Addressing Transparency Challenges in Programmatic Advertising

You can’t be the player and the referee. It’s common sense. Yet, the ad tech ecosystem is built on vendors trying to do exactly that. The landscape is riddled with intentional conflicts of interest designed to obscure margins and create dependency. We see this playing out in two ways: 1. The "Grading Your Own Homework" Problem. A media platform (think Meta, Google, but also many, many others) delivers the ads and also provides the performance data. You pay them for inventory (how much?? We don’t really know), and they are the only ones telling you how well the campaign worked. They tell you their own performance. How do you verify this? You can’t. 🤨 We see platforms pitch "performance" solutions directly to brands every day. They control the inventory access. They control the attribution data. They report record-breaking results quarter after quarter. Business is always booming when you grade your own exams. When the vendor controls the ruler, the measurements will always look favorable to the vendor. You are forced to trust that their internal metrics are accurate rather than engineered to encourage you to spend more. 2. The Transparency Trap. We see this with aggregators who bundle service fees and media costs into one opaque number. Sometimes called "programmatic managed service”. You have no way of knowing how much of your dollar actually went to working media versus how much went into their pocket as an undisclosed markup. These vendors often attempt to manage split loyalties. They sell wholesale inventory to agencies while simultaneously pitching clients directly. They use the intelligence gained from one side to undercut the other. They cannot balance these commitments without compromising the integrity of one. Will they choose you (the client) or their own bottom line? Again..🤔 So what can you do? Stop accepting ambiguity. You must distinguish between service and inventory. Ask your partners three questions today: • Who is your client? Is the client me, or am I actually the product? If it’s a free service, you’re the product being sold! • How do you make your money? Is the model a transparent, flat managed service fee, or are you making an unknown margin? • Do you use third-party measurement? Or am I just trusting your internal numbers? What are the truly independent verification options? If a potential partner is vague, evasive, or claims that information is proprietary, you already have your answer.

This morning, AdExchanger published an insightful piece highlighting a critical challenge in the Connected TV space—premium publishers increasingly bundling their streaming inventory in opaque ways that limit advertiser visibility. Rather than providing app and show-level transparency within the bid stream—where it can be actioned—advertisers are often left with fragmented, one-off reports that offer little opportunity for strategic optimization. By adopting these black-box models, publishers are inadvertently undermining their own value. Their most significant asset—the premium content they produce—is being devalued when advertisers cannot effectively align their investments with the programming that resonates most with their audiences. The reality is that advertisers are willing to pay higher CPMs for impressions with full content transparency because it allows them to make more informed decisions and, ultimately, drive better performance. This principle has long been the foundation of linear TV, where show-level buying had created a thriving, demand-driven ecosystem rooted in transparency and accountability. At Rain the Growth Agency, we’ve seen firsthand how transparency fuels success in CTV. By leveraging show & channel level data and aligning our digital buying strategies with the programming that has proven effective in our clients’ linear campaigns, we’re driving significant performance gains. And are willing to pay higher cpms than we otherwise might. We’re working with partners like Spectrum Reach, Samsung Ads, fuboTV Network & DIRECTV which provide the transparency needed at the show & network level to make data-driven investment decisions that maximize ROI through our custom algorithms & buying strategies. A notable example is Alexander Groysman at Spectrum Reach, who has led the charge in developing one of the most comprehensive and well-structured content metadata sets in the industry. His work has set a new standard for transparency, enabling advertisers to better understand performance at a granular level and optimize their spend accordingly. As streaming networks attempt to replicate the playbook of tech companies, they risk overlooking a crucial difference: they are not technology companies. They lack the same product offerings, incentives, and advertiser appeal that drive digital platforms’ success. In chasing the tech model, they may ultimately lose what has always differentiated them—high-quality, trusted content that brands are eager to invest in when they can do so with confidence and clarity. Publishers who prioritize transparency stand to gain the most, while those who don't risk leaving money on the table and eroding advertiser trust. It’s time to rethink the approach before it’s too late. Link to article in comments.

