Epic Marketplace Named Most Compliant by DoubleVerify

DoubleVerify, the pioneer and worldwide leader in online media verification and compliance, published its 1H 2011 Trust Index last week. Epic Marketplace was named among the most compliant ad networks from January through June, 2011.

As advertisers have increasingly demanded verification to be included with third-party buys from ad networks, exchanges, DSPs and agency trading desks, the Trust Index has provided advertisers with in-depth data about partner compliance and brand safety trends in online advertising.

“The Trust Index has emerged as the industry standard for measuring advertising compliance and is a strong indicator of the positive impact media verification has had in online ad campaigns. Over the past 18 months, we’ve seen the continual decrease in the incidence rate of non-compliance when verification is applied,” said Oren Netzer, CEO of DoubleVerify. “Advertisers, networks and platforms that actively and consistently use verification on all of their campaigns and inventory are experiencing vast improvements in brand protection. This further indicates that online advertising needs to integrate verification on a long-term basis so that trust is permeated throughout the ecosystem.”

Epic Marketplace is pleased to be among the leaders in compliance, and is committed to maintaining their progress and leadership in the area of brand safety.

Is Your Brand Safe? We Are Making Sure It Is.

Our company is a leader in a recent brand-safety initiative which will give added confidence to our clients that their advertising will be displayed in a brand-safe environment.

As you may be aware, the IAB recently announced the adoption and implementation of its Ad Network & Exchange Quality Assurance Guidelines (QAG). These guidelines enhance control over the placement and context of advertising, build brand safety, and clarify the networks and exchanges marketplace by standardizing the information provided to advertisers. QAG is the only industry-endorsed certification program that exists today.

With an official launch on April 4, 2011, the IAB announced 17 inaugural companies, including ours, that achieved certification. The official announcement is here.

We underwent rigorous training, conducted an intensive internal audit, and assigned a compliance officer to meet the stringent criteria set forth in the IAB’s Quality Assurance Guidelines. We are proud of our compliance and what it means to our customers. We trust that our certification will add to your confidence in working with us.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about what this means to you, please contact your Epic or Traffic Marketplace representative.

We look forward to a continued relationship with our valued clients, and using our IAB QAG certification to increase brand trust across the entire online advertising spectrum.

Demand-Side Networks: the Modern Ad Networks.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens – aka Mark Twain – is often (mis)quoted as having said, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” In a similar vein, we have all heard about the impending demise of Advertising Networks … a slow death driven by the rise of Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), Supply Side Platforms (SSPs) and Display Inventory Exchanges. The doomsayers are often quoted as suggesting that:

• Ad Networks are inefficient;
• Ad Networks inflate margins for themselves;
• Ad Networks are becoming obsolete because of exchanges; and
• There are too many ad networks; they can’t all add value to the ad stack.

The doomsayers are overwrought, and the Ad Network isn’t dying. Instead, what we are seeing is the fundamental transformation of the Ad Network. Here at Epic, we think of the outcome as the emergence of the “Demand-Side Network”.

 

A brief history of (Internet advertising) time.

Ad Networks have been around the ecosystem for awhile now, providing efficient, scalable media buying solutions for advertisers. The aggregation of inventory and behavioral data started long before we saw Mr. Kawaja’s now-famous slide detailing the complicated landscape in interactive advertising. An “aggregation model” was developed beginning in the middle of the last decade, wherein networks provided advertisers with a solution that enabled scale, targeting and performance. For a while, this worked well. Starting around 2008 however, a thesis began to develop that the ad landscape was either inefficient or provided too much margin for Ad Networks, or both. One of the drivers of this was a recessionary economy that required advertising-centric parties to focus more on performance goals and profit growth. Partly as a result, an explosion of new models emerged seeking Ad Network market share. While describing the full new entrant landscape is beyond the scope of this article, here are the major new players, simplified for our purposes here:

Ad Exchanges. Ad Exchanges evolved from the Ad Network model. In fact, the founders of one of the largest exchanges, Right Media (RMX), started it in late 2004 in order to provide a more efficient model for the online ad ecosystem. The exchange model existed as a standalone business but never fully caught on until the rise of the DSP in recent years.

