK news publishers). Kargo, a mobile rich media advertising platform, was also named as MFA-free.

Never let a good crisis go to waste

While last summer’s ANA report erred on the side of caution, this time, major advertisers have been publicly called out, putting pressure on the buy side to take action. These advertisers are seeking answers, and premium publishers are well-positioned to rise to the occasion.

A quality education about MFAs

There’s a timely opportunity for high-quality inventory sellers to coach their client-side and agency partners on how to get more from their media investments. And the good news is that the solutions are actually uncomplicated.  

• Establish an inclusion list of high-quality inventory sellers. MFA exclusion lists are like trying to count all the grains of sand on a beach: an exercise in futility.
• Buy through direct paths to programmatic supply—i.e., Brand (or Agency) to DSP to SSP to publisher. Every extra reseller hop in the supply chain adds cost and reduces the likelihood that your client will get what they paid for.
• Demand the data to validate that their media budget went to the publishers they specified. Log level data is the gold standard for verifying that an inclusion list was honored, though with highly trusted partners, detailed reporting may also suffice. Point being, the buyer should ask for data at whatever level of detail they need to be comfortable. 

Why are these steps of critical importance? For publishers, every ad dollar diverted from MFA is a dollar that could be spent on quality inventory. Looking through the lens of an advertiser, the reasons to avoid MFA are even more urgent.

The stakes are high for brand advertisers

• MFA is cheap, but cheap can become very expensive. MFA sites notoriously struggle with frequency capping. According to Adalytics, a single site visitor was shown the same ad for one brand 835 times at a cost of $5.49, resulting in an effective CPM of $5491. So, yes, in some cases, you get what you pay for, but not in this one. Encouraging your advertisers to seek out the most direct path to your inventory possible will help avert this kind of disaster.
• MFA isn’t brand-safe. According to Integral Ad Science, 82% of consumers care about the quality of the content in which they encounter a brand’s ads. 75% will have a less favorable opinion about brands whose ads they encounter on sites that spread misinformation. Furthermore, 51% say they are likely to abandon a brand whose ads appear in inappropriate content. Clearly, ad placements on MFA, whether intentional or inadvertent, have a negative impact.
• MFA is unsustainable. Lowering emissions is a top priority for advertisers, and understandably so—according to McKinsey and NielsenIQ, 78% of US consumers care deeply about the sustainability efforts of the brands they buy from. Given that adtech accounts for 1.5% of global energy consumption, programmatic seems like a good place to start. It should give them pause that MFA generates 26% more emissions on average than higher quality sites.

Adalytics’ findings are another chapter in a demoralizing story that affects our entire industry. Seeing the continued MFA waste must be particularly painful for publishers of high-quality content. But sunlight is the best disinfectant. Thanks to Adalytics’ no-holds-barred research, the insidious nature of MFA has been laid bare for all to see. We think the empirical data opens the door for buyer and seller dialogues on the value of premium inventory, which creates a golden opportunity for premium publishers to talk to their clients about redirecting ad spend to where it rightfully belongs.

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The study also reveals that the main problem centers on accessing and analyzing data log files. In fact, only half of the 67 initial participating advertisers (52%) owned direct DSP data access through their contracts. For the remaining advertisers (48%), their access to DSP data was mediated through their agency’s DSP contracts.

As background, 67 ANA member companies agreed to participate, but 46 encountered legal issues or could not access their log data from DSPs, SSPs, and Ad Verification providers, effectively barring their participation.

The research identifies additional issues and recommends a more transparent and efficient open web programmatic marketplace. It is based on log-level analyses across $123 million in spending with 21 advertisers and 35 billion impressions and supplemented with 35 qualitative interviews with supply chain intermediaries.

Recommendations

The report observes several operational challenges in programmatic practices. It also offers corrective steps to get more value from the programmatic ecosystem.

Information asymmetry and waste

The study identifies information asymmetry as a significant roadblock to achieving transparency in the programmatic supply chain. Advertisers often lack crucial information about the quality of media inventory sold in auctions, leading to overpayment, inefficient decision-making, and wasteful media investments.

To address this issue, advertisers must demand access to comprehensive and reliable information about the media inventory they purchase.

Data access challenges

Despite the growing interest in data-driven marketing, many companies struggle to access log data from demand-side platforms (DSPs), supply-side platforms (SSPs), and ad verification providers. This lack of data access creates transparency issues, inefficiency, and wastage.

Advertisers should establish direct data access contracts with primary supply chain partners to maximize transparency and gain control over their media campaigns.

