Quantifying the Beneﬁts of Trust...understanding, to put marketers and media buyers in control as...

A research-based study

for Metamarkets

by Industry Index, 2017

Quantifying the Benefits of Trust

The TransparencyOpportunity

The Transparency Opportunity: Quantifying The Benefits of Trust / 2

Table of Contents

Transparency Drives Market Activity 3

Defining the Parameters 5

Audience Targeting Opacity 7

Viewability is Key 8

Market Distrust Hinders Future Growth 9

Questioning the Data 9

Reducing Fraud, Understanding Costs 10

The Opportunity in Trust 11

Calls for an Intermediary 13

Toward a More Rational Market 13

Seizing the Opportunity 14

Methodology 15

Sources and Citations 16


In the advertising and media industries, clarion calls for transparency

are in the air. Marketing leaders of the most prestigious of brands

are demanding viewability, verification and, above all, accountability

from all parts of the advertising value chain, none more so than

programmatic platforms.1

Agencies are withholding major portions of their budgets on behalf of the brands from

“opaque” platforms while also reviewing contracts they suspect have hidden markups

and charges.2 They, like the brands, are demanding new standards.3

90 percent of advertisers are reviewing their programmatic advertising contracts

and demanding more control and transparency, according to a World Federation of

Advertisers (WFA) report.4

The lack of transparency and trust in the advertising ecosystem is causing a drag on

market growth, say publishers, brands and agencies who participated in a survey for

Metamarkets by Industry Index. New levels of market transparency, they say, will drive a

new wealth of market activity and growth.

Transparency Drives Market Activity

On the receiving end of marketing budgets, publishers are keeping their best ad

inventory from programmatic markets, complaining over greedy intermediaries and “black

box” technologies that take undisclosed revenue shares, obfuscate processes, slow page

loads and muddy understanding.


Our survey found alignment among every

constituent in the market — brand marketers,

advertising agencies and the media buyers who

work with them, and publishers. They all called

for measures to bring new visibility, saying that

openness — transparency — will bring them

the greatest possible value for their precious

assets and new liquidity into the programmatic

advertising market.

Bring more trust to the market and billions more

dollars will flow, the survey indicates.

“There is a fundamental disconnect of where technology vendors

make their money vs. where their customers derive value...

The market needs trust, transparency and fairness to function.”

Daniel Spears, Programmatic Director, Guardian News & Media

41%

I will not make or

recommend significant

increases (more than

10%) to my programmatic

budget until there is better

transparency around data.


Brands and agencies already pour billions of dollars into programmatic

advertising — 16 percent of their budgets5 overall — and yet say they

are frustrated with its opacity.

They cite “lack of transparency” as the chief inhibitor to market growth, well above other

factors such as poor inventory quality, a lack of control and lack of creative freedom.

They complain that they can’t reliably track whether the media they put into programmatic

helps markedly in driving key performance indicators (KPIs), let alone in earning ROI.

Even where they have data, they say, they are wrestling with how to turn those data

into real insights that tell them what results their campaigns yield against they dollars

they spend.

Defining the Parameters

SURVEY QUESTION:

When it comes to programmatic media buying, which of the factors below, if any, do you believe is most inhibiting its future growth and scale?

0%

10%

20%

30%

Other Poor inventory

quality

23%

Ine�ective

data leverage

15%

Lack of

control

13%

Lack of

creative freedom

12%

4%

Lack of

transparency

32% 17% Publisher47% Brand32% Agency

L

ack of Transparency Response by Participant

All Respondents


“It’s incredibly

hard to track branding

from the upper part of

the funnel to results,

bookings, sales, things

that are revenue

generative.”

There is, brands and agencies say, a big disconnect,

even as the major agencies like IPG, WPP and Publicis

tout initiatives to marshal their resources for the

purpose of gathering, processing and analyzing data,

then sharing those insights with clients.6

An overwhelming majority of respondents to our

survey — 92 percent overall, slightly higher for

brands and agencies — named “performance

reporting” as their chief conundrum when talking

about transparency, reflecting their struggle to get a

complete understanding of campaign performance.

The agencies, meanwhile, are bristling at the inability

to gather data across platforms, to normalize and

understand audiences and their behaviors across the

so-called “walled gardens” such as Facebook and

Snapchat,7 to get URL transparency from a raft of DSPs,

and to ascertain how their dollars are being spent.

SURVEY QUESTION:

When you consider the definition of transparency as it pertains to programmatic media buying, please rate the relevance of each of the factors below to that definition. (Relevant or Very Relevant)

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

92% PERFORMANCE REPORTING

90% Audience targeting data

86% Inventory availability

82% Metric standards

82% URL transparency

76% Platform fees

60% Agency relationships

Senior Director of Media of a major hospitality brand


Audience Targeting Opacity

Automated digital advertising is supposed to bring a new wealth of measurement and

understanding, to put marketers and media buyers in control as never before, and let

publishers elevate the best of their best ad spots in auction-based system that should

reward them, too.