Demand Side Platforms (DSPs). The DSP model was also shaped by the Ad Network model. In fact, some of the current DSPs were once Ad Networks, but were unable to gain traction in part because of the sheer amount of competition and the established players in our space. These new players adapted their model to attempt to address inefficiencies with the Ad Network model.

Supply Side Platforms (SSPs). The SSP model was formed in part to provide publishers with a more streamlined and efficient approach to working with the hundreds of networks that were vying for publisher inventory. Most publishers found it difficult to dedicate a team to manage their Ad Network relationships, instead choosing to give 10-15% of their profits to the SSP to do it for them. You guessed it; this model, too, was created out of the Ad Network business.

 

Not your father’s slightly older cousin’s network.

People would like to paint the picture of Ad Networks as outdated and increasingly irrelevant (never mind the irony that the Ad Network model has served as the genesis for many of the current models permeating the space). At Epic, we would argue that the problem isn’t with the model itself, but rather, the definition of the Ad Network model. The traditional definition and description of an Ad Network is antiquated, though it remains the prism through which Ad Networks are typically viewed (and often negatively judged!). Most digital media press outlets and industry analysts haven’t caught up with how Ad Networks are actually operating and evolving.

And what does that evolution look like? In multiple ways and in a wide variety of capacities, the Ad Networks which continue to thrive are focused on increasing advertising efficiency throughout the ad stack and lifting the entire ecosystem as a whole. By the way, you might be surprised at how many Ad Networks are still thriving, and how many are substantially larger than their point-solution little siblings like pure DSPs.

Yes, the traditional Ad Network model has been under pressure for a number of years … and yes, like any well run business, the good Ad Networks are innovating and enhancing their suite of services for their clients.

A new definition – and our very own Three Letter Acronym (“TLA”)! – is in order, we believe: the Demand Side Network (DSN). A Demand Side Network is effectively an all-in-one offering, and has the ability to do virtually everything a DSP and an SSP can do, and much of what an Exchange can do (vis-à-vis proprietary inventory) … while also being able to bid on exchange inventory as necessary, and with scalable efficiency.

Here are the DSN’s distinctions, we believe, versus cobbling together the same capabilities ala carte via the DSPs, the SSPs, the Exchanges, etc.:

1)      Reduce costs and increase efficiency

2)      Data. DSN’s:

a.      Are integrated with all the major data aggregation providers

b.      Provide access to unique proprietary data sets not available to DSPs

c.       Provide efficiencies for accessing and reporting on performance across data providers

3)      Inventory. DSN’s:

a.       Provide access to aggregated, transparent inventory

b.      Access premium inventory which is not available on the exchanges

c.       Eliminate artificial bid pressure from inflated pricing (like exchanges do)

d.      Provide direct publisher relationships with pre-vetted premium inventory (some of which is not accessible by DSPs)

4)      More Margin to share with clients. DSN’s:

a.       Eliminate the standard 10% fee for DSP’s

b.      Can offer the same real-time bidding capabilities minus the fees

c.       Use automated optimization techniques developed over years of campaign management to meet advertiser goals more efficiently

5)      Media Buying Efficiency. DSN’s:

a.       Manage buys through their own platforms for real-time bidding

b.      Can focus on strategy and scaling campaigns through their own media buying team

c.       Can bring on direct inventory that will not sell to the Exchanges

6)      Trade desks. DSN’s can provide sell-side capabilities that allow publisher’s to present their inventory for real-time bidding.

All the while, the DSN continues to provide the same level of service to their publisher base without undermining their direct sales efforts or devaluing the traffic that publishers work so hard bring to their site.

 

The DSN: a holistic solution to defragment the ecosystem

SSPs, DSPs and Exchanges, funded by venture capitalists eager to invest in the next new thing, do bring certain efficiencies, for sure. However, the industry should realize: 1) that these businesses evolved from the basic practices and technical capabilities of Ad Networks; and 2) that these businesses were founded while certain Ad Networks were simultaneously investing in added efficiencies to stay a step ahead, built upon a solid foundation of years of effective client services.

