Although the advent of digital advertising has brought marketers meaningful gains in effectiveness and in efficiency, the industry remains beleaguered by a problem that has been seemingly impossible to solve: a lack of transparency.

Despite impressive technological innovation, marketers still struggle to answer basic questions like where their ad dollars are going and how their ads are performing. Issues like poor media quality, hidden fees and misaligned incentives abound.

To address these challenges – Adobe today announced that Adobe Advertising Cloud, the industry’s first end-to-end platform for managing advertising across traditional TV and digital formats, has become the first media buying platform to partner with supply-side platform (SSP) and exchange partners to make all fees – including some that were previously undisclosed – fully transparent. The move comes at a time when suppliers are taking initiative to increase transparency around auction dynamics passed to buy-side partners.

Supply-side platforms gain the majority of their revenue by taking a fee for helping online publishers monetize unsold advertising inventory. After it was discovered that a number of SSPs had included additional fees in media costs that were passed along to buy-side partners, Adobe Advertising Cloud has reached agreements with the industry’s leading inventory suppliers to either eliminate these fees entirely, or mandate full disclosure. All disclosed supplier fees will be displayed within Adobe Advertising Cloud’s platform moving forward.

Participating partners include:

• DoubleClick Ad Exchange
• FreeWheel
• Index Exchange
• MoPub
• OATH by Verizon
• OpenX
• PubMatic
• Sharethrough
• SpotX
• The Rubicon Project
• Teads
• Telaria
• TripleLift

“We believe deeply that transparency can benefit everyone in the digital advertising industry, not just marketers,” said Brett Wilson, vice president, Adobe Advertising Cloud. “Openness and innovation are hallmarks of Adobe Advertising Cloud and we are pleased that our supply partners have joined us as we collectively work to bring accountability that most will agree is long overdue.”

“Driving more transparency in advertising is a top priority at L’Oréal,” says Nadine Karp McHugh, SVP Omni Media, Strategic Investments, Programmatic and Creative Solutions at L’Oréal USA. “Adobe remains one of our close partners in aiding our pursuit on this initiative as we continue encourage the industry to follow suit.”

“Index Exchange has been a leader in transparency from day one,” said Andrew Casale, CEO of Index Exchange. “We applaud Adobe Advertising Cloud for spearheading this initiative and look forward to collaborating with them in the future to help both marketers and publishers better achieve their business objectives.”

“As outspoken advocates of transparency in the digital ecosystem — including on key issues such as supply chain integrity, fees, and the workings of auction dynamics — we are proud to support this initiative from Adobe,” said Rajeev Goel, CEO of PubMatic. “The future of digital advertising will be based on the intersection of brand advertising and programmatic. We’re excited to partner with Adobe Advertising Cloud across video and display advertising as we bring this future to life.”

This initiative builds on Adobe Advertising Cloud’s rich history of driving increased control and transparency for marketers. In 2010, the company became one of the first media buying platforms to reveal site-level performance and economics directly within its software. Subsequently, the company rolled out its BrandSafe brand safety suite, spearheaded the creation of OpenVV and open-sourced what is now the industry’s video viewability standard, released details on three botnets, and integrated with major third-parties for viewability, verification and more. Most recently the company launched its Non-Human Traffic Credit Program, which automatically refunds advertisers for any for advertising identified as fraudulent by a trusted third party.