Among recommendations in a report from investigative firm Kroll for the Association of National Advertisers is a list of questions marketers can ask about programmatic media buying to improve transparency, even if they don't make other key partner or agency changes.
Programmatic media buying questions marketers should be asking
Marketers would do well to hire internal or external media and technical help qualified to better understand the marketplace, according to confidential respondents interviewed by Kroll. But even general marketers can learn to ask the right questions in quarterly reviews of programmatic trading. Here are the questions the report recommends:
- How much of each dollar spent was allocated to working media and non-working media, such as ad verification, ad serving, data fees, demand side platform fees, and any known take rates?
- Which downstream partners were involved in each campaign?
- How much was paid to each partner and what value was provided in exchange for that payment? Collectively, does everyone agree that the value provided is worth what was paid? Did it enhance the campaign in a measurable way?
- How were key performance indicators optimized during the campaign? Do we have the correct KPIs or should they be adjusted? How do we look at measurement beyond KPIs, such as viewability, recency, attentiveness, engagement, etc.?
- Can you measure how those KPIs impacted business objectives? Was data shared in a usable/timely fashion to the traders?
- What resources are being used, and are they refreshed often enough to align with audiences/consumer sales cycles?
- Is there first-party data that can be extrapolated from the advertiser for future campaigns?
- Where did the campaign ads run? How many publishers are they running across? Are they all bringing forth the same level of value?
- What was used to understand/combat fraud in each campaign? How was it measured?
- In what step was it introduced? Are we combatting fraud in the most beneficial way against our KPIs?