So long as Ad Networks continue to bring value to the online ad ecosystem, they will not die. Those that have evolved are, in fact, thriving. With a bench of deep experience, technological sophistication and a track record of execution, the new Demand Side Network model can be a powerful, consolidated service offering for advertisers and publishers who are fed up with the inefficiencies of the online media buying landscape today. Indeed, one could argue that the proliferation of new point solutions – which are best thought of as feature sets rather than true stand-alone companies – does not add efficiency, but instead further convolutes the already complicated marketplace.

Defragmenting the ecosystem is the true future wave, we believe. By consolidating the key nodes of the ad stack and optimizing across those nodes, we effectively combine the otherwise ala carte capabilities of the ecosystem into a one-stop-shop. When integrated with other forms of digital advertising – Social Media, Mobile, Search, etc. – we believe the Demand Side Network becomes not only the most effective and efficient solution for an advertiser, it unlocks far greater attribution and full funnel measurability for our advertising partners by virtue of providing integrated multi-channel and transparent campaign management. And at least with the advertisers and agencies we serve, that is what it is all about.

Don Mathis is the President and CEO, and Qayed Shareef is the Senior Vice President of Business Development, for Traffic Marketplace / Epic Media Group.

“How Can You Do Business With ‘Them’?”

The following was written by E.J. Hilbert, President of Online Intelligence.

If you’re in any type of business industry, I’m sure you – in some way, shape or form – have gotten asked that question before, and usually the person asking it reveals various levels of disgust depending on the topic. It has happened to all of us at one time or another and the person asking the question might have various motives for asking it in the manner they do. I figured now was a good time to address it from my perspective, since I’m squarely in the compliance industry and know a thing or two about what makes the online advertising space tick (or not tick, as the case may be).

The old adage that politics make strange bedfellows takes on a new twist in the world of online advertising.  That new twist is a result of “blind” networks and the several degrees of affiliate marketing.

As many of you know, the online ad process can be fairly simple or fairly complex, depending on one’s perspective. A merchant wants traffic to their website but doesn’t want to be constantly buying media so they contract with an advertising network, which has immense scale and efficiency, to drive traffic via display, social media and sometimes, independent affiliate marketers.  In turn, the ad network contracts with publishers and affiliates to drive said traffic. That’s the simple part.

Now for the more complex part. Many times, these affiliates are individuals who buy media or run websites and drive traffic to a merchant via advertisements on their websites. Sometimes, these “affiliates” can also be other networks who have their own affiliates.  In fact, most tracking software used by ad networks allows for up to 5 sub affiliate id’s, meaning the affiliate actually generating the traffic is 5 times removed from the ad network contracted to drive traffic to begin with.

In essence, the contracted ad network does not necessarily know who they are “in bed with”, especially once you’re talking about being 5 levels away. Some networks (or their advertisers or merchants) don’t really care about these “strange bedfellows” as long as they are helping them make money. Sure they claim to check traffic sources comprehensively but …. money is money, to some, and always will be.

For other networks, these “blind” relationships are among the scariest prospects and some invest large amounts of money and man-power in monitoring their network and providing high levels of transparency into traffic sources. These particular networks, the market leaders, the ones continually trying to figure out how to see where the traffic is really coming from and who is behind it, are the saving grace of the industry and are the ones pushing the entire ad stack up, not down.

The Epic Direct Network (EDN) is one such network, and I dare say one of the best, if not the best, at “removing the blindfold” because of our affiliate screening practices and Online Intelligence (OI) software suite. In fact, our software suite is proprietary and among the most powerful set of tools out there today (and that includes any business, not just in online advertising). EDN is committed to understanding the source of all traffic to ensure quality, stop abuse and eliminate fraud – which is good for the entire ecosystem.

At the time of sign up, EDN affiliates are contacted by phone and asked a series of very detailed questions.  Traffic sources are required to be revealed and if an affiliate hides or spoofs their traffic source then they risk being blocked from the network or banned once they are active.  The excuse of, “I can’t tell you my traffic source because you may steal it and cut me out,” does not fly because EDN, for example, does not run in-house accounts.

