Following on from the launch of the Australian Digital Advertising Practices (ADAPs) last month, IAB Australia has issued a call to action for the digital industry to adopt the IAB Tech Lab’s transparency standards across the programmatic supply chain and commit to other related recommendations.
According to Jonas Jaanimagi, IAB Australia’s Tech Lead, standards already exist which would address the transparency issues that were broached in the recent ISBA report.
“The product and technical specialists in our industry have all mutually agreed protocols and standards that enable transparency through the supply chain, however the wider industry has shown minimal genuine interest in investing the engineering time and effort required for full adoption. Buyers need to be better supported, educated and made more aware of what standards and best practices are currently available for them to utilise.”
“It’s time for all to recognise that the full adoption of these IAB Tech Lab standards requires more than just technical consultation, there also needs to also be an accompanying commercial and product awareness of why these standards and best practices are so critical and why they should be widely adopted and made more available to all and any programmatic buyers.” said Jaanimagi.
IAB Australia has identified five clear areas that should be actioned today:
- Mandatory and immediate adoption of sellers.json & SupplyChain Object standards by all SSPs, DSPs and Ad Exchange vendors.
- Widespread industry adoption of IAB Tech Lab Taxonomies and the IAB Tech Lab Data Label to provide standardised and consistent language for vendors, agencies, and publishers to utilise in all campaign reporting.
- DSPs should prioritise Supply Path Optimisation and related best practices whilst also insisting upon always using separate trading seats for each of their clients to improve reporting, minimise bid duplications and improve the overall efficiency of RTB.
- The industry should review the inclusion and adoption, and logging, of some form of transaction ID (similar to the source.tid) within the OpenRTB protocols to enable cleaner retrospective audits.
- Industry-wide standardisation of essential T&C’s with ad tech vendors and the mutually agreed permissions access to data between publishers, SSPs, DSPs and agencies – to build upon the recommendations included within IAB Australia’s AdTech Buyers Guide.
IAB Tech Lab senior director of product Amit Shetty commented that “sellers.json and the SupplyChain Object when competently utilised together with ads.txt will provide buying platforms (DSPs) and intermediaries full transparency into the origins, paths, and legitimacy of ad inventory.
“These standards will help to support more efficient supply path optimisation (SPO), which can help buyers prioritise spends through better informed or preferred paths – and can also assist in blocking impressions passing through intermediaries they may not be comfortable with,” added Shetty.
According to IAB Australia chair and Pedestrian Group CEO Matt Rowley, the ISBA report findings showcase why it is so important for all in our ecosystem to adopt the IAB standards.
“Brands who take the time to actively engage with the ADAPs and adopt the IAB recommended standards will immediately be able to track campaign impressions from end to end of the digital supply chain. Knowledge is power,” said Rowley.
Industry transparency standards and the five action points will be discussed in an IAB Australia webinar on Transparency, Brand Safety and Ad Fraud on Thursday 9th July at 11am.
