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.

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.

Coca-Cola and Butterflies

In the online advertising world, the two most misunderstood words are compliance and fraud. Often, the media, advertisers, ad verification companies, and salespeople wield these words in an attempt to influence their audience. The problem is that these words are not universally defined and thus are open to interpretation by those saying them and those hearing them.

A notable example of this phenomenon was an article earlier this week in Mediapost which covers a recent study ranking the top ad networks based on a benchmark of “non-compliance”. The only problem with this is that the standard of compliance was defined completely by the company performing the study, not any recognized standard by any trade organization or government entity. In fact, none of the data presented has been verified by an independent third party.

Without harping on one relatively arbitrary example, the takeaway is this. One of the first steps that must occur to gain positive progress on any issue, be it a squabble between siblings or a systemic issue within an industry, is you must first clearly define the problem and standardize the language around it.

The second step that must occur is having all parties involved use the correct name or terminology when describing the issue so all parties concerned are on the same page.

You don’t get to use a word that conjures a negative or positive image and define it the way you choose to benefit you. People can’t decide that from this day forward when they discuss Coca-Cola, they actually mean butterflies.  The confusion it would cause, particularly when the definition is spread through the media, would be considerable if it was even taken seriously to begin with.

Case in point: when we see reports from entities that say 90% of all traffic on the web is spam. My gut reaction is: what type of spam? Pork shoulder and Ham, Commercial Emails, Pornographic Email, Phishing emails or email people just did not want who then call it “spam”? We have seen the same problem with data validation or verification firms pushing their product by issuing a list of “safe and compliant” partners; which would be fine, but not if they use their own internally modified definition and never share fully share the real criteria of the list.

So let’s take the first step to solve this problem.  It is well documented that issues exist within the online ad world. The issues are in the realm of compliance, fraud and abuse BUT those three words are not all the same.

For the past year, Online Intelligence has used the following “working” definitions to address these three online advertising trouble areas. During the course of several interviews with the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC and other major media outlets about these and a variety of other related topics, I have used these definitions which are widely understood and intuitive to the online advertising audience and I offer them again here:

Compliance

Compliance solely refers to the laws and rules established and passed by the various government, regulatory and industry agencies that govern advertising and consumer trade.  Only if a firm violates the rules set down by a governing body can they be labeled “non-compliant.”

Industry entities may also have an “internal compliance” focus which refers to insuring the entities’ partners comply with internal rules of the company. As such a company who violates the internal rules is in violation but they are not “non-compliant.”

Fraud

To classify the actions of an online player, namely the online marketer (affiliate/independent marketer), online advertiser/merchant or online advertising agency/network, as fraud all five of the following elements must be shown to exist and proof must be provided:

1. A false statement (creative, posting, string, etc) of a material fact,
2. Knowledge on the part of the online player that the statement is untrue,
3. Intent on the part of the online player to deceive the alleged victim,
4. Justifiable reliance by the consumer on the statement
5. Injury to the consumer, advertiser/merchant and/or website owner as a result

Abuse

To classify the actions of an online player, namely the online marketer (affiliate/independent marketer), online advertiser/merchant or online advertising agency/network, as abuse any of the following must be shown to exist and proof must be provided:

1. Knowingly violating the published offer/campaign rules
2. Knowingly violating the affiliate agreement
3. Knowingly violating the advertiser agreement
4. Manipulation of data streams to increase individual profit
5. Manipulation of system methodologies to impact profit
6. Intentionally causing harm to a parties systems, offer or brand
7. Intentionally utilizing a system or method for a purpose of which it was not specifically designed
8. Engaging in activity that, though not expressly prohibited, is commonly held to be unacceptable or cause negative consequences.

By having standardized, universally accepted definitions such as these and in turn using their names with these definitions in mind, the work of solving the issues within the industry can truly be addressed.

Importantly: advertisers should remember that non-converting leads are not always “fraud.”  Data and ad verification services should remember that not following your internal definition does not always mean “non-compliant.” For the media, creative marketing does not always mean “abuse.”

And of course, Coca-Cola does not refer to butterflies.

E.J. Hilbert is the President of Online Intelligence (a division of Epic Media Group)

Ad Networks: The Next Generation

In a recent post, we at Epic Media Group predicted the interactive marketing industry will consolidate somewhat in the months ahead. In that post, we had purposely used terms like “interactive marketing industry” and “digital marketing services companies” instead of “ad networks.” Today, we are addressing what ad networks look like now, and what they will look like in the future.

For a few years, certain industry pundits and followers have claimed ad networks would become irrelevant over time. Since our business has been categorized as an ad network, we certainly didn’t believe that and concrete industry data refutes this as well. In fact, old school ad networks have given rise to much more comprehensive digital marketing services companies that are deeper than the traditional ad network of a few years ago.

As we and other industry experts have stated, the interactive marketing ecosystem is cluttered and this chart exemplifies this point. The chart is useful as a snapshot showing all the various service providers and types of services in the chain; however it is also somewhat outdated in terms of what many of these companies are striving towards and are currently delivering for advertisers and publishers in practice today.

Speaking only for Epic Media Group and Traffic Marketplace, I can tell you we don’t consider ourselves just an ad network by the traditional definition. Sure, there is a major piece of our business that is driven by a network effect, meaning we leverage tremendous scale and reach for advertisers and agency partners by garnering distribution via dozens of safe, targeted, high-value publishers simultaneously rather than one-to-one. However, to say that’s all we are is incredibly short-sighted. Referring again to the ecosystem chart above, we could be categorized within mobile networks, performance-based networks, rich media networks, yield optimizers, DSP’s, and creative optimizers. Not to mention what we’re doing in brand protection; technology, RTB (real-time bidding) and our platform; emerging media; and across specific verticals.