Once an affiliate is in the network, traffic is continually checked by looking at the click referrer data and then using the proprietary OI tools to scan, spider and scrape the recorded webpage for all ads.  We can then check the creative and links to see the ad network and affiliate id responsible for the ad.

Part of a recent trend has been for questionable affiliates to offer free downloads of pirated software, music, TV shows and/or movies. Once a user signs up or downloads the file they are required to fill out an offer in order to receive a password to unlock the pirated content.  In order to hide this “fringe” (at best) traffic source, the affiliates run traffic through a series of websites with each striping out the click referrer of the site before.

The OI tool suite allows EDN to track-back thru the recorded “click-referrer” sites.  If the affiliates’ ad or creative does not appear on that site, the traffic for the affiliate and sub affiliate can be halted and any planned payments held until the true traffic source is identified.  In other words if you lie to EDN, you will not be paid.

The OI tool suite gives EDN the ability to scan, screenshot and review 75-85% of traffic on a persistent basis. But let’s face it, 85% is not 100%.

This is where we rely on the merchants, advertisers and general public, since there is no “end game”. We want to know when our affiliates are doing it wrong, or when our affiliate’s affiliates are doing it wrong. We guarantee that any complaint received at abuse@onlineintel.com will be investigated immediately and if wrongdoing is discovered, the traffic in question will be voided, the affiliate will not be paid and may be banned from the network as a whole. This is how seriously we take our compliance practices.

We want to make sure our partners – which include the entire advertising stack from advertiser to affiliate – know that we are one of the companies leading the charge for a safe and trustworthy marketplace. We can do most of it ourselves, but we also welcome feedback and real-world examples from others in the industry with a real, vested interest and no axes to grind.

 

E.J. Hilbert is the President of Online Intelligence, a subsidiary of Epic Media Group. He is the former Director of Security Enforcement for MySpace and an eight year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) as a Special Agent in their Cyber crimes unit.

Traffic Marketplace Named Top Network for Compliance

Digital media verification company DoubleVerify just released the list of most compliant networks for the second half of 2010. We’re very pleased to report that Traffic Marketplace was among the leaders in compliance and brand safety.

“Compliance and accountability,” according to Oren Netzer, CEO of DoubleVerify, represent “two pillars that are critical in building trust and growing online advertising.”

Traffic Marketplace, and Epic Media Group as a whole, are pleased to again be positioned as market leaders – verified by an expert 3rd party – in this all-important area of online marketing.

For more information, you can read more at Mediapost.

News: Epic Media Group Announces Partnership With LucidMedia

This morning, we announced an exciting strategic partnership with LucidMedia. You can check out the formal press release here.

The announcement comes on the heels of months of collaboration between the two companies, and effectively allows Epic to add LucidMedia’s Real Time Bidding technology to our suite of services and capabilities. In essence, the partnership immediately bolsters our ability to help advertisers and agencies reach targeted consumers across different pools of inventory – including our own premium inventory and across every major exchange.

As Co-CEO Don Mathis said, “the partnership will further unlock massive scale, allowing Epic to enhance our suite or services and improve the performance and efficiency of our solutions on behalf of our clients”.

Epic Media Group Q&A on AdExchanger

Be sure to check out the in-depth Q&A with Epic’s Art Shaw posted on Adexchanger.com. You can click here to view it.

The Evolution of Ad Networks

NOTE: This article was written by Michael Sprouse, Epic Media Group CMO, and published in mThink’s Online Advertising Blue Book.

Sitting here in 2010, the advertising network landscape looks vastly different than it did eight, five or even three years ago. Like most things in their early stages, the industry in which ad networks exist has evolved rapidly. The general ad network space, which of course includes CPA and affiliate networks, has been maturing for some time now.

Three years ago, I wrote an article for a major trade publication that pondered the fact that there were hundreds of ad networks, all seeming to be coexisting happily with profitable, scaling businesses. In fact, it seemed a new network popped up every week.

There were very few barriers to entry, startup costs were minimal and the business model, when executed properly, was very efficient. The popularity of performance- based advertising was booming at the expense of impression-based models, with a larger variety of products, goods and services being offered than ever before on a performance basis.