The other great promise of programmatic is audience targeting — cost-efficiently finding

the right people at the right time with the right messages that inspire them to take actions

that benefit them and a brand.

“There’s this huge departure from how we plan and build and then

how we buy and measure and optimize... As we get to making data

more and more of what we do, it’s uncertain how valuable that data

is if it stays behind closed doors.”

Adam Weiler, SVP Analytics and Insights, Mediavest | Spark, part of Publicis

say the market lacks transparency aroundaudience targeting

90%

And, yet, even as huge portions of budgets move

to audience-based, cross-platform, multi-channel

targeted buys, 90 percent of brands, agencies

and publishers in our survey say the market lacks

transparency around audience targeting.

They simply can’t confirm that the audience

segments and profiles they are promised match

what they are ultimately delivered.


Viewability is Key

A video or display ad that isn’t seen can’t have an

effect. The most important criterion when considering

media buying, cited by 88 percent of respondents and

overwhelmingly by brands, is viewability.

That manager’s concerns echo those of P&G Chief

Brand Officer Marc Pritchard and WPP Chief Executive

Martin Sorrell, alike.8 They and other industry leaders

now say they will refuse to pay for placements they

can’t verify are delivered to real people in ways

they’ve approved.

SURVEY QUESTION:

When further considering transparency in programmatic media buying,which of the criteria below are the most important to you? (Important & Very Important)

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Data agnostic vendors /capabilities (e.g., monetization& measurement separation)

73%

Data access (e.g., sharingamong key data partners) 78%

Data unification (e.g., unifying disparate data sets) 78%

Cost transparency(e.g., digital receipts) 83%

Reliable attribution(e.g., having accredited3rd party measurement)

86%

Reducing Ad Fraud(e.g., more regulations) 87%

87%Standard viewability metrics(e.g., adopting single viewability standard)

88%

“If I’m paying for

something and

nobody is seeing

it, that concerns

me... Viewability is

something we need

to have.”

Senior Director of Media of a major hospitality brand


No market can operate well if the people in it don’t believe in the reliability of what

they’re getting. Without transparency, there cannot be trust. There is so much demand

for specificity in food, clothes, cars and even soaps and soft drinks. Why, then, don’t

marketers demand it of the venues in which they spend millions, even billions of dollars?

So many of those billions are being spent on media in the shadows, based on hope

rather than assurance the spend is hitting its mark. More than three quarters of market

participants say they are concerned about the lack of transparency in programmatic

advertising markets, our survey found.

Questioning the Data

An even larger majority, 89 percent in our survey, say they distrust a significant portion of

the data upon which they’re buying and selling media. Nearly half of all brands, in fact, say

they can’t trust a fifth or more of the data upon which they currently base media buying

decisions. And 16 percent say they distrust more than 30 percent of the data. Agencies

and publishers are close behind in their stated levels of distrust.

Market Distrust Hinders Future Growth

SURVEY QUESTION:

What percent of the data that you currently make decisions based upon,would you say isn't trustworthy?

Less than 5% 6-10% 11-20% 21-30% 31-40% More than 40%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Publishers 4%7%13%37%24%15%

Agencies 10% 20% 28% 22% 8% 12%

All 6%11% 22% 29% 23% 10%

Brands 2%14%33%21%21%9%

Nearly half of all brands distrust at least 21% of their data

68% of all respondents distrust 11% of their data or more


The factors inhibiting future growth and scale:(“Agree” or “Strongly Agree”)

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Ad fraud(e.g., a lack of regulationaround prevention)

Unreliable attribution(e.g., no accredited 3rd partymeasurement verification)

Standard viewability metrics(e.g., no agreed viewabilitystandard)

Data fragmentation(e.g., lack of data unification)

Cost transparency(e.g., no digital receipts

Data access(e.g., lack of sharing from data partners)

Lack of data agnostic vendors(e.g., separating measurement& monetization)

77%

74%

72%

70%

67%

66%

56%

“The entire way this

whole industry works

is so convoluted...

You have fraudulent

resellers and

middlemen taking cuts

and bids going through

multiple SSPs before

they even get to you.”

Reducing Fraud, Understanding Costs

Most respondents (77 percent) cite ad fraud as a

major issue, saying they want to see reductions in ad

fraud, even if that means bringing in agnostic third

parties to institute some type of industry regulation.

