At the recent Advertising Technology Marketplace conference, I chatted about bad friction and good friction. The IAB Tech Lab was established to reduce friction by enabling standards creation, tools, and standards certification. At the same time, ironically, we also need to manufacture healthy friction to strengthen the barrier of entry.
Standards do not just create interoperability for growth and shape markets. Standards create layers of transparency that lead to a healthier supply chain. This includes programs supported by IAB, Digital Advertising Alliance, and Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG).
This year, I am asking for every company to identify a compliance officer who is an inventory quality and audience specialist. He or she should have executive powers with the support of the executive committee of the organization.
Publishers, your compliance officer should know your traffic sources. Organic search, social, and purchased are all forms of sourcing. The compliance officer should be reviewing the marketing, advertising operations yield management, and audience growth strategies and tactics. For example, if a partnership is growing audience at an unnatural rate for you in the off hours, it is time to find a new partner.
Platforms, some of you have a compliance officer identified in the TAG programs. He or she should keep weeding out the wolf selling sheep’s wool to create further transparency that we all need and want in business transactions. This individual must be empowered to deny new inventory, recruited by the supply team, that goes against your internal controls and checklist of quality supply.
Buyers, viewability is the new currency we’re striving toward. Low cost CPMs, even to refresh your audience pool, can harm the efforts to move to the new currency if not executed appropriately. Your compliance officer can help weigh the pros and cons.
Small companies, take note. You are entering a market with ideas and innovation—a market with growing resources to provide guidance for best business practices and tools. I encourage you to use them.
If you don’t have a compliance officer, get one. And in your organization, this individual needs to be empowered to say no. This is not about growing business for the sake of top line revenue alone, it is about growing business the right way, which leads to the health of the bottom line and supply chain. Human Resources departments should support this executive with transparent, educational dialogue to the staff. The compliance officer is visible, public, and a trusted internal source for personnel.
Finally, if your company uses standards, it’s important to declare your version centrally and keep it up to date with the latest issued in the market. Legacy versions of a standard, or enhancements to a current standard, need to be declared upfront in the pre-sales process. The compliance officer can help with these internal operations and language in your market transactions.
IAB has a portal for your declaration. I encourage your company to keep this record up to date.
For more information about the IAB Tech Lab, please visit iab.com/organizations/iab-tech-lab/, and to understand more about IAB Compliance programs, visit here.