The job advertising industry is fundamentally inefficient: full of hidden markups, faulty processes, and little accountability. Let me explain: At its core, this is a marketplace. You’ve got: > Buyers: employers spending heavily to find relevant talent > Suppliers: job boards, aggregators, and anyone with access to candidates The marketplace should stay neutral, optimize for employer outcomes, and reward high-performing suppliers. That’s the theory. Now let’s look at other “programmatic” job ad platforms. They’re glorified job distributors. Here are the problems. 1. Lack of transparency in spend They tell employers: We’ll manage your media budget for a 7.5–10% fee. That should ideally be the only markup. However, suppliers offer platforms 10-15% commissions to incentivize spend. (I’m glad this is not a state secret anymore.) So the platform profits from both sides: buyers & suppliers. The system can favor suppliers who pay higher commissions, without disclosing them to employers. Budgets are funneled through a blind exchange (black box) with hidden markups of 50–60%. Spend looks efficient, but a large chunk disappears into undisclosed markups & incentives. 2. Lack of transparency Most platforms don’t show you which specific source led to a hire. If you can’t see source-to-hire, you’re flying blind. 3. Broken application processes 93-97% of candidates who start a job application don’t complete it, because of long forms & bad user experience. 4. Wrong locations & confusing job titles Employers post a job in one location, but talent live somewhere else. Also, some job titles make no sense. So many candidates never even see the right jobs! 5. Wrong numbers The numbers you are seeing in your reports are wrong! When candidates don’t accept cookies, they don’t get attributed to the right campaigns. We started Joveo to solve the inefficiency in our ecosystem. Here’s how. 1. Our platform is built to be, in reality, neutral & agnostic. We don’t let supplier commissions influence the media buying decision process. Our AI doesn’t even see them. We optimize for employers’ outcomes: candidate quality, speed & budget efficiency. 2. We’re transparent. We show every source & every hire, with full transparency. 3. We’re independent. We’re not owned by a job board. Our only incentive is to do what’s right for the employer. 4. We fix inefficiency. We built our own job application optimization tech to fix drop-offs. Jobs are shown in the right locations based on commute distances. AI rewrites job titles & descriptions to include top-searched keywords, so job seekers can easily find them. We enable employers to re-engage their talent pools, so they’re not paying to re-acquire candidates they already have. 5. We’re accountable. See it to believe it. Run a trial next to anyone out there, and let the results speak for themselves. We’re about 20-25% more efficient right out of the gate, even before we start optimizing!

The Association of National Advertisers' latest Programmatic Transparency Benchmark, in collaboration with TAG TrustNet, delivers a sobering reality check for our industry: programmatic waste has surged 34% in just two years, now reaching $26.8 billion. - For every dollar invested, fewer flow into actual working media. - In Q2 2025, 37.8% of spend was inefficient, with transaction costs alone eating up over 25%. - The True Ad Spend Index dropped from 41 in Q1 to just 37 in Q2. - Even TrueCPM shows a persistent gap of 36.5%. Why this matters: The invisible has been made visible. And with this visibility comes responsibility. 1. Action over vanity metrics: #CTR isn’t always the KPI to optimize. Run campaign performance analyses and define what really drives your business. 2. Connect audiences to actions: measurement that ties both together will have the highest odds of success. 3. Leverage real-time dashboards: they’ve already helped reduce inefficiency in Made for Advertising (#MFA) sites from 2.3% in 2023 to just 0.8%. Similar gains are within reach in #CTV and Private Market Places fighting #counterfeitads and other fraudulent traffic. The bigger picture: This isn’t just about saving wasted dollars. It’s about building sustainable growth. Brand-safe premium inventory made transparent will increasingly become the currency of trust between advertisers, agencies, and platforms. Transparency is your competitive edge. Always in-tune, navigating with curiosity and Zeal. MediaPost Joe Mandese #adtech #pmp #programmatic #trustinmedia #transparency

While programmatic offers speed and scale, it also comes with complexities, from data gaps to transparency issues, that marketers must learn to manage. Here are a few key challenges we encounter and how we handle them: 1. Brand Safety & Ad Fraud Ads running in the wrong environment or facing invalid traffic can harm brand reputation and waste budget. How we handle it: We use advanced brand safety and suitability tools combined with pre-bid filters from trusted third-party verification platforms. Supply Path Optimization (SPO) ensures our campaigns only access high-quality, transparent inventory, minimizing risk and maximizing value. 2. Data Privacy & Compliance Evolving regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and now the global push towards privacy-first approaches mean we must be vigilant in handling user data responsibly. How we handle it: We adopt privacy-first strategies, work with compliant vendors, and integrate consent management platforms to ensure full regulatory adherence without compromising campaign effectiveness. 3. Measurement & Attribution Cross-device behavior, walled gardens, and cookie deprecation make accurate performance measurement more complex than ever. How we handle it: We’re adapting by prioritizing first-party data strategies, enhancing server-side tracking implementations, and moving beyond traditional attribution models. Where possible, we use data-driven or modeled attribution and complement it with incrementality testing and platform-based lift studies to better understand true campaign impact. 4. Technology Complexity & Integration Programmatic involves multiple platforms, DSPs, SSPs, data providers, and more, creating a complex ecosystem to manage efficiently. How we handle it: We streamline workflows using automation tools, develop standardized processes, and maintain close collaboration between teams and technology partners to reduce errors and boost campaign agility. Despite these challenges, programmatic advertising’s benefits far outweigh the hurdles, especially when you turn challenges into opportunities with the right strategies and tools. At the end of the day, programmatic isn’t just about technology or data; it’s about how we adapt, innovate, and stay vigilant to drive brand growth safely and effectively. #ProgrammaticAdvertising #BrandSafety #DataPrivacy #AdTech #MarketingChallenges #DigitalMarketing

