‘The whole supply chain is locked into a sense of omerta’: Why marketers, procurement, agencies, ad techs and publishers fear derailing programmatic ‘gravy chain’ – where 36 cents on every ad dollar is ‘optimistic’

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The ANA’s latest transparency report looks ugly for agencies, the ad tech supply chain, marketers and their procurement departments. Probably why its findings – just 36 cents on the programmatic dollar stand a chance of being seen by audiences – have been met with deafening silence. None of the big agency holdcos have piped up, while Google, The Trade Desk, Pubmatic and other major adtech players didn’t allow the ANA into their systems. Not even P&G played ball. Nick Manning, who co-authored the ANA’s scoping brief, says even 36 cents in every ad dollar landing with publishers is optimistic – because the investigation used sophisticated advertisers like Mondelez, Shell, Kimberly Clark, Dell and HP for the probe – and because it doesn’t factor-in things like agency commissions. And the ANA calculations are based off feeble viewability metrics. “We are talking about a massive global marketplace and it is out of control,” says Manning. Problem is, “nobody wants to derail the gravy train … Enormous sums of money have been made by the large digital platforms, by the ad tech community, by agencies. They've all been part of this gold rush.” But the report differs from myriad predecessors because it spells out exactly how advertisers can regain control. Marketers, says Manning, have to lock everybody in a room, forget about what has happened in the past, and hold “a ‘truth and reconciliation commission’”. Then they need to sweep their programmatic supply chain, strip out the dud components, including most of publishing’s long tail, and structure contracts accordingly – including with agencies, who “by virtue of tolerating this, are absolutely negligent in terms of their role”, he suggests. “But without that will and intent, you might as well not bother starting.” Here’s what’s going wrong in the $88bn marketplace, and for those with appetite, how to fix it… Before the open web money gets rechanneled from publishers to walled gardens and retail media.

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