It's Time to Tighten Up Digital POP (dPOP)

There are discussions happening now between the IAB, 4As and other interested parties about a new Digital Advertising Terms and Conditions (V 4.0) which will require viewability for Digital Advertising Proof of Performance (dPOP). As an interested party, and one of the drafters of V 1.0, I don't think that's enough. In my opinion, viewability is now just "table stakes" for dPOP (which enables media payment). We also need proof that the ad was "seen by a human" (a true opportunity to see, or OTS, the standard for all other media metrics) and some proof that it ran where it was intended rather than in a place that is "unsafe" for the brand. That's a lot to require -- and one of the issues is that it is not affordable today. But we do have the technology to do this affordably, just not the infrastructure. More about that later in this piece.

My recommendation for dPOP has been provided to the 4As, IAB, ANA and Mike Donahue's new Trust and Transparency Forum. Here it is:

A New Standard Relative to Digital Media Payment

Background

The current state of POP for various media is as follows:

TV requires a sworn affidavit (agency execs have been imprisoned for faking these) with an itemized date/time stamped invoice. In the case of audience guarantees, delivery is verified by a post-buy analysis based on Nielsen ratings.
Print requires a checking copy for magazine or a tear sheet for newspaper to accompany the invoice. Verification of circulation delivery is generally provided by AAM or BPA, but long after payment has been made.
Digital is currently based on T's and C's V 3.0, which specifies that impressions must be verified by a Media Ratings Council (MRC) Certified Third Party Ad Server (3PAS) deployed by the agency/advertiser and/or the publisher with a delivery threshold of +/-10% if there is a discrepancy.

Proposed New Standard for Digital (Draft)

Proof of performance standards that need to be met to clear an invoice for payment:

Proof that ad was fully loaded by MRC Certified 3PAS
Proof that ad was viewable by a human via MRC Certified Verification Vendor (3PVV)
Straightforward evidence that ad ran "where intended" by full disclosure from exchanges, extended networks, etc. This is subject to I.O. specified white lists, black lists, agreement on use of Third Party Brand Safety Vendor (3PBSV) and would mean that the continued use of blind or misleading urls would have to cease.
In the case of audience buys, proof that audience was delivered from a 3PVV and 3PBSV.

Within the above, a clear chain of responsibility from both financial and data standpoints needs to be established.

If POP is not complete, the agency does not make payment to any middleman company and the middleman does not make payment to the publisher.

The issue, as indicated above, is that there is no single technology which satisfies all aspects. In addition to ad serving, we need to deploy tech for viewability, bot and fraud detection, and brand safety. The various vendors would need to each charge either a percent of the buy or a negotiated CPM based on their model.

The challenges with this process include:

Too many tags, too many redirects and too much latency
Paying for too much overhead in 3-4 marketing, management, financial, sales and operational organizations.
Complexity to the point where many advertisers and agencies throw in the towel and say they can only afford a partial solution.

The answer of course begs for consolidation. One company to do it all. A single tag. A single overhead. A single point of responsibility. And much more control for the publisher, agency and advertiser.

How can this be achieved? It can be done from the top down, bottom up, or from a new solution. For example, the fraud detection companies believe that it starts with impression detection, not delivery -- and the solution should be bottom up, built by them. Newer solutions provide brand safety but don't deliver the ad or ensure viewability or fraud protection. At the top of the chain, the third party ad servers could have owned this field, but they failed to innovate as shown in my I-COM presentation. All of the above could have been features in an ad server.

But the fact is, no single solution exists. The advertiser is in the unfortunate situation of having to spend money on too many vendors or settle for less than best of breed. While companies try to build the ideal "mousetrap" the first one to come along with a single tag solution might just walk away with the market.

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It's Time to Tighten Up Digital POP (dPOP)

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David Smith