While it’s easy to analyze the companies that support the industry by putting them into buckets, it can be inaccurate. Modern interactive marketing companies are a lot more strategic – and diversified – than the ad network of even a few years ago. This does not diminish the value of running massive networks; it simply doesn’t tell the whole story of what some intermediaries provide or are focusing on strategically.

Consider one definition of an ad network: “a company that connects advertisers to web sites and publishers that want to host advertisements.” If that’s all it is, you can see why hundreds of ad networks were born over the last several years.

We have stated before that the lines are blurred in the interactive marketing space unlike any other medium. People and industry experts like to analyze things in nice, neat buckets. Offline, there are direct response advertisers and publishers at one end; brand advertisers and premium publishers at the other; and there is a one-to-one relationship between advertiser and publisher in most cases.

Online, it just isn’t the same simple model, yet analysts like to put together charts such as the one linked to above with service providers lumped into specific buckets. The reality is that there will likely never be a one-to-one advertiser/publisher relationship in interactive marketing. But is it accurate to say that there are, by my count, 22 potential other parties in the advertising chain? No, but it looks great on a PowerPoint slide. New, digital marketing services companies are already performing many of the functions niche companies serve today – under one roof, no less.

The strongest ad intermediaries have businesses today that look like a good investment portfolio. They are well-diversified and bring a host of solutions to their advertising and agency clients. To some extent, they’re a one-stop-shop which was the goal of the formation of Epic Media Group. A few other companies have followed this strategy as well. Using the financial services analogy, a good intermediary’s portfolio is data-driven, squeaky clean from a compliance and brand protection standpoint, focused on technology and expansion of one’s platform, and possessing an eye toward forming long-term partnerships.

The ideal portfolio digital marketing services companies must provide to advertising clients includes in no particular order: 1) generating scale; 2) the ability to run ads on a number of devices and platforms; 3) targeting ads based on the distribution type (display, search, social, etc); 4) protecting their brands; 5) optimizing campaigns utilizing technology and real-time bidding capabilities; and do all of this on a global scale. While a network effect may be underlying a few of these items, it is not the sole thing companies who support the interactive marketing space nowadays hang their hats on; it’s much broader and more comprehensive.

It is a fair assumption to claim that there are many ad networks still out there based on the old definition, and still provide some value in that capacity. But, there are a handful of companies that go beyond that and are considered the next generation of Ad Networks. For those who believe things like RTB are replacing the ad networks of old, it is actually the networks themselves which are doing so.

Michael Sprouse is the Chief Marketing Officer for Epic Media Group.

Ad Networks and Demand-Side Platforms

The interactive ad industry is widespread with buzzwords, catchphrases and acronyms. Which new, abbreviated, “next gen” solution will unleash its “game changing” power on the digital marketing landscape? Will Demand Side Platforms (DSP) rule this brave new world? At Epic Media Group, we don’t believe so. With information moving so quickly, it is no surprise that there are so many opinions and a great deal of confusion. Hot topics like data, transparency, real-time bidding (RTB), trading desks, and search re-targeting further complicate the industry landscape for most industry onlookers rather than simplify it – fueling circular conversations that last for months.

Demand Side Platforms are making noise, sure, but just like a trendy new band, the sound may be different to your ear. Simply put, a new genre does not make all previous genres irrelevant. In fact, if you deconstruct the name Demand Side Platform it becomes far less complex than it seems. As our CMO, Mike Sprouse, recently pointed out on this blog, advertisers want online advertising to be simpler and we think that will begin happening in the near future. Simplification begins with our industry’s acronyms.

The term “platform” – a word we use a lot at Epic Media Group – means a plan of action, scheme or design. Platform is also defined as a raised, level surface – like a train platform or a stage. Technically speaking, it is a hardware architecture and framework that allows software to run.

Strong platforms should be designed to support all of a company’s business channels, allow for cross-channel functionality, and leverage massive amounts of data and data analytics to deliver advertiser campaigns across all channels. The “P” in DSP references the capability to place bids, in real time, for impressions available on inventory exchanges with a user interface that provides some degree of reporting. A strong technology platform must encompass a lot of things and is an integral part of any ad intermediary’s business.

“Demand-Side” is just another way of saying Advertiser-Side. So a DSP simply provides access to a technology set designed to serve the demand or advertiser side of the business. In other words, DSP’s focus on the advertisers’ goals, which is precisely what companies like Traffic Marketplace concentrate on.

The difference between the top ad networks and Demand Side Platforms is that networks buy inventory directly from publishers that – in our case through a very stringent, in-house compliance process – are then cleared as “brand safe”. Demand Side Platforms buy inventory largely from the exchanges…the very place where advertisers previously forbade the networks from running their campaigns due to concerns about (you guessed it) brand safety.

By definition, the top networks are considered Demand Side Platforms in practice and have been for years. The primary differences are: 1) How the inventory is sourced and 2) the inventory source itself. The top ad networks are an integral part of today’s display advertising ecosystem and are constantly undergoing measures to boost their capabilities.

Be looking for our next blog post in a few weeks which will debunk myths about top networks and explain why these companies are no longer simply “ad networks” by the traditional definition.

Charlie Black
General Manager & Strategic Development – Platform; Epic Media Group