While there might be some bad players in the digital media ecosystem, transparency basically boils down to having a full understanding of the ins and outs of programmatic transactions. What’s hampered understanding is that while automation has speeded things up, machines can’t watch for the things that humans can.
This is how PubMatic CMO Jeff Hirsch views the widely discussed issue of transparency as he prepares for DMEXCO 2017, the advertising and media trade show that takes place in Cologne, Germany on Sept. 13 and 14, where transparency and other issues will be front and center.
“I think it’s more important now because of brand spend shifting to digital,” Hirsch says of transparency while discussing the complexity of the programmatic marketplace in this interview with Beet.TV. “So we’re seeing brand advertisers being much more cognizant of where their ads run and of course they should be. That conversation and the evolution of programmatic combined is making it much more prevalent.”
To do automation at scale, machines need to do what machines do: provide efficiency and effectiveness in the buying and selling of digital ads. “There’s less intervention of humans. That means less review of different things that are happening,” Hirsch notes.
So while automation has brought the desired effects, things have gotten ahead of the curve in terms of checks and balances, according to Hirsch, because automation has “accelerated the pace of where ads might run, or how people might be charging. The need to be transparent and to speak to that openly is more important now than ever.”
To this end, PubMatic, the publisher-focused, sell-side platform, recently issued a report on digital auction dynamics, which Hirsch terms “a super complex topic.” The white paper covers:
• How the rules of access to supply are changing
• The complex debate around auction types and integration methods
• How floors and fees affect SSP and DSP behaviors
• Different bidding strategies and how they work
• Key trends that are affecting the future of programmatic auctions
PubMatic has been communicating its views on transparency with an ad campaign titled Let’s Be Clear: About Fees, About Supply, About Quality.
In addition to understanding, transparency is about control–specifically, regaining it for PubMatic’s clients.
“Publishers had lost some control in the ecosystem with the advent of programmatic, and there’s now tools and services to get back that control,” he says. “And that’s what we’re all about is bringing back control to the publisher around ad decisioning, about how they do business and who they partner with.”
This video is part a series that examines programmatic from both the seller and the buyer perspective. It is presented by PubMatic. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
