The 7 Drivers of Ad Quality Explained

Authored by Simon Birkenhead, CEO of KPEX - New Zealand's premium ad exchange

Ad viewability is an issue impacting all forms of media. Television ads have 100% opportunity to view, but you have no guarantee that viewers are actually in front of the television to see the ads. Out of home ads can be obscured by trees or buildings. And just because someone bought your magazine does not mean they saw your ad on the inside pages.

Within online advertising, ad quality is mostly associated with viewability (whether an ad was actually displayed on the screen). Consequently, brands and their agencies have focused on viewability metrics as a way to be assured they are buying ‘quality’ ad placements.

However, there are many other critical aspects to ad quality beyond viewability that advertisers need to be conscious of when planning campaigns.

The 7 Dimensions of Ad Quality

Ad quality should be assessed across these dimensions:

1. Has my advert actually been displayed on the screen for sufficient time to be seen?

This is the traditional ‘viewability’ metric, which measures the likelihood that an ad was displayed within the browser window. Low viewability is usually caused by a site loading ads in the background that the user never scrolls down to see. However, page-level scripting and ad injection are methods by which unscrupulous publishers can create fake ad impressions without actually displaying ads to viewers.

2. Has my advert been displayed to a real person, rather than a fake one?

All sites experience traffic from bots. However, irreputable sites create fake traffic to boost the number of unique users they can claim, and the number of page views generating ad revenues.

3. Is the content on the page sufficiently engaging for the viewer to ensure my ad gets enough attention?

Even if the page is being viewed by a real person, low-value human traffic refers to users who have not fully self-selected to visit the content in question. ‘Click bait’ links and other involuntary redirects can easily take users to sites where they are not interested in the content being displayed. Because the viewer is not interested in the content, any ads on that page are unlikely to have much impact.

4. Does my ad stand out from other ads on the page?

It is tempting for publishers to generate more revenue simply by adding more ad placements on each page. However, cluttering the page with many ads, often of different sizes, creates a poor advertising environment because the user experience is very poor and each ad has little stand out. Requiring users to click through a slide show (thereby creating a new ‘page view’ with each click), or the liberal use of auto-play video, are other tactics that lower the user experience and value to the advertiser.

5. Are your ads being shown on the actual site you think they are?

Domain spoofing occurs when fraudsters alter the ad request tags used in a programmatic auction to pretend to be a high quality site, but actually send the ad (and the payment for it) to their own a spoofed site. Ads.txt is the first line of defense by publishers against domain spoofing. It is a simple solution that allows publishers to identify and broadcast all of the companies in the programmatic ecosystem who are authorised to sell their inventory.

6. Is the site itself sufficiently trustworthy and reputable for my brand to be associated with it?

For many brands it is important that their ads only show alongside content that aligns with their brand positioning. Viral stories of ads being shown on the homepage of terrorist organisations highlight how important this issue is to marketers. The use of whitelists and blacklists of sites within your programmatic campaign is a method of ensuring your ads only show on sites you trust.

7. Is the cookie and other data that you have used to target the viewer genuine?

Fraudsters can send bots to high quality sites to build cookie profiles of ‘users’ who are interested in topics that are attractive to advertisers. These ‘users’ then browse sites set up by the fraudsters. When advertisers target these cookie profiles within a programmatic auction, ads are shown on the fraudsters’ sites, generating ad revenue for them at the expense of the advertiser whose ad isn’t displayed to anyone. When buying ads on mobile devices, be aware that many apps fake their location by inserting falsified latitude/longitude data into the bid stream. Thus an app can claim its user in Sri Lanka (a low value ad market) is actually in the US (a high value ad market).

How to protect yourself from low quality ads

The first line of defence for advertisers is content. While there are a wide selection of technology solutions to help advertisers avoid fraud, the best option is always to recognise the importance of advertising alongside high quality content developed by legitimate, trusted and recognised sites.

1. Choose publishers you trust.

Running programmatic ad campaigns across networks with thousands of sites you’ve never heard of creates huge risk that your ads may show on sites that fail on one or more of the ad quality dimensions listed above. Sites that offer original content with loyal audiences and a recognisable URL are likely to offer the best advertising environments.

2. Only buy from authorised vendors.

Ensure that your programmatic buying tool utilises ads.txt to verify that they only buy from authorised resellers of each publisher’s ad inventory.

3. Use whitelists and blacklists, or private marketplace (PMP) deals.

A whitelist means your ads only show on the sites included, while a blacklist ensures your ads never show on these sites. Alternatively, buying through a PMP deal with a specific publisher or network ensures your ads only run on the specific placements you want.

Authored by Simon Birkenhead, CEO of KPEX - New Zealand's premium ad exchange

About KPEX

Kiwi Premium Ad Exchange (KPEX) is a consortium owned by New Zealand’s four largest media brands: NZME, Stuff, TVNZ and Mediaworks. We are the official and exclusive real-time buying (RTB) sales platform for the 60+ websites owned by these brands and the other premium publishers that partner with KPEX. By pooling the advertising inventory across all these publishers, we provide advertisers and agencies with single source access to the most premium, brand-safe online ad placements across New Zealand’s most popular content websites. Find out more at www.kpex.co.nz.