PALM SPRINGS, Calif — After a year in which calls for “transparency” in advertising technology reached “cacophony” on the controversy scale, advertisers understanding of the issues has increased significantly – and their demands are growing in lock-step.
That is according to one ad exchange operator which reports a maturation in the questions marketers are asking of their platforms and publishers.
“So, the questions that we’re getting now is not so much that, ‘(Are) there no buy-side fees or undisclosed fees?’ – those have been table stakes for Index for a long time,” says Will Doherty, VP of business development at Index Exchange.
“But, they are actually (asking) ‘What are your fees? What is the actual rev split that Index shares with its publishers?’, because they want to understand how much of their media dollar is actually going towards working media.”
Doherty says that is a “level-up” of the transparency conversation that has raged over the last year or two.
And it is not before time. As Doherty says, as much as 30% to 40% of an advertiser’s media spend could be taken by intermediaries charged with simply delivering the impression. So Doherty says he sees it as his responsibility to drive down that cost.
“What our job at Index is, is to make the relative cost of each transaction, as low as possible – so low that you don’t even need to think about it anymore,” he says.
“And so largely, what we’re geared to do is create the efficiencies in the middle that return value to both the marketer and the publisher.”
This video is part of a series covering the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting. The series is sponsored by AppNexus. Please visit this page for more coverage.