Misaligned incentives

The study reveals that advertisers often prioritize cost over value in purchasing programmatic media. Chasing cheap cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPMs) may seem attractive initially, but it often leads to downstream issues in ad quality.

Advertisers must balance cost and quality to avoid wasteful investments and focus on the value their media buys deliver.

Website overabundance

The study shows that campaigns utilized an average of 44,000 top-level domains, raising concerns about fraud, viewability, and brand safety.

Advertisers should streamline the number of websites used while ensuring fairness for small or minority-owned service providers. By reducing the number of websites, advertisers can concentrate on high-quality inventory and mitigate the risks associated with excessive website usage.

Low-quality made-for-advertising websites

The study highlights that low-quality made-for-advertising (MFA) websites, which are created simply to generate ad revenue through sensational headlines and subpar content, accounted for 21% of impressions.

Advertisers must evaluate the suitability of MFA inventory for their brands and consider their tolerance for including such sites in their campaigns. Striking a balance between reach and brand safety is crucial.

Sustainability concerns

Programmatic advertising has a notable environmental impact due to its energy-intensive nature.

Advertisers can contribute to sustainability efforts by making more productive and non-wasteful media buys. Certain website types, especially MFA sites, generate higher carbon emissions. Advertisers should prioritize sustainability in their media buying strategies and opt for environmentally conscious platforms and vendors.

Importance of log-level data (LLD) analysis

The study emphasizes that improved data matching and analysis can significantly reduce the “unknown delta,” which refers to unattributable ad spend.

Leveraging log-level data allows advertisers to achieve a zero-percent delta, gaining valuable insights into their ad spend and performance. Analyzing log-level data empowers advertisers to make data-driven decisions and optimize their media investments effectively.

Manage the supply chain

The ANA report emphasizes the importance of properly managing the programmatic supply chain. This enables advertisers to make informed decisions based on transparency and data-driven insights. Further, it allows advertisers to analyze ad impressions’ impact on consumers and evaluate the financial transaction between the publisher and the overall value delivered to the target audience. This way, advertisers can optimize their campaigns and publishers can improve the ad placements and enhance the overall effectiveness of the advertising.

Effective advertising is not simply a question of reach. While programmatic advertising allows for efficiency and scale, marketers must manage the supply chain in order to make the most of their investment.

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Open programmatic no longer serves its purpose

Even with Chrome’s third-party cookies still in play, only 30% of audiences on the open web are targetable. This is because 40% of Chrome’s users make their data unavailable to advertisers and the Firefox and Safari browsers already operate without third-party cookies.

Open web addressability is a big problem: Why would advertisers want to use the majority of their ad spend to reach 30% of audiences? There is also no guarantee of premium inventory and placements as well as a lack of control and transparency in the OMP as a result of ad fraud and third-party targeting that doesn’t deliver on the audience advertisers are trying to reach.

In light of this, publishers are re-evaluating their strategies. For example, one parent and lifestyle publisher made the proactive decision to reduce their reliance on the OMP, not just because it isn’t a reliable source of revenue, but because they can’t control their narrative with buyers in that environment. Working with advertisers directly means they get to highlight non-endemic audiences at a scale they can achieve.

Publishers need to make revenue and ensure they are giving their audience the best possible experience, while advertisers only want to reach the most relevant people within this audience. The lack of addressability in the OMP leads to failure on both fronts.

The building blocks of going direct

Between October and November 2022, the IAB surveyed 223 buy-side ad investment decision-makers and found that 53% planned to increase their focus on ad placements with publishers using first-party data. According to a report by Adweek, brands like Hershey’s, which spend between $350M- 450M annually on advertising, realise they are spending a lot of money and not showing up in premium environments. Hershey’s now has a target of buying 80% of addressable media via private marketplaces (PMPs) and only 20% on the OMP.

Publishers’ first-party datasets—built on authenticated, contextual, declared, and behavioural data—can be leveraged by advertisers directly to activate unreachable audiences. But for this shift to work, publishers must continue encouraging buyers to see the benefits of working directly with them and perhaps even educate an entire population of buyers that have worked primarily with OMP.

To do this, publishers need to satisfy advertiser demand by providing quality audiences from interest, intent, and in-market audiences, provide scale and ensure reach across all relevant platforms and browsers, tell rich and compelling stories about their audiences via deep insights, showcase how audiences are built and be transparent about audience creation, and demonstrate how their first party audiences can help deliver and improve performance mid-flight and achieve advertiser objectives.