Publishers like Hearst know that more than

50 percent of every dollar spent on media in

programmatic markets goes somewhere other than

into their coffers9, but they don’t know where. That

lack of cost transparency is a huge conundrum for

both ends of the market whose dollars are eaten up

by intermediaries and, sometimes, nefarious players

in the space. Not surprisingly, they’d like to see cost

transparency, as well.

Kevin Bowen, Director of Programmatic Ad Tech at the Core Audience unit of Hearst


The Opportunity in Trust

Clearly, the market is primed for a solution, a way to bring clarity to

the programmatic advertising landscape, increase liquidity and benefit

all sides. Three quarters of the participants in our survey say that with

new transparency in the market, they would increase their spend in

programmatic advertising from at least 11 percent and in some

cases by 50 percent or more.

Added market transparency could bring more than $6 billion into programmatic advertising over the next three years.

That would represent more than $6 billion

brought into the programmatic landscape

in just the next three years, and more than

$4 billion per year after that.10

The desire for transparency is so strong

that more than half the market participants

say they are willing or eager to go to the

trouble of switching vendors who provide

them more transparency around their core

concerns.

73%

More than 73 percent agreed

that having unified transparency

standards across screens would

drive them to shift budgets

toward a more transparent

vendor.


70%Say not enough vendors

offering transparent

solutions

They say they know there is too much distrust,

that all sides are withholding information, and

there needs to be a way to build confidence so

that more participants will be comfortable

sharing and transacting.

More than 70 percent of brands and agencies

told us that, “Not enough vendors offering

transparent solutions” is a significant obstacle to

them shifting budgets to programmatic.

SURVEY QUESTION:

Please indicate the degree to which you would increase your programmatic budget by if access to transparent data were not an issue.

0%, transparency is not an issue for me 1-10% 11-20% 21-30% 31-40% 41-50% More than 50%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Agencies 17% 43% 23% 8% 5% 3%

74% of all respondents would increase budget by at least 11%

Publishers 6% 22% 39% 17% 9% 2% 6%

Brands 7% 26% 30% 21% 9% 4% 4%

All 4% 22% 37% 20% 9% 4% 4%

0%


Media Buyers: Want to know how their spend is

being executed, how much is reaching the page, then

viewed, and the costs they’re incurring.

Brand Marketers: Want all the information they can

get to get a handle on costs and ROI, what one survey

participant calls “quantifying the actual costs, separating

the admin and tech fees from actual real media.”

Publishers: Want vendors they can trust and to know

the intended spend is supporting their content in ways

they can see.

All sides are keen to stamp out fraud.

The major market constituents acknowledge self-interested behaviors and frictions but

say that rather than be pitted against each other in an opaque environment, they would

rather align on standards to become more productive. They say they would share more

openly if they could know they would in turn receive the same consideration.

Calls for an Intermediary

To achieve such a rational market, the industry needs standards, new ways of transacting,

more clarity around data and acceptance of common currencies upon which to transact.

Many market participants say they would embrace an agnostic third party who will bring

rationality to the market, instill openness and standards that halt the unnecessary obfuscation.

Why, they ask, can’t programmatic advertising have auditors such as those who verify

print circulation rate bases or agreed-upon measurement standards that give a baseline

upon all major players can transact? Why must there be so much wasted media spend?11

Toward a More Rational Market

In 2017, best practices dictate fundamental levels of data sharing, an understanding that

markets and competition thrive when the basic ground rules are clear and all have a

grasp of the available tools and data. The giants of the industry are built on open-source

technologies. They share data via APIs that give access upon which others can build and

enhance both their interests and those of the market at large.

How willing are you to

make the switch to a

more transparent vendor?

52% willingor very willing


New levels of transparency, agreed standards and more open data will bring

understanding that will comfort brand marketers, encourage media buyers, reward the

best publishers, and bring new control and flexibility to buyers and sellers, alike.

Transparency will encourage the freer sharing of data and metrics beyond the limited

views so often offered today. When there is little to be gained from hiding key data, more

will be revealed. Media buyers will be able to prove ROI, sellers and the marketers they

serve that they are receiving the value they expect.

best publishers will be richly rewarded and marketers will cost-efficiently achieve new

and higher levels of value as never before.

Seizing the Opportunity

With the right investments in interactive analytics, marketers can more take control of

their programmatic data and establish the data transparency that their partners at brands,

agencies and publishers demand. As an independent analytics provider, Metamarkets

gives its users a real-time, transparent view of what’s happening in the media

marketplaces where they operate and allows them to instantly drill down to get deeper

layers of insights on programmatic data. For more information, visit www.metamarkets.com

There’s a demand for transparency in financial markets,

which have brought the most liquid, highest value

capital in the world. It’s time to bring similar levels of

clarity to the burgeoning ad-tech landscape, as well.

Transparency will facilitate deal-making and bring

billions of dollars into a programmatic market that

can finally get closer to meeting what it has promised

for every market participant: the right ad to the right

person at the right time.

