Lessons from the ANA media supply chain study for brands of all sizes

The latest estimate from the ANA suggests that of the $88bn in open web spending, around 25% is wasteful or unproductive – the figure amounts to one in four dollars, meaning there is an opportunity for $22bn in efficiency gains.

Helpfully, the ANA Programmatic Media Supply Chain Transparency Study offers tips to reduce the losses collectively and individually for advertisers. There are huge opportunities for increased efficiency, but the question many marketers will ask is: which of these 57 actions are the right ones for my brand?

Many may quickly become overwhelmed on the assumption that all recommendations must be achieved as soon as possible. That is not the case. Advertisers must understand that each of the recommendations provided by the ANA varies in complexity and applicability, meaning each needs to be understood and considered.

For example, implementing an inclusion list is fairly quick and easy; however, accessing log-level data from every adtech vendor across an advertiser’s supply chain is a much more complex, costly, and time-consuming task. Furthermore, recommendations to improve inventory quality and sustainability are likely to apply to every advertiser; however, establishing a direct SSP contract may not be relevant until an advertiser reaches £50–£100m in annual spending.

Every brand is different, but the bottom line is that every advertiser must be responsible and “lean in” to be more active stewards of their media investments. Without the appropriate levels of transparency in programmatic media investments, advertisers cannot possibly understand where the biggest risks lie and, therefore, where to start improving efficiency based on the ANA recommendations.

The bottom line for many – as evidenced by the stat from the report, which found over half of advertisers (54%) were neutral or uncomfortable with the level of transparency they had into programmatic investments – is that anything that boosts transparency has to be of benefit.

We think that there are some common quick wins in the report based on spend levels, so if you are spending less than £10m a year, £10-£50m a year or more than £50m a year, there will be a number of key steps that will provide immediate wins.

Small businesses

• Prioritize the creation and use of appropriately sized and Made for Advertising (MFA)-free website “inclusion” lists rather than focusing on “exclusion” lists.

• Improve transparency by optimizing measurability and viewability, as well as establishing a proactive plan to fight invalid traffic.

• Buy through direct inventory supply paths rather than buying from a secondary seller/reseller.

Medium businesses

• Develop an SSP optimization strategy and consolidate spending with a shortlist of preferred partners that are willing to provide financial incentives in exchange for an elevated share of budget.

• Establish direct DSP and ad verification contracts to increase transparency and efficiencies.

• Balance the pursuit of low-cost inventory in programmatic media with ad quality, ensuring that inventory is viewable, fraud-free, and brand-safe. The “cheapest” media may not be the “best” media.

Large businesses

• Establish direct contracts with SSPs to increase transparency and reduce waste.

• Tap into log-level data from every adtech vendor across your supply chain to show where value is hiding and where there is no value.

• Assess the value of programmatic by evaluating the ad quality and price using the ANA’s TrueKPI framework.

Going beyond these immediate first steps, we believe there are three key pillars to maximizing effective use of programmatic for every advertiser in the future: transparency, quality, and optimization.

Transparency means evaluating whether advertisers have the necessary insight into programmatic transaction costs (DSPs, ad verification, data and SSPs), access to core platforms, appropriate data access and visibility into media placements.

Quality means assessing the levels of accountability and the likelihood that media is focused on high-quality, measurable, fraud-free, and in-view media placements at competitive price points. As well as reviewing whether an efficient and sustainable supply chain is currently in place.

Optimization means understanding if advertisers have deployed global best practices that help improve campaign effectiveness and drive competitive advantage, such as algorithmic, campaign dimension and MFA optimization.

By viewing programmatic spend through these three lenses, advertisers will be able to understand the most applicable and impactful actions for their current state of sophistication.

The next steps can then be ranked in terms of implementation complexity with a roadmap developed to enable the systematic execution of each. Following the ANA’s report, the plan should be to take the early wins from low-hanging fruit before tackling the more complex tasks.