Uncovering Transparency: What It Actually Means In Advertising
Since the dawn of digital advertising, advertisers and publishers alike have complained about the “ad tech tax.” These are the fees paid to a myriad of middle-companies that play any kind of role in acquiring inventory and filling it with ads.
All too often, when advertisers ask the partners or agencies what they paid for inventory, they’re presented with an eCPM. But how much of that CPM represents the cost of acquiring actual media, they ask? And all too often they’re met with silence — a situation Simpli.fi finds unacceptable, which is why we have committed to complete transparency.
What makes Simpli.fi different from its competitors is that every advertiser involved in every ad buy knows exactly where every penny is spent, where every impression is served and when. We provide complete transparency including visibility into media costs, data costs and fees right down to the impression level.
Regardless of the service model you choose to work with us on – managed, self, or API – with Simpli.fi, the true cost of media, data, and service is always available at your fingertips, never behind closed doors.
Providers Do Play a Vital Role
A tech tax isn’t inherently bad, and we shouldn’t assume all providers are nefarious. For instance, CTV advertisers understand the many benefits of programmatic advertising, such as data-driven addressable targeting. But building an in-house bidder to participate in the programmatic markets isn’t feasible, which means that they must partner with a company such as Simpli.fi so that they leverage our technology, expertise, data, and so on. Why? The value that Simpli.fi brings to campaigns outweigh the cost.
Providers, like Simpli.fi, also provide value in terms of data for targeting and reporting on campaign results. Others verify and measure the audience targeted, or detect and mitigate fraud. These can all be very useful services when done transparently.
Transparency Challenges
Problems with providers arise when you, as an advertiser, don’t have transparency into what you’re paying for and how much. That lack of transparency often hides fees that eat into your budget unnecessarily, leaving less money to spend on inventory so that real consumers can see your ad.
Here is a classic example of the challenge: there are only 20 ad-supported CTV publishers, but there are many more resellers seeking to sell that inventory on behalf of those publishers. If you’re a buyer with no transparency into your purchases, how many resellers stand between you and the publisher? Are you paying multiple resellers fees unnecessarily?
If you don’t know, then you won’t know to look for a partner who can provide more direct relationships between you and the publisher. When you’re executing a multi-million dollar advertising campaign, those extra “hops” represent serious money that’s diverted away from your campaign into the pockets of resellers.
And it’s not just fees. When you plan an ad campaign, you think carefully about the mindset of the consumer who will view it. The timing of when they’ll see your ad is an incredibly important consideration. Yet recent TVision data shows that CTV ads are generally delivered evenly across a 24-hour day, which means they can’t align with how actual people tune-in. Worse, 40% of CTV ads are delivered late-night, overnight, and morning dayparts, when your audience may very well be asleep or focused on getting the kids ready for school. Shouldn’t you know exactly when your ads run?
At Simpli.fi, we believe you have the right to know what services you’re buying and how much you pay for both services and media.
Simpli.fi’s Impression Level Reporting
Simpli.fi provides all of our clients with impression-level reporting for a few incredibly important reasons. First, when you see how your money is spent, you can gain insights into the data and media that delivers the best performance for your campaign. Second, you can use that insight to make smarter data decisions going forward. And finally, you can see where waste or unnecessary tech tax may occur, providing you with the opportunity to ask your partners to operate more efficiently.
Granted, impression-level reporting isn’t feasible when targeting audience segments, which groups people based on common traits. This is a conundrum that Simpli.fi fixed by offering unstructured data rather than audience segments. This allows you to see which data elements, such as individual keywords, physical locations and more) are performing well and which aren’t.
If you listen to the industry narrative, you’ll come to the conclusion that all you need to worry about is your eCPM. The savvy marketer understands that the devil is in the details, which is why Simpli.fi is committed to complete transparency. We want you to have unfettered access to the details that matter to your campaign, your budget, and ultimately your business outcome.
Ready to gain transparency into your campaigns and media budget?
Fill out the form below, contact your Simpli.fi representative, or email us at hi@simpli.fi for your next steps.
Relevant Posts For You