Transactional Transparency

Audits drive supply path optimization and campaign effectiveness.

“Transparency is the keystone for almost everything we do”, says Shailley Singh, SVP at IAB TechLab, “and we look at through 3 lenses: 1) Authorization 2) Authentication 3) Verification”

1. Authorization – is this an impression opportunity that meets our placement requirements on targeting, suitability, and price?
2. Authentication – Are the proper checks and balances and other signals available and viewable to the buyer in the automated flow of business?
3. Verification – How do you confirm delivery and that it is that datapoint ready for analysis/attribution?

These are three clear areas where buy side diligence is required. To assist, the IAB TechLab has initiated a Transparency Center with more than 4MM websites, making available key statistics for buyers to make better choices for partnering. Buyers can view ads.txt files, Json.txt files, and CCPA requirements across key suppliers – and their partners for an open and collaborative approach to trading, facilitating a redistribution of money to good players, as opposed to bad. Additionally, buyers can also subscribe to buyers.json alerts which identify Piracy and Malware threats so buyers can take action and get malvertisng domains shut down.

IAB TechLab also works with the verification vendors by providing an Open Measurement SDK to authenticate the render of ads, along with other raw data and signals for verifying activity in web video and now CTV, increasing the visibility across the ecosystem. Look for the certifications for verification partners which note a successful integration with the SDK protocol.

The Brand Safety Institute released its no-cost Publisher Quality Utility, which represents a one-stop shop for ad-supported publishers to understand how companies who supply the industry evaluate their domains. This unique-to-the-industry tool makes risk of being classified as MFA by Ad Fontes Media, DeepSee, Jounce Media, IAS, or Pixalate; Compliant's Data Integrity scoring; and more; visible to publishers.

Similarly, Trustworthy Accountability Group’s (TAG) TrustNet provides a regularly updated database that pulls in log file data across a set of key media players for the purpose of identifying poor sources of inventory in the ecosystem. Living on the blockchain, this source provides an immutable record of transparency across every hop in the inventory daisy-chain, allowing you to eliminate sites/players with questionable practices. TAG CEO, Mike Zaneis emphasizes that brand safety professionals need community to be effective – “no one is an island, we have to work collectively for a better industry”. David Kohl, CEO of TRUSTX reminds us that “it is not uncommon for SSP to mask, or use incomplete url’s, thereby clouding transparency across buys”. That is why David has developed TRUSTX as a Private Marketplace (PMP) with premium publishers who value trust and the ability for advertisers to know where your dollars are flowing.

All of these tools and options are clearly useful and helpful to limiting your exposure to bad players, but you know bad players are resilient and persistent. Shailin Dhar, CEO of Method Media Intelligence (MMI) goes on to warn that in order to be truly diligent, you must audit all of your activity following your initial steps to ensure that the execution of your activity is protected along its pathway - bid requests, auction results, ad serving, download of creative, and rendering - as discrepancies will happen across the range of this activity. In other words, interrogating 100% of your log files “will unearth trouble spots and allow you to fine tune your partners and protocols as visibility across the pathway is always illuminating” and helps you isolate where players are masking their identity in the programmatic ecosystem, further exposing the weak links in the chain.