There’s a lot of noise right now around ad tech transparency, platform fees, and agency audits. None of this is new, but what is new is the level of attention and (finally) action behind it. Behind all of this are the economic issues that have persisted in the space for a long time. Money in advertising flows in one direction: Advertisers → Publishers. Any platform, feature, or “value‑add” in between is a cost to the advertiser. To better understand the fees in legacy ad buy flows, here is a simplified (but realistic) flow: - Agency fee: 10–15% - DSP fees: - Platform: 10–15% - Audience activation: $0.35–$2.50 CPM - Fraud prevention: $0.15–$0.55 CPM - SSP fee: 10–20% So before a bid ever reaches a publisher auction through these legacy flows, a meaningful portion of its value is already gone. These fees don’t just affect efficiency; they directly determine which auctions you win and the quality of inventory you access. A $10 DSP bid can become a $5 bid or less by the time it hits the publisher auction, which is the only auction that matters. Now layer in incrementality. Despite the buzz, many systems still rely on last-touch attribution, arbitrary conversion windows, and fragmented, probabilistic identity matching. These systems aren’t designed to prove lift; they’re designed to assign credit. The result is reported performance without true revenue uplift. And that’s the uncomfortable truth: A significant portion of advertising spend still isn’t truly incremental. So when agencies and brands push for transparency, it’s about two table‑stakes questions: - How much of my dollar actually reaches the publisher auction? - Can I clearly prove net revenue or sales uplift from what I bought? This is why I was drawn to Mastercard Commerce Media. When attribution and incrementality are solved upfront, you can stop debating inputs and start optimizing for what actually matters: efficient media, real lift, and measurable growth. #adtech

Mastering Supply Path Optimization (SPO) in Programmatic Advertising: A Step-by-Step Strategy In the fast-evolving world of programmatic advertising, efficiency and transparency are paramount. Supply Path Optimization (SPO) has emerged as a critical tactic for advertisers aiming to reduce ad fraud, streamline transactions, and boost return on investment (ROI). By refining the route between demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs), SPO eliminates wasteful intermediaries and ensures ad spend reaches high-quality inventory. Here’s a step-by-step strategy to implement SPO in your programmatic campaigns effectively. Step 1: Define Your Objectives Start by clarifying what you want SPO to achieve—whether it’s cutting costs, improving transparency, or reducing fraud. For example, if your goal is to combat fraud, prioritize verified publishers and minimize resold inventory. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) like cost-per-mille (CPM) reduction, viewability rates, or fraud incidence to measure success. Clear objectives align your team and technology toward tangible outcomes. Step 2: Audit Your Supply ChainExpected output: Assess your current supply paths using DSP and SSP reporting tools. Platforms like The Trade Desk or PubMatic provide detailed logs of bid requests, wins, and impressions. Identify inefficiencies—such as excessive hops between intermediaries or duplicated inventory—and map out the supply chain. Look for patterns like high CPMs from low-quality sources or discrepancies in impression counts, which signal fraud or waste. Step 3: Select Trusted Partners Narrow your SSP partnerships to a curated list of reliable, transparent providers. Favor SSPs like Magnite or PubMatic that offer direct publisher relationships and fraud-detection tools. Negotiate private marketplace (PMP) deals to secure premium inventory, bypassing crowded open exchanges. Fewer, high-quality connections reduce complexity and enhance control. Step 4: Implement and Test Configure your DSP to prioritize optimized paths based on your audit findings. Use bid filters to exclude low-performing sources and allocate budget to tested partners. Run A/B tests comparing SPO-optimized campaigns against baseline setups to measure improvements in ROI, fraud rates, and delivery efficiency. Adjust bids and rules in real time based on performance data. Step 5: Monitor and Refine Continuously track results using analytics dashboards. Leverage tools like Unified ID 2.0 for better transparency and attribution. Regularly review publisher performance and prune underperformers. As market dynamics shift, adapt your SPO strategy to maintain gains. By following these steps, advertisers can transform their programmatic campaigns into lean, fraud-resistant operations. SPO isn’t a one-time fix—it’s an ongoing commitment to smarter spending and stronger results.

