Our COO Danny comments on the challenges surrounding transparency in programmatic post the recent ISBA / PWC report…
Wednesday 17th June - first published on Campaignlive.co.uk
Full comment from Ozone’s COO Danny below:
Does it surprise you that they could not determine that 88% (248 million of the 267 million) of impressions that advertisers had paid for actually appeared?
It's not surprising that only 12% of the impressions could actually be matched as we are looking at a supply chain that has been deliberately designed with opacity in mind and to stop this kind of comparison. From an Ozone perspective, we see transparency as a critical and fundamental pillar of our proposition, allowing buyers and sellers to see the value exchange.
Note for this particular study the sample size doesn't diminish the integrity of the report.
Does it worry you that this shows publishers are losing significant revenue through unaccountable costs?
It's definitely a worry for publishers and it should be for marketers too, and this is why both parties are taking a variety of their own measures to address this, with The Ozone Project being one example of that. Revenue is lost through these mechanics and commercials as a result of obfuscation, manipulation, unilateral adjustments and other means of value extraction, and in such a way that neither buyer nor seller knows what really has happened. This is particularly prevalent in open market programmatic where there is significantly less traceability and accountability than with premium publisher deals.
How many SSPs do Ozone Project members use and, in light of these findings, would you be looking to reduce this number in order to gain greater control over this process?
From a broader market perspective we see publishers becoming more selective with the partners that they work with and the terms that they do business with them on. From an Ozone perspective we are investing in deeper and more strategic relationships with a smaller group of vendors who are more closely aligned with our specific business requirements, and just as importantly, our operating principles.
