Joanna L. O’Connell is Manager of Strategic Development, ATOM Systems, Razorfish.
The word “transparency” seems to be everyone’s favorite word these days. Clients want it, publishers fear it, and networks – increasingly – boast that they offer it. I’d like to propose that we’re thinking about this word in the wrong way and suggest that we as an industry consider changing our definition.
First, some background. In my previous life as a media supervisor, I spent most of my days working on campaigns featuring 5 to 15 3rd party ad networks at any given time. While our network-heavy plans generally performed well from a direct response standpoint, they didn’t tell us much about what was working and why. From an optimization standpoint, I was very limited, making poorly-informed, surface-level optimization decisions which never seemed to lead to the same result (“let’s cut the 728×90’s… no wait, let’s put those back in…no wait!”). While maybe we knew what sites we “might” be running on thanks to the fully transparent site list we sometimes received, we never knew what was actually happening and why so we could learn and repeat it.
Certainly, I understand the desire to answer the question, “Yes, but where are my ads running?” And, I absolutely believe that serving as good stewards of clients’ brands by keeping their advertising out of questionable or otherwise unsavory content is paramount. But being able to answer all kinds of other important questions that tap into the heart of what’s driving campaign success or failure is a great leap forward, no matter how you cut it.
That said, buyers will continue to push for site level transparency and, as was the case in the network space, the exchanges will likely evolve to be more “transparent” in the traditional sense. But I would hate for buyers – and their clients – to miss out on a totally new kind of transparency that is available right now on the exchanges.
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