Compared to traditional ad markets, the online industry could apparently accommodate a huge number of networks because of the massive growth in users, traffic and websites. In addition, accessing the web via wireless networks and mobile devices was beginning to take off, providing even more “reach” potential.

So what happened to the network environment since then and where should networks hope to be heading in the future?

As we now know, and as a few pundits predicted at the time, there has been a fair amount of consolidation. This has taken three main forms:

1. networks disappearing or closing up shop completely;
2. networks dramatically scaling back their offerings and becoming smaller and more focused;
3. networks acquiring or merging with each other.

It is important to understand why this consolidation has happened in order to understand where things are heading next.

First, the marketplace had become over-saturated. While the industry might have been able to sustain a lot of networks, it couldn’t sustain several hundred of them. There were simply too many.

Second, there were very serious concerns relating to fraud and that negatively impacted a number networks. Often, fraudulent activity remained undiscovered or unattended, and this resulted in networks taking significant losses.

Third, the emergence of ad exchanges and subsequently buy-side platforms or DSPs has challenged the role played by traditional ad networks.

Are networks doomed? No. But, there is probably going to be even more consolidation to come and companies in the ad network space will have to create discernable value in order to differentiate themselves. Potentially powerful differentiators include:

1. Technology and Targeting – This needs investment, and is where the battle is being fought by the new and emerging platforms that represent a major challenge to less sophisticated networks.
2. Compliance and Forensics – Having an in-house or reputable third party compliance and forensics group is not a luxury, it is an absolute necessity. There are emerging companies in this space who cater to networks and have cutting-edge technology and well-qualified staff that are specialists in rooting out abuse. This has the potential to be a huge competitive advantage for networks that move quickly because many other buy-side platforms are not yet focused on this issue.
3. Compelling Creative – Unique and compelling creative executions that can’t be delivered in an automated fashion through platforms run solely by technology will be key. Standard ad units and banners are fine and necessary, but those networks that can unlock unique and more powerful ad units will stand out.
4. Extensive Reach – Networks are able to provide immense reach as a value proposition, and for some networks this has increased consistently over time. Networks must continue to look for reputable partners – not just advertisers, but also publishers and other distribution partners – so that reach continues to be a large piece of the value equation. It is still the case that most advertisers are looking for efficient reach and expansion of their audience, and this is especially true for those large spenders just dipping their toes in the water with ad networks.

As the last five years has brought tremendous growth, change and evolution, so will the next five. Networks of all types need to be alert to the marketplace trends around them so as to ensure that the coming years are as successful as they are chaotic.

Epic Direct Network named top CPA Network

The Epic Direct Network, a division of Epic Media Group, is very proud and honored to have been rated the #1 CPA Network in mThink’s BLUE BOOK top 20 annual rankings. Here is an excerpt:

Epic Direct is rated the #1 CPA network in this BLUE BOOK Top 20 ranking for Fall, 2010. Epic received strong write-in support in our open-field question designed to measure the enthusiasm people feel for a network, and also ranked very highly in terms of sheer popularity. They even did well with our Blue-Ribbon Panel, with several members choosing Epic as part of an “ideal portfolio” of networks.

Pick up a print copy of the magazine during this week’s Ad:tech NYC, or click here for the complete rankings.

Online Privacy: What’s At the Heart of the Recent Debate

Perhaps the hottest topic in the interactive marketing industry over the last several months is online privacy. A few fairly major developments that have occurred were led by our industry’s foremost trade organizations, and the news media has spent a hefty portion of time and resources covering best (and some say worst) practices relating to data collection, targeting, privacy protection and self-regulation. I wanted to take this opportunity to set the record straight about what Epic Media Group stands for, believes in, and aims to practice in the coming months and years.

The first thing to know is that we take online privacy very seriously. Anyone in the business of serving targeted ads to users must put personal privacy issues at the forefront.  Moreover, we are all consumers and most of us spend increasing amounts of time using the internet. As a consumer, I know I certainly don’t want to have my privacy put in jeopardy or have certain types of data used nefariously, and I wouldn’t put others in that position either.

