What exactly constitutes \u201ctransparency\u201d in the digital media ecosystem? To Hearst\u2019s Mike Smith, it\u2019s a multidimensional subject of debate that he parses into three categories: Pricing of ad inventory, who sells it and ad fraud involving creative assets.<\/p>\n
In this interview with Beet.TV, Smith acknowledges the complexity of the programmatic transaction path and talks about efforts by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the trade organization TrustX to give premium digital publishers more control over things like fees and fraud.<\/p>\n
Digital transparency will be one of the main subjects under discussion at the DMEXCO<\/a> 2017 advertising and media trade show that takes place in Cologne, Germany on Sept. 13 and 14.<\/p>\n According to Smith, who is SVP, Revenue Platforms & Operations at Hearst Magazines Digital Media, transparency into pricing of digital media raises is not something on which all players agree.<\/p>\n \u201cDoes everyone have the right to full transparency on pricing? Does the publisher, does the advertiser?\u201d asks Smith. \u201cThat is a debated topic actually. It\u2019s unclear if there\u2019s uniformity in terms of everyone feeling that the information about pricing should be revealed to all.\u201d<\/p>\n On the issue of who ends up selling publishers\u2019 inventory, Smith praises the IAB initiative called ads.txt<\/a>, an effort to enable publishers to restrict supply side platforms from re-listing\/reselling their inventory. \u201cIt\u2019s greatly important and I recommend publishers adopt it,\u201d Smith says.<\/p>\n As for digital ad creative, a lot of ad fraud occurs when a programmatic buyer purchases an impression on a publisher \u201cand several hops away from the series of buyers is someone committing fraud and redirecting a browser, hijacking a browser it\u2019s called,\u201d he says. Solving this would require \u201chaving transparency into who the buyers are all the way through to the end and what ad they\u2019re serving.\u201d<\/p>\n