They say nothing speaks louder than money. When it comes to online real estate, the same can be said about advertising.
The latest IAB/PwC Online Advertising Expenditure Report revealed that online advertising spend reached $1.15 billion for the March quarter this year alone, with no signs of slowing down.
As marketers continue to divert a growing percentage of their budget to the web, moving away from the more traditional mediums of radio, television, print and even away from traditional digital buys, it’s essential to start thinking about how this impacts brand safety.
In Australia, an estimated 70% of online ad buying is now done programmatically. In this highly automated ad exchange market, brands no longer pick the websites their ads will show up on, but the person they want to sell to. They choose their desired demographic — a 30-year-old woman on the lookout for new shoes, for example — and ad exchanges from Google, AppNexus and others, then locate that type of person, no matter where they are on the web.
While there is always a risk an ad could appear next to an inappropriate article in a magazine or follow a non-brand safe scene on TV, it’s fair to say that the online environment offers a little less control. However, for brands working with the right partners and implementing the right measures, it can also offer many more scalable opportunities.
With the rise in programmatic ad buying in Australia, it’s no surprise that concerns over ads popping up in unsavoury places is becoming a significant industry issue. While it’s a low-cost and efficient way of getting to the desired audience quickly, it’s also fraught with difficulties and can put brands in the tight spot of working out who exactly their ad budgets are benefitting.
You may remember last year when the telecommunications industry suggested removing its advertising from websites that promote copyright infringement. In a last-ditch attempt to fight the reported scourge of online piracy in Australia, it was a noble goal. But the likely success of ensuring that a big, colourful ad will never appear on a site that profits from copyright infringement, is slim to none.
In a study by Undertone, marketers and agencies actually ranked brand safety as their number one concern when buying ad inventory programmatically. Other top safety and quality concerns were viewability and non-human traffic bots misrepresenting the value of ads, and indeed the inventory sources themselves.
Ad exchanges have blacklists and rule features, of course, to stop ads from appearing on particularly nefarious websites. But few of these are 100% accurate. The truly determined pirate websites use all sorts of tips and tricks to avoid detection by these blacklists and other policing techniques — after all, the piracy website is out to make a buck.
This won’t bother everyone of course — those brands wanting to get as many impressions as possible on their ads, no matter the risk, are likely to continue using the same tactics. But brands using this kind of scattergun approach, do so at the risk of their reputation, and could likely find their ads placed alongside unsavoury content on a random publisher.
Brand reputation should always be at the forefront of a campaign, digital or otherwise. A truly valuable digital marketing strategy shouldn’t conflict with this; in fact, it should complement it.
A key thing to remember, is that technological advancements in the ad:tech space shouldn’t mean that human interaction goes out the window. Brands working with partners who don’t have direct relationships with publishers and simply rely on the automated auction processes alone are far likely to see their ad end up on unsafe or inappropriate sites. These direct publisher relationships also give brands priority opportunities to buy valuable impressions and first access to the highest quality sites.
Working with partners who value quality over quantity is key. Many companies out there use a post-view model that means simply getting an ad in front of users counts as a win, no matter where it is or whether that user acts on it. Post-click models ensure that a user needs to actually click on an ad for the company to benefit. Not only does this mean a more transparent view of ROI, but it means less ads turning up where they shouldn’t. It’s important to work with partners who are confident enough in their technology to carry the buying risk on the advertisers behalf.
Brands should be confident that all of their partners, be them ad networks, ad exchanges, publishers or performance marketing companies, understand their brand image and the importance of their online reputation. Sometimes no matter what preventative measures are implemented, an ad will end up in the wrong place. It’s vital to ask what systems are in place to minimise the damage, and to understand the processes for monitoring and immediately removing content from less than desirable sites when this happens.
Whether a small business starting out, or a major retail player with an image to maintain, brand reputation is crucial. It’s not yet possible to eliminate any possibility of an ad ending up where it shouldn’t. However, brands who work with trusted partners who have that have their best interests at heart, value quality impressions and share their values about brand safety, will dramatically reduce the risks. Ultimately, that means more ads in front of quality users on quality sites.