Up till this point, I had assumed that marketers had received placement reports from their media agencies that listed every website and app where their ads ran, along with quantities and click through rates. Today I learned (TIL) that I was wrong.
This post from reddit/programmatic shows some frank discussions (35 comments to date) about why it is OK that vendors have "never provided agencies or clients exact site lists of where their ads ran" and that you need to pay extra for DV, IAS so you can get reports of where your ads were run. Wouldn’t it make more sense to insist on placement reports with details in the first place? Or take your money elsewhere.
reddit/programmatic
Some nice reactions on Twitter too ... for example “Hotdog salesmen who’ve been charging you steak prices, reacting when you ask to see the ingredients.”
twitter screen shot
I was wrong about marketers. I had assumed they had already insisted on getting detailed reports from their agencies and programmatic ad tech vendors about where their ads ran, after spending millions of dollars on it. Turns out, marketers were not asking for or receiving such reports.
What A Detailed Campaign Placement Report Looks Like
When I audit campaigns for clients, I expect reports like the following. This is a sample report from a small campaign, bought using the DSP called Basis. The screen shot may be hard to read so I will define each column below the chart.
sample DSP report
- domain - the domain or mobile app where the ads were shown
- bid - the bid amount (CPM) the advertiser wants to pay
- gross spend - the total ad dollars spent on that domain (media dollars plus add-ons like targeting CPMs, verification, brand safety costs, etc.)
- net spend - the total of the media cost for that domain (excludes add-ons)
- impressions won - number of impressions won (the bid was selected as winning bid)
- win rate - percentage of bids that were won, and ads were called
- gross eCPM - actual media CPM of bids won plus add-on CPMs
- net eCPM - media CPMs of bids won, excludes add-on CPMs
- clicks - number of clicks on the ads
- gross eCPC - effective cost per click (gross spend divided by number of clicks)
- net eCPC - effective media cost per click (net spend divided by number of clicks)
- CTR - click through rate (number of clicks divided by number of impressions)
Benefits of Having Detailed Placement Reports
Once you have these details yourself, you can see where your ads ran. You can tell which domains and apps are suspicious and the ones that have previously been reported as fraudulent. You can also do basic gut checks like is the win rate too high; is the click through rate too high? One-hundred percent win rates and 100% click through rates are both tell-tale signs of something wrong — i.e. sneaky websites using sneaky bot traffic. You can also check if your media agency marked up the media without telling you. If you paid $30 CPMs and the placement report shows the website or app got $5.27 CPMs, you know you’ve been arb’ed. See: Undisclosed Arbitrage — Agencies Ripping Off Their Own Clients.
Going forward, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ask for detailed placement reports if you buy through programmatic channels. Otherwise, there is a high likelihood you are getting ripped off, not only because of undisclosed arbitrage (”hidden mark-ups”) but also ads going on bad sites, or sites with 100% fake traffic that is disguised to trick fraud detection and get marked as valid. Even if they tell you that you’re getting a great deal because you are getting low CPM media, you’re likely not showing ads to humans. Wouldn’t you want to find out, before your CFO or CEO starts asking why your marketing spending is not generating any real business outcomes?
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December 27, 2020 at 05:22AM
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This Proves I Was Wrong About Marketers - Forbes
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