You may have never heard of the Media Rating Council (MRC). It was established in the 1960’s as part of US Congressional hearing on accuracy of audience research. The MRC’s mission is to make sure the audience measurements being used by media are valid, reliable and effective.
So when the MRC pulls its accreditation for Google’s DfP (DoubleClick for Publishers), it’s a big deal. DfP is used by the vast majority of publishers as the mechanism to serve ads across networks. A Datanyze study recently put Google’s DoubleClick as having a 75.2% share of the ad server business.
The MRC says Google is in non-compliance with new standards established earlier this year. In April, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and MRC updated guidelines for what counts as an ad impression. The new guidelines said at least 50% of an ad had to be on screen for at least one second or more to count as an ad impression. Now to me, that’s a pretty loose standard already. If I paid for an ad, I wouldn’t be too happy if only half of it showed up for 1 second. But… that’s the improved standard. Google DfP doesn’t live up to the standard right now.
Google DfP is still counting an ad impression on the server side. That means if an ad is served, it counts – Forget whether anyone has ever seen it. Right now, DfP counts that as an impression and charges for it. It might be at the bottom of an endless scroll of content that never hits the screen. Or below-the-fold and never seen by human eyes.
MRC gave publishers 30 days to comply back in April. Google hasn’t done so yet, and so the MRC pulled its accreditation until Google can get it fixed.
“We’re updating the methodology for our publisher ad server (DFP) to reflect the change, and are working towards renewed MRC accreditation for that methodology by the end of the year. We have dozens of ad metrics with MRC accreditation, all of which remain current.” – Google via Business Insider
The MRC did grant accreditation for other Google mesaures, such as Viewable Impressions for desktop viewability.
In the long view, this is a momentary blip
Google will make the change and things will go back to running the way they did.
In my view, the industry is recalibrating how to measure things. People are asking the questions now they should have been asking all along. Just because you can get a metric doesn’t mean it’s meaningful… especially if you can’t trust that the number is accurate.
Digital Advertising is under fire right now
NOTE: Excerpts below are from what I originally published here
I know some of my friends that work at traditional media and legacy media companies are enjoying it a bit right now and maybe even piling on. But what we’re seeing isn’t so much a problem with digital advertising as it is businesses and marketers waking up to the inherent issues in online advertising.
Digital promises transparency and detailed, drill-able metrics. That’s true. But the industry has pushed people to embrace meaningless metrics… because they could track them and they sounds good. It appears a lot of agencies have taken some liberties with its client relationships in chasing the “bright shiny object.”
In traditional media, advertisers have had years to work out the right metrics. They have more than a century of experience with newspaper ads and decades with every other medium. In digital, it wasn’t all that long ago we were tracking “pixels” on a web page.
Despite all the digital metrics you can get — and there are so many ways to track things it can make your eyes blur — the industry has been often focused on the wrong things. Don’t get me wrong, digital advertising — when used properly — can be a powerful tool. But too many people are chasing the elusive “next big thing” and forgetting the underlying task: growing your business.
The digital metrics you’ve been getting may not be accurate at all
Facebook admitting that they have overestimated average time spent watching ads by between 60–80%… for about two years now.
Two years of reporting inflated performance numbers is unacceptable.” — Publicis memo to clients, published in The Wall Street Journal.
As much as 50% of the clicks on the ads may be fake. Yes, fake — done by bots and not humans.
You may have been overcharged and never knew it
The ad agency Dentsu recently had to admit it overcharged 100+ clients for digital ads. 633 cases have been found so far topping $2.3 million dollars, according to the Financial Times.
The big secret is unless you’re buying the media yourself, almost everybody is using a third-party provider to place the buys. Sometimes, that third-party is taking a cut and passing it on to yet another provider. Everybody is taking a piece along the way.
The ads may not be working
Toyota is suggesting its digital ads are not working. Proctor & Gamble (only the world’s largest advertiser) concluded that target digital ads don’t work to move product. General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, Sears, and Nationwide are reported to be launching audits of the digital agencies.
48% of companies say their agencies don’t give them meaningful KPIs to help them be successful, according to an Advertiser Perceptions study
Your agency may have been taking kickbacks and not passing along the savings
The Association of National Advertisers, a trade group more than a century old, finished up an exhaustive study of the agency business and found persuasive evidence of “non-disclosed rebates, not returned to advertisers, in the forms of cash, free media inventory, and service agreements.”
The biggest concern was the “agency conduct …concealed by principal transactions, resulting in media agencies sometimes acting on their own account and not always in the best interests of advertisers.
Digital agencies demonstrate a lack of transparency
An Advertiser Perceptions study shows 61% of advertisers are ready to review their digital agencies. 48% of those surveyed claimed the agencies they use were not “open and transparent on cost.” 34% said they were losing trust.
“There is trouble in paradise in this industry and anybody that says there is not has their head in the sand” — Chief Marketing Officer at one of the largest companies in the U.S. speaking anonymously to the Wall Street Journal
It has some asking if digital advertising even works for brands anymore.
The big question marketers are asking is “are we getting real value for what we are buying.” — Grant Leech, US Cellular, VP/Brand Management in WSJ.
All of this had led to a lack of trust
What’s that famous line about half my advertising doesn’t work, but I just don’t know what half? If the advertiser knew which half wasn’t work, they could just cut that half and save the money, or double up on what’s working. But they can’t. That means they have to have a level of trust with the media they invest in to use their money wisely and honestly.
Marketers should require media agencies to be fully transparent to elevate trust and restore confidence in the client/agency partnership — The Association of National Advertisers
I would posit trust is the key to any successful relationship.
So what to do about it
The Association of National Advertisers has put out key recommendations in light of its study results showing many agencies aren’t always working in the customers’ best interests.
Key recommendations
- Establish overarching agency management principles that can be easily understood and executed.These include requiring media agencies to ensure complete transparency in all transactions with parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, and third parties. Agencies should err on the side of communicating everything to marketers, the report said.
- Establish primacy over the client/agency relationship, and regularly re-evaluate and upgrade internal processes and practices.The report said it is essential that marketers have a thorough understanding of the existing client/agency relationship and know when the agency is acting as an agent on behalf of the client or as a principal representing itself.
- Create a uniform code of conduct between the advertisers and agencies.The code of conduct between advertiser and its AOR would be mutually agreed to, signed by both parties, and serve as an addendum to the master services agreement.
It’s a start.
Parting thoughts
Look, digital advertising done well works. We’ve seen it first hand in working with hundreds and hundreds of clients over the year.
We’ve also seen sellers that have no clue what they’re doing, but push the wrong solution down buyer’s throats. We’ve seen advertisers and sellers quote numbers and metrics that are meaningless and judge campaigns by the wrong metrics.
We’ve also seen some brilliant results from the right creative, in the right medium, shown to the right audience at the right time. Doing it right will yield results, bring about sales, and grow your business. And hasn’t advertising, regardless of medium, always been about that?
Paul Dughi.com 