There’s a lot of talk about transparency across the industry, but for those of us offering real transparency by showing our clients the true costs of programmatic video, it can sometimes feel like we’re “cutting off our nose to spite our face.” Because most agencies and managed service “platforms” serving small-mid sized brands are burying large margins straight into the CPM, Marketers often assume that a “low agency commission” means more working media. But this waterfall chart from an ISBA/PwC Programmatic Transparency Study illustrates what we see anecdotally in our client audits every day: 💰 DSP & tech fees can take a quarter of spend 💵 Trading desks and agency commissions stack on top 💲 Hidden “arbitrage” deltas creep in when CPMs are bundled For mid-market and emerging brands, this means your media plan may be less efficient than it looks on paper. The solution? Demand transparency: itemized fees, log-level data, and clarity on whether partners are acting as an agent or reseller. 👉 What percentage of your budget is true working media?

Transparency in CTV Self-Serve Advertising: No More Black Boxes If self-serve advertising is going to work—really work—for advertisers, transparency can’t be an afterthought. It’s non-negotiable. Advertisers, whether they’re SMBs or big brands, need to know: ✅ Where their ads are running – No more vague “premium inventory” claims. Show them the networks, apps, and placements. ✅ Who’s seeing them – It’s not just about demographics anymore. Advertisers need access to first-party data (in a privacy-safe way) to better understand their audiences and optimize campaigns. ✅ What they’re paying for – Clear CPMs, no hidden fees, no confusing auction mechanics. Just straightforward pricing. ✅ How their ads are performing – Performance metrics can’t stop at impressions and reach. Advertisers need both upper- and lower-funnel insights—from brand awareness and video completion rates to conversions and ROI. Right now, too much of CTV still feels like a black box, and that’s a problem. Google and Meta have set the standard: advertisers can see exactly where their money is going and make changes in real time. CTV needs to catch up. If self-serve platforms can deliver clear, actionable reporting and real transparency, advertisers will spend more, stay longer, and actually trust the channel. And that’s a win for everyone—publishers included. #CTV #StreamingAds #AdTech #SelfServeAdvertising #SMB #SMBMarketing #DigitalAdvertising #Programmatic #MarketingTransparency #DataDrivenAdvertising #OTT #transparency #selfserve

Curation… 😅 What used to be treated as a packaged product or pre-built deal is now becoming a hands-on supply control layer that agencies/ traders actively looking into/asking for. Instead of relying on DSP-side filters to clean up inventory after bids are placed, more teams are deciding what inventory should be allowed into the auction before bidding even begins. #inclusionlistgalore I came across the Digiday article by Seb Joseph on how agencies are moving curation upstream to regain control over supply quality and transparency. "Regular-degular" PMPs and fixed publisher lists are not enough. 👏 Agencies want flexibility, cleaner supply paths, reduce waste, MFA exposure, and unnecessary intermediaries. This discussion aligns with Infillion’s research on supply path transparency and MFA reduction, which shows that strong performance tends to come from shorter, more transparent supply paths, while waste is more likely to appear in long reseller chains that DSPs cannot fully correct. This does not mean all resellers are bad. The term “reseller” has evolved and is often used inconsistently across ad tech, even though many resellers add real value. Where the Digiday article explains how agencies are changing workflows, Infillion’s research clarifies how and why those changes improve performance. For programmatic ninjas, this does not require new technology. It requires new habits:  🦄 Start by pivoting performance data by site and SSP.  🦄 Identify your top-performing domains and the supply paths behind them.  🦄 Flag repeat underperformers and begin a suppression list.  🦄 Track which SSPs consistently deliver quality inventory and use that insight to build small, intentional curated lists.  🦄 Test those against default DSP supply and talk directly with SSPs and publishers to understand where your best inventory is coming from. This is like routing traffic with GPS. The goal is not to block roads, but to reduce unnecessary detours and bottlenecks so you reach your destination faster and with less waste. That is exactly what curation does for supply paths. Regardless, get started by focusing on one client, one campaign, one adgroup at the time, and maximize your productivity by reaching out to the appropriate partner/ vendor/ team to help solidify your effort.  Just do it!!!