We still have a long way to go: A closer look at ISBA/PwC's second programmatic study

Opinion

ISBA and PWC’s latest report into the programmatic ad-buying system shows there is still a long way to go and that the digital media’s problems with transparency and accountability run very deep indeed.

ISBA and PwC’s second study of the digital programmatic supply chain, released in mid-January, was greeted with great enthusiasm by the ad industry. Headlines have focused on the reduction in adspend falling into the unattributable “unknown delta”, leading some to speculate that the industry’s integrity is on the mend.

However, a closer inspection reveals that there is still a long way to go. The study has mostly continued to highlight the fundamental lack of transparency and accountability pervasive in the programmatic space, particularly in the open programmatic market.

Apples with apples?

The participants in the 2020 and 2022 study are not identical. There were a number of changes in participants at all levels, so the two studies are not necessarily comparing apples with apples. Accordingly, it is difficult to know whether the apparent reduction of the unattributable spend from 15% to 3% and working change media from 57% to 65% simply relates to a different set of overall participants and data sets, rather than real progress. And, if there has been real progress, does this relate to progress in the audit process or in spend efficiency?

It took PwC nine months to obtain access to the data. An improvement on the 18 months it took for the first report — but readers need to remember that this is the best-case scenario. Even with premium brands, the large agency groups, the biggest ad tech intermediaries and premium publishers, access to client and publisher data took an unfathomable length of time.

What hope is there for a brand wishing to undertake routine audits of its programmatic inventory as part of its quarterly performance review? PwC recommends that auditors should invest in their capabilities for ingesting log-level data into a cloud storage bucket — but that assumes that the trading desk, DSP, ad server and SSPs are happy to routinely retain and export the data. Log files in particular have a short half-life; DSPs and ad servers for example can only export these large files for 7–30 days after the ad has run so brands need to be able to do all of this within 30 days at most and cannot allow for a nine-month process.

The report recommends that “advertisers should consider private supply chain audits every one-three years”. Surely, brands should be able to analyse the impressions they have bought, end to end, every quarter or indeed for every campaign rather than wait three years to do this? After three years it would be a significant challenge for an advertiser to secure any meaningful accountability or make good.

Issues

It is true that the private marketplace (PMPs) sector’s match rate was found to be above 70% and the unknown delta below 1%, reflecting the far better proposition available to advertisers in relation to transparency in that part of the market.

However, the overall match rate was 58%. This means that in the open market, PwC was unable to match from buy-side (DSP) data to sell-side (SSP) data a little over half of the time. In the world of ‘off-line’ media-buying arrangements, advertisers used to demand proof of appearance. Today, we are in the unbelievable situation where the market accepts being able to track spend to appearance only half of the time.

Unfortunately, only ‘disclosed media buys’ were explored, and with 20% of data fields omitted, for either legal or technical reasons, there is still a long way to go before we can claim any success. It is frustrating, and indicative of how deep the industry’s problem with transparency is, that the limitations of the study are overlooked.

The key conclusion is that brands should consider investing more in well-curated PMPs, given their higher impression match rates and publisher revenues; agree separate DSP seats to avoid complexities of isolating data and work with fewer SSPs.

Widening the scope

Fraud, viewability and brand safety were omitted from the study. But they are inextricably linked to the transparency issues in the long tail, particularly in the open marketplace. Brands are working with a multitude of DSPs and SSPs and allowing agencies to buy across hundreds of thousands of sites and apps on the open programmatic market. Little wonder, then, that it is increasingly difficult to run any sort of forensic end-to-end impression analysis.

Brands must now introduce new contractual protections. These should clarify who is managing the DSP, ad server and ad tech relationships and what monitoring and policing is being undertaken. The limits on the number of domains and apps that can be advertised across should be clearly defined.

These protections should ensure that there is a limited number of players in their supply chain and that log-level data is accessible without having to go through a tortuous nine-month process. Institutionalising log-level reviews of campaigns as part of the performance evaluation — including access to DSP, ad-server and ad verification tool data — will help to pinpoint issues and allow inefficiencies to be unceremoniously cut from the value chain.

A long way to go

The ultimate purpose of this study must be to kickstart programmatic transparency and accountability. Brands’ data should be regularly ingested into a data bucket and analysed for discrepancies. Whether this be in relation to placement, fraud or brand safety, the advertiser must be able to identify the source of the issue and seek a make-good from the party responsible for greenlighting, failing to monitor and/or selling any erroneous, brand unsafe or fraudulent inventory.

Real progress would be made if advertisers, agencies and publishers worked together as a well-oiled machine to insist on accurate, trustworthy quarterly log level campaign data from all intermediaries and routinely review this with specialists.

As we enter a potential recession, marketing budgets are set to tighten and every penny counts. Businesses have their part to play to ensure that their contracts provide them the best chance to lift the bonnet on their spend, and make sure that their media is working for them as efficiently as possible.

Nick Swimer is entertainment & media partner at the law firm Reed Smith. He writes a monthly column for The Media Leader on legal issues in media.