Reaping the benefits

Publishers already working this way benefit from using their first-party data to drive direct deals, and buyers are seeing an improved performance. Trusted Media Brands (TMB), whose titles include FailArmy, Family Handyman, Reader’s Digest, and Taste of Home, have been working on their data strategy to ensure they can understand audiences across all browsers, especially in cookie-blocked environments such as Safari.

TMB now delivers direct-sold campaigns 94% of the time using first-party data. The work has resulted in a 140% increase in revenue from deals using first-party data, a 31% increase in RFP win rate when data is on an IO and a 2X increase in deal size when data is present on an IO vs no data.

Similarly, Gumtree is seeing results from using first-party data in direct deals, with a 36% increase in click-through rates in Q1 2023, and a 14% increase in average cost per thousand impressions.

The driving force behind addressability

The best way for publishers and advertisers to maximize their revenue and budgets, respectively, is to focus on addressability. First-party data and direct-sold will be the driving force behind that.

Direct deals deliver quality first-party data and scalable first-party audiences that meet advertisers’ needs, increase transparency, and control, and enable access to premium inventory and ad placements. Working direct also results in insights and reporting into audiences on how they inform an advertiser’s targeting strategy. Advertisers know where their ad spend is going and which audiences they are reaching with more accuracy.

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The 2022 study examined industry progress using the toolkit developed to improve data access in the programmatic supply chain. The toolkit defines five important questions to lead the impression match rate audit process:

1. Does the Audit Permission Letter (APL) accelerate data access?
2. Does the Data Fields List (DFL) improve the data quality?
3. Does improved data quality lead to improved impression match rates?
4. Is the unknown delta reduced?
5. Are there clear, actionable next steps?

The research is based on 1.3 billion impressions from September 1, 2022, to October 31, 2022, with the complete analysis taking place over nine months. Participants included 11 advertisers, 10 publishers, seven agencies, and six DSPs and SSPs, each.

Findings 

The research identified a total of 104 million impressions served from ad tech vendors to publishers. Of the 104 million impressions, they matched 61 million impressions (58%) from the buy-side (DSP) to the sell-side (SSP). The match rate is nearly five times greater than the 12% in 2020. The latest report also track 65% of advertiser spending reaches publishers compared to 51% in 2020.

The higher-quality log-level data and data fields allow for a deterministic rule-based approach to matching the data sets with predetermined algorithms and calculations. Also contributing to higher match rates were private marketplaces, with an above 70% match rate (approximately 20% of matchable impressions). Notably, the 2022 study finds a distinct difference in the delta between open marketplaces (3%) and private marketplaces (<1%), showcasing the benefit of advertising with select auditable private marketplaces. Like 2020, the 2022 study focused on premium advertisers, agencies, tech vendors, and publishers which do not necessarily represent the broader programmatic ecosystem.

Improvements

The toolkit was a prime contributor to data access improvements in 2022. The Audit Permission Letter (APL) allowed for more efficiency, cutting the study time from 18 months to 9 months. However, the full adoption of the APL letter varied among the participants.

Participants who provided log-level data for each impression showed significant improvement in data quality in the audit process. The Data Fields List (DFL) also improved the data quality. However, while ad tech suppliers offered approximately 80% of the data fields, there was a remaining 20% of data fields that needed to be shared. In addition, inconsistencies in some data formats, like names, currency, device type, etc., still prevail and need to be addressed.

Recommendations

Overall, the study recommends for advertisers, ad tech vendors and publishers to work with well-curated private marketplaces (PMPs), given their higher impression match rates.

Advertisers and agencies:

• agree to separate display side platform seats for each advertiser,
• appoint centralized contact for Audit Permission Letter approvals and extraction and reporting of buy-side log-level data, and
• consider private supply chain audits chain every one to three years.

Ad tech vendors:

• invest in the ability to filter, retain, and share log-level data, covering all of the Data Fields List,
• agree on consistent taxonomies and naming conventions for ads.txt, and
• drive adoption and use of ads.txt and sellers.json.

Publishers:

• agree on consistent taxonomies and naming conventions for ads.txt, and
• drive adoption and use of ads.txt and sellers.json,
• consider working with fewer SSPs, and
• consider private audits of them every 1 to 3 years.

The 2022 study demonstrates the improvement of data quality with the Toolkit usage. Developing data standards and protocols offers insight into supply path optimization. Further enhancements in data access and retention with the additional collaboration of data practices will make financial audits more common and successful.

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