Our major governing trade bodies including the IAB, NAI, DMA recently announced a sweeping self-regulatory program aimed at providing consumers greater education and control over the collection and use of non-personally identifiable data for online behavioral targeting purposes. Our company supports this effort because we believe it is important for consumers to have transparency about what data is being collected, when and how it is used.  Nowadays, while most consumers understand that there is a lot of information on the internet that can be collected, programs like this provide important transparency. Further, we do not believe that government intervention or regulation is necessary as this would stifle burgeoning interactive businesses and creativity and reduce ad-subsidized free content on the Web, which would lead to unfortunate outcomes such as higher unemployment and stagnant economic growth.

The bottom line is that we as an industry are fully capable of marketing responsibly and transparently to consumers.  In most cases this is exactly what occurs, though this behavior doesn’t make big headlines so it’s generally not the angle covered in the news.

The issue of online privacy is complex and may be confusing when analyzing exactly how information is collected, transmitted and used.  Use of terms such as apps (applications), IP addresses, user IDs, and “PII” are foreign to many consumers, but we believe they shouldn’t be. We believe clarity, transparency, and education of end users is in everyone’s best interest. We think the “what, when and how” are extremely important to consumers – in other words, “what” is being collected about them, “when” it is being collected, and “how” it is being collected. Though well-meaning, articles that concentrate only on problems rather than explaining standard, carefully deployed industry practices act as a scare tactic rather than facilitating a constructive conversation that people can understand.

It is helpful to break down the issues. As consumers, you are all familiar with advertisers. You come into contact with hundreds of companies every day trying to sell you products or services through commercials, billboards, subway ads, etc.  How many of them are directly relevant to your lifestyle and interests?  Very few, right?  This is because in most offline advertising there is no way to direct the most relevant and customized ads to an individual consumer. Most aim to cast a wide net over the most people possible hoping to find the right audience for their products and services.

There is where online marketing can be different and specialized. We have the tools necessary to understand people’s interests and purchase intent by anonymously recording interaction with an advertisement or website, the click of a mouse, or an e-commerce purchase, etc. Internet users, by and large, expect to see ads as they consume free content, and generally prefer customized ads that match their interests and lifestyles.  Would a 25 year old single male prefer to receive untargeted ads about diapers, or targeted ads for outdoor clothing based on their history of visiting hiking websites?  Advertising companies seek anonymous data to serve ads that are relevant, and this must be balanced against the concern that personalized data might fall into the wrong hands creating a “creepy” factor – like where “big brother” knows too much about them.

The crux of the issues covered lately in the media point to the important question: “How much data should the advertising community have about me, and what types of data are acceptable?” On the one hand there are plenty of scary stories about privacy issues, and on the other articles about the importance of customized and effective advertising to support the incredible value of free internet content.

It is abundantly clear that our entire industry has a ways to go in educating the media and general public about the core issues of what, when and how information is collected. This responsibility falls to companies and market leaders in the interactive industry. I think we all agree that online advertisers and their partners need to be responsible about disclosing how data is collected and what it is used for.  As long as consumers are properly educated and are given appropriate controls, then the industry will progress on its’ own and some of the ill-conceived articles will dissipate.

And here’s an important point: self-regulating organizations in the industry really do want consumers to be comfortable.  That work is being completed by  industry groups such as the NAI and IAB, but it also must come from nearly all of the companies in our space that want to grow by serving consumers who enjoy the benefits of the internet.  We all have self-interest, as well as human interest, in establishing appropriate norms to alleviate privacy concerns.  We want consumers to have more control in the process. The internet itself, as well as the technology on which it is built, affords consumers such control, the key is in educating people what those controls are.

The movement made by our leading trade organizations serves to illuminate these controls, and the advertising community and membership companies are supportive of it too. Look no further than here to learn more about behavioral advertising, cookies, and browser controls: http://www.aboutads.info/consumers.

We require our advertising and website partners to clearly indicate what data is collected and how it is used.  As a member of the NAI and IAB, we offer consumers the ability to opt-out from receiving customized ads.  We also look forward to supporting our advertising clients and helping the industry evolve by providing consumers with the tools they need to manage their own privacy concerns in the months and years ahead, and continuing to play an active role in the growth of our industry.

Art Shaw, CEO, Epic Media Group