Ad Tech Briefing: $26.8 billion still wasted in programmatic despite MFA crackdown

Key findings 

• Efficiency gap: The TrueCPM Index, a measure of media efficiency, slipped from 37.8% to 36.5%, indicating a persistent gap between cost and quality.
• CTV growth: Programmatic CTV spending rose sharply, from 30.4% to 44.2%, providing access to premium inventory but also exposing new efficiency and measurement issues.
• SPO: The median number of supply-side platforms fell from 19 to 17, while the number of active domains dropped from 53,799 to 28,958, suggesting more concentrated spending.
• Marketplace shift: Private marketplace transactions accounted for 87.8% of spend, up from 64.5%, with CPMs averaging $7.15 compared to $4.41 for open marketplace buys.
• Reduction in MFA exposure: Spending on MFA sites fell to a median of 0.8%, down from 2.3% the previous quarter and significantly lower than the ~15% level recorded two years earlier. Some advertisers, however, still allocated up to 28.7% of their spend to MFA inventory.

The ANA also introduced the ANA Online Benchmark, a new tool that offers ANA and TAG TrustNet members real-time dashboards, quarterly trend analyses, and cross-channel comparisons across CTV, web, and mobile-in-app environments. The aim is to provide marketers with continuous visibility into efficiency metrics and supply-chain performance, thereby reducing their reliance on quarterly reports.

Such developments follow earlier audits and reports by the ANA and its partners, which highlighted systemic inefficiencies in programmatic advertising. Findings published in June 2023 identified low-quality inventory, particularly made-for-advertising (MFA) websites, as a critical concern in the programmatic ecosystem. 

Related Insights

The Programmatic Marketer

The Rundown: The ANA’s latest programmatic transparency audit confirms many open secrets Read More

In the 2023 findings, ANA auditors found that hundreds of major advertisers were unknowingly placing ads on MFA websites, with around 15% of their spend and 21% of their impressions going to such sites. Digiday first unveiled the ANA’s plans to launch a Programmatic Benchmarking report last year, with an initiative that consisted of 35 marketers, including participants from its initial 2023 study, to evaluate their supply chains, with support from TAG TrustNet.

Such efforts aimed to track key measures, including impression viewability, verifiability, MFA exposure, and ultimately calculate “true CPM” benchmarks. However, the slow increase in participating members — with only four more participants in the latest quarterly report, out of the 35 participants in the initial 2023 study — demonstrates the challenges of such an undertaking.

Authors of the 2023 report claimed that only full access to log-level data could help marketers understand the “unknown delta” in their spend. It also noted that programmatic campaigns often span tens of thousands of sites, but most spend concentrates among a small number of publishers.

However, of the 39 participants in the latest study, only 21 had full log-level data access, thus underlining ongoing transparency challenges, with many interpreting such data access limitations as a sign of ongoing efforts by industry middlemen to preserve their margins, as well as the frustrations posed by differing audit and measurement techniques.

As Bob Liodice, CEO of the ANA, noted, “The gains we’re seeing in MFA reduction and supply path curation are encouraging, yet the billions in unrealized value and dip in efficiency make it clear that optimization and transparency must remain top priorities.” 

What we’ve heard

“Most of the companies in their space had double-digit beats on EBITDA, while Trade Desk had a 3.86% beat on EBITDA… you have to stay with the group, if not be better than the group.” 

— MediaOcean CEO Bill Wise, a widely-recognized industry veteran, took time out of his summer vacation to offer his analysis of the latest round of earnings calls, with a particular focus on why The Trade Desk’s stock is taking a beating from the markets. See more here. 

Numbers to know 

• 25%: the drop in publisher traffic linked to Google’s introduction of AI overviews, per a recent Digital Content Next study. 
• 180: the number of items entered into evidence by the Justice Department in the remedies phase of its antitrust battle (ad tech) with Google. 
• 1,860: the number of items entered into evidence by Google in the remedies phase of its defense of its ad tech empire with the DOJ. 
• $10 million: the amount of compensation sought by OpenAI after winning a trademark case against a company with a similar name in a California court. 

What we’ve covered

Amazon quietly blocks AI bots from Meta, Google, Huawei and more

Amazon expanded its robots.txt restrictions to block six more AI crawlers, including Meta, Google, Huawei, and Mistral, aiming to prevent e-commerce data scraping. Analysts note it’s likely too late, though Amazon wants exclusive control over future AI shopping.

Media Briefing: Publishers catch new vibes from Meta on AI licensing

Publishers sense Meta may shift its AI licensing stance, signaling greater senior-level interest in partnering on quality content. Though mostly rhetoric, Meta’s restructured AI division and recent workshop participation suggest a potential reset in platform-publisher dynamics after years of strained relations.

What we’re reading

How brands can avoid legal risk in competitor keyword bidding

An Ad Age article examines how courts are shaping rules for keyword advertising. The Second Circuit held that Warby Parker didn’t infringe 1-800 Contacts’ marks by buying them as search keywords, stressing that use in ads or pages is key. Meanwhile, San Francisco stopped Oakland’s proposed airport name, showing false affiliation claims can still succeed.

Mediaocean partners with the Internet Watch Foundation to report CSAM content

AdExchanger reporters on how Mediaocean has partnered with the Internet Watch Foundation to integrate child-safety data into its AI-powered ad verification, preventing ads near harmful content while improving campaign efficiency, brand safety, and responsible digital advertising outcomes at scale. The tie-up follows the issue of CSAM being telegraphed by researchers earlier this year.

Tatari files trademark infringement suit against The Trade Desk, i.e., ‘Forward 25’ Vs. ‘FWD 25’

The Trade Desk was hit with a trademark infringement lawsuit earlier this month in the Northern District Court of California. The action, brought by Sawyer & Labar on behalf of Tatari, claims the defendant’s use of the term “FWD…” for its annual sales and marketing conference infringed its trademark for its own flagship conference dubbed “Forward” — the next installment of which is set to take place next month, where the CEOs of Reddit and AppLovin, Steve Huffman and Adam Foroughi respectfully are set to make on-stage appearances.   

Excerpt from ‘Yield,’ by Ari Paparo

“In November 2015, at a conference focused on advertising operations, Jonathan Bellack got on stage with Tom Shields from AppNexus [now Xandr] to informally debate header bidding. Tom was a legend in advertising, arguably one of the inventors of the first ad server (even before DoubleClick), and had recently sold his company, YieldX, to AppNexus. It was a cordial and gentlemanly conversation among erstwhile rivals, with Tom emphasizing the revenue to be made and Jonathan bringing up the antiheader talking points of latency, bad ads, and financial reconciliation. The video remains on YouTube but cuts off before audience questions.”

– Paparo’s much-talked-about debut book discussing the rise of Google notes one of the most robust public debates with Google leadership on its counterintuitive maneuvers. The footage can be seen here.