In this latest edition of From The Bureau, IAB CEO Gai Le Roy, says that marketers have a critical role to play in saving Australia’s media ecosystem and that they may not realise how simply they could help save the embattled sector.
Most of the people who work in the advertising-supported media ecosystem are extremely passionate about the role that our industry plays in providing free or subsidised news, entertainment, information and services as well as offering effective opportunities to connect businesses with consumers.
That makes the last few weeks even tougher for those in the media industry. First and foremost, for the people who have lost their jobs, but also those who remain working in leaner teams, and across the industry as people see the impact on colleagues and friends. Of course, restructures and staff reductions are not new, I am old enough to remember several waves where thousands of people lost their jobs, but this wave feels more challenging.
So, what can advertisers and agencies do to assist with the health of the media ecosystem?
Marketers must quite rightly focus on their key duty, which is to deliver results for their organisation. Every advertising investment decision needs to be driven with this in mind. However, there are ways that marketers and their agencies can act now that will serve their primary business objectives and at the same time ensure that more of their investment dollars fund quality media companies.
What is this magic I hear you ask? Well, it’s just a bit of simple housekeeping that every brand and agency should consider table stakes. Despite the IAB and many other industry bodies sharing a range of best practices to reduce exposure to ad fraud and unsuitable environments, many campaigns are still suboptimal. Our recently released Made for Advertising (MFA) Definitions and Guidance, the Association of National Advertisers reported that 15 per cent of spending in the US via programmatic buying in 2023 was being wasted on MFA sites.
That’s a high level of wastage and it’s hurting our industry.
We urge advertisers to work with their agencies and ad tech partners to use supply path optimisation (SPO) strategies to reduce the use of intermediaries and build closer relationships more directly with publisher partners. Review all inclusion and exclusion lists, as well as quality controls and contextual settings for open market buys. Monitor post-click results via analytics to filter out sites that generate cheap clicks that rarely convert.
The Australian Digital Advertising Practices, a collaborative document produced by the IAB, AANA and ironically enough the MFA (the Media Federation of Australia in this instance!), offers up 16 step-by-step recommendations for buyers on how to reduce wastage and the use of MFA sites in your media buys.
Following these practices will allow more of your ad dollars to flow through to effective local media properties and at the same time improve the true performance of digital advertising activity. We still recommend ensuring you have a diverse range of publishers, both large and small, to meet the quality and performance needs of your brand.
And for those that are sustainably driven, a bonus of following these recommendations is that you are also likely to reduce your campaigns’ carbon emission impact.
Creating a more efficient media buy, increasing support for local publishers and reducing the production of greenhouse gases sounds like a winning recipe to me.
So, at the start of the next WIP with your agency and ad tech partners take some time to review the parameters set for your campaigns. The start of a new quarter – and the new financial year – is the perfect time to revisit your standard business practices. Get competitive and celebrate positive market developments including the best use of advertising investment dollars and be sure to share your successful efficiency and effectiveness stories so others can learn.
Some simple housekeeping may just make you the next industry hero.