If the industry can deliver ads to consumers that are

relevant and timely, those consumers will benefit, the

“At some point,

somebody is going to

have to play referee...

We need a neutral third

party or process.”

Adam Weiler, SVP Analytics and Insights, Mediavest | Spark, part of Publicis


Methodology

Our survey, conducted via email in March of 2017, received responses from a

statistically valid sample of 171 people from the Industry Index database. Marketers,

advertisers, brand executives and publishers described their view of transparency,

and how it — or its lack — affects their business and their media spends. Follow-up

qualitative interviews were also conducted and included in our analysis.

Responses were spread almost evenly among agencies, brands and publishers,

with a slightly higher representation among agencies and brands. More than

80 percent of agency and brand respondents said they are directly involved in

purchase and execution of decision-making around programmatic media.

Industries in the study:

Automotive

Consumer Packaged Goods

Media/Entertainment

Financial Services/Insurance

Healthcare/Pharmaceutical

Insurance

Quick-Service Restaurants

Retail/eCommerce

Technology/Consumer Electronics

Telecom

Travel

Survey participants:

171 MARKETERS

PARTICIPATED

54 PEOPLE FROM

PUBLISHERS

57 PEOPLE FROM

BRANDS

60 PEOPLE FROM

AGENCIES

$


Sources and Citations1 Neff, Jack. (2017, January 29). P&G Tells Digital to Clean Up, Lays Down New Rules for Agencies and Ad Tech to

Get Paid. http://adage.com/article/media/p-g-s-pritchard-calls-digital-grow-up-new-rules/307742/

2 Davidson, Darren. (2017, March 27). Buyers fear going to extremes on Google advertising

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/buyers-fear-going-to-extremes-on-google-advertising/news-story/

fbbbf31eca11763fba1ff9818388e79b

3 Duffy, Mark. (2017, March 3). Does Facebook advertising even work a lick? https://digiday.com/marketing/does-

facebook-advertising-even-work-a-lick/ Also: Foster, Stephen. (2017, March 3). Sorrell’s gloomy note hits shares even as

WPP reports record £2bn plus 2016. http://www.moreaboutadvertising.com/2017/03/sorrells-gloomy-note-hits-shares-

even-as-wpp-reports-record-2bn-plus-2016/ Also: Frier, Sarah and Satariano, Adam. (2016, September 22). Facebook

Says It Gave Advertisers Inflated Video Metrics. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-23/facebook-says-it-

gave-advertisers-inflated-video-view-metrics

4 Rath, Julien. (2017, January 30). ‘90%’ of advertisers are reviewing their programmatic ad contracts as they look for

more transparency. http://www.businessinsider.com/90-percent-of-advertisers-are-reviewing-their-programmatic-ad-

contractstransparency-wfa-2017-1

5 Rath, Julien. (2017, January 30). ‘90%’ of advertisers are reviewing their programmatic ad contracts as they look for

more transparency. http://www.businessinsider.com/90-percent-of-advertisers-are-reviewing-their-programmatic-ad-

contractstransparency-wfa-2017-1

6 Bruell, Alexandra. (2017, March 23). IPG Creates New Role For Arun Kumar in Data Push.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ipg-creates-new-role-for-arun-kumar-in-data push- 1490266803

7 Rowntree, Lindsay. (2017, April 4). Honesty Was the Best Policy at ExchangeWire Live NYC.

https://www.exchangewire.com/blog/2017/04/04/honesty-best-policy-exchangewire-live-nyc/

8 See endnotes 1 and 2

9 Bruell, Alexandra. (2015, September 14). Inside the Hidden Costs of Programmatic.

http://adage.com/article/print-edition/inside-hidden-costs-programmatic/300340/

10 MAGNA. MAGNA’s New Programmatic Forecasts. Dec. 2016.

https://magnaglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/MAGNA-Fall-2016-Programmatic-Report-PR.pdf

11 Spanier, Gideon. (2017, March 28). Marketers must tell their boards ‘60% of programmatic spend is wasted’.

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/marketers-tell-boards-60-programmatic-spend-wasted/1428837

About Metamarkets

Metamarkets is the leading provider of interactive analytics for

programmatic marketing. Customers such as Twitter, AOL and LinkedIn

use the Metamarkets platform to drive their business performance through

intuitive access to real-time information. As an independent analytics

software provider, Metamarkets gives its users the ability to see what’s

happening in the media marketplaces where they operate and provides

the high-speed processing power needed to gain a competitive edge.

With offices in San Francisco and New York, Metamarkets is backed by

Khosla Ventures, Data Collective, IA Ventures, and True Ventures.

For more information, please visit

www.metamarkets.com

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