Order emerges from chaos.
That's the hope, at least for a group of marketers who've been hit with one ad tech disaster after another recently.
First, they were disgusted to find that Forbes was selling ads on a dodgy site designed to manipulate ad spend, and second, they were shocked to find that Colossus was misrepresenting the identities under which it traded.
Now people are concerned that these issues are just the tip of the iceberg, and some are already taking action.
“They are probably looking at cutting 60% of their partners,” said the head of programmatic, representing advertisers at an international agency, who asked not to be named due to the sensitive nature of the issue.
This represents about five of the 12 supply-side platforms (SSPs) the company partners with, the executive continued, adding that “they are really trustworthy companies.”
“Trust” means relying on these five or so to deliver the best outcomes in fees, inventory quality, transparency, brand safety, and overall performance.
What started as a panicked shakeout quickly morphed into a full-blown supply path optimization effort — the kind of retooling ad agencies undertake regularly to ensure they're working with the most reliable and effective suppliers, especially with so many advertisers selling the same products thanks to header bidding.
“It's fair to say we are considering whether to implement SPO across the 12 supply-side platforms that we work with, but really this is being driven by the fact that there is a lack of trust in the marketplace both internally and among customers,” the executive said.
Moves like this one speak to how worried this ad executive, and many others, are about programmatic ad budgets these days. Cutting the budget allocated to the category is their go-to panic button, but there's no guarantee the worries will go away. The programmatic issue remains a mess. Real change will require a top-to-bottom overhaul, not just budget cuts. Even this executive admits that these moves are knee-jerk reactions.
The exec stopped buying ads from Forbes the moment Adalytics revealed that Forbes was running a side ad site, but it's unclear whether other companies are doing the same or, more importantly, whether they're inadvertently buying ads from Forbes.
As for Colossus, it is unclear whether the discord ID scare will continue in the future. So instead of taking the risk, executives decided to continue avoiding advertising from there, and cut ties with them when the discord ID was discovered. Safety first is the motto.
Still, making these cuts is not an easy decision and comes with its own challenges that must be addressed.
First, would cutting these sites and vendors be a huge hit to ad spend? There are also questions as to why ad tech vendors didn't realize Forbes was running an ad-only site. How will sites be authenticated and verified to prevent something like this from happening again? What exactly happened in the Colossus mess? And more importantly, why did this happen in the first place?
Right now, advertising executives have more questions than answers, but they feel they have to act, even without all the answers.
Take the ad tech executives who refuse to comprehend the massive suspicion that Colossus is trading low-quality user IDs for high-value ones.
They don't care if it was a coincidence or not, theories are useless, all that matters is that the identity was misrepresented.
Not only does this have a negative impact on ad spend, it also highlights a major flaw in ad tech: the supply side can choose any ID for a bid request using whatever methodology they like, and DSPs have no choice but to trust that it's accurate. It's like navigating a dark room with a map that can't be verified.
“In the ad tech industry, they will lie about anything they can lie about to make money,” said an ad tech executive.
Not surprisingly, they have ditched Colossus and are now on high alert for other shady business.
“Ever since this issue came to light, I've been trying to figure out what the cause is, and we've found similar cases outside of Colossus,” the ad tech exec continued. “We've also seen cases where other supply-side platforms may be working with other ad tech intermediaries to mismatch the wrong cookie IDs that the demand-side platforms end up bidding on.”
Shady sites. Random technical glitches. Dysfunctional infrastructure. Marketers could be forgiven for thinking they'd been transported back to a time when programmatic advertising was considered by top industry leaders to be shady at best and outright fraudulent at worst.
But this time the issue is more nuanced, forcing advertisers to navigate complex ethical considerations and make tough decisions about who to work with.
“We advise our clients to use a variety of analytics platforms rather than using so-called verification companies,” said Jay Friedman, CEO of GoodWay Group, an independent media and marketing services company.
Some marketers are taking this advice to heart, while others are selectively using both approaches. Either way, the message is clear: trust in verification companies is shaky. Marketers feel the need to stay on top of these issues, rather than constantly chasing them.
“The sentiment among most marketers, at least the people we work with, is, 'Why should I pay for validation when I can get so much useful information and make so many valuable decisions as a result of my analytics?'” Friedman said.
Despite the complaints, this is more of a trickle than a tsunami. Many marketers still don't know or care about how their money flows through ad tech. That may change if the Adalytics findings continue to make headlines, but who knows. The lack of transparency in ad tech is a story as old as time. Marketers have had multiple chances to fix these issues, but many just didn't bother.
“However, the sheer financial pressures on brands and agencies, as well as the complete misalignment between KPIs and actual business goals raise questions about how successful these efforts will be,” said Duncan Smith, CEO of U.S. digital agency Journey Further.
