Lauren Wakefield - IAB Europe

In our latest network guest blog post, Jules Kendrick, MD, UK & Europe for the Trust Accountability Group (TAG) discusses TAG's new study on invalid traffic in Europe and how you can keep ad fraud low.

For much of the past two decades, digital ad fraud has been a mysterious and malicious force, costing billions, whilst remaining largely unmeasured, unmanageable, and with little understanding of the challenge to be faced.

Several years ago, the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) began to pull back the curtain on ad fraud through a series of studies in the United States, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region to evaluate the effectiveness of its TAG Certified Against Fraud Program in reducing the rate of invalid traffic (IVT) and fraud.

Last month, TAG released its third annual benchmark study of ad fraud in Europe, which highlighted several learnings from its work across the continent, as well as a next-step strategy for companies to keep fraud rates transparent, manageable, and low.

The State of Ad Fraud in Europe
The TAG study showed very low rates of fraud across Europe, only when companies used channels in which multiple supply chain participants all adopted the same high anti-fraud standards.

Specifically, the study quantified an IVT rate of just 0.69% across TAG Certified Channels in Europe, a non-material change from the minimal 0.53% IVT rate measured in both 2019 and 2020. (TAG Certified Channels are channels in which multiple entities involved in each ad transaction – such as the media agency, buy-side platform, sell-side platform, and publisher – have all earned the TAG Certified Against Fraud Seal.)

By contrast, the rate of IVT was more than three times higher when companies used a channel in which only a single entity had obtained TAG certification. Put simply, when you triple filter inventory across the digital supply chain, fraud rates are three times lower than just employing your own anti-fraud vendor.

The ability of companies to maintain such a low IVT rate over time is particularly notable given the significant increase in ad fraud attacks during the pandemic, as criminals attempted to profit from the confusion and dislocation of those events.

That increase in criminal activity was blocked by the interlocking protections built into the supply chain when multiple companies required their partners to set the same high standards they had adopted against fraud.

Why Measurement Matters
The study was conducted by The 614 Group study and evaluated IVT rates in TAG Certified Channels by measuring more than 117 billion ad impressions. The data was captured from January-December 2020 from three of the largest advertising agency holding companies across the 5 largest European markets; the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands.

Commenting on the study, Rob Rasko, CEO of The 614 Group, highlighted the importance of continuous analysis around complicated challenges like fraud. “Accurate and consistent measurement is critical during times of turbulence, when sudden supply chain dislocations are common and dramatic shifts can occur,” said Rasko. “This benchmark measurement has now proven itself over the past three years as the single most important metric for the effectiveness of anti-fraud programs in Europe."

In addition to the quantitative results, the study also conducted a qualitative analysis through interviews with senior executives from the participating ad tech holding companies. Those experts ascribed the significant increase in attacks through mobile channels to changing consumer behaviour and the impact of the pandemic. They affirmed that benchmarks to measure fraud over time are critical to industry analysis of the problem. The experts also noted that many agencies are now requiring their publisher partners to obtain TAG certifications.

Lessons for Other Regions
While the European study didn’t explicitly focus on other regions, TAG has now conducted similar research across four continents, all of which points to the same conclusion: Successfully fighting fraud requires cross-industry collaboration to set consistently high standards across all participants in the supply chain. In regions with less developed digital advertising markets, the baseline rate of IVT and fraud may be higher, but the solution path is the same. In those emerging markets, however, the tools and resources provided to industry participants are critical to helping them understand the importance of this common standard-setting process.

Learn More About the Study and TAG Certification
The full 2021 study can be found here. Additional information about TAG’s Certified Against Fraud Program and how companies from across the advertising ecosystem can receive the TAG Certified Against Fraud Seal can be found here.

Brand Suitability describes the practices and tools that are put in place in addition to brand safety controls to ensure that a digital advertising campaign appears against content that is deemed relevant and appropriate for the brand. It equally refers to the ability of a brand to choose the risk profile suitable to their brand - low, medium, or high risk. The scale was, as well, developed by the 4As and endorsed by GARM.

Eighty-two percent of marketers say appearing next to unsuitable content impacts a brand’s reputation, and one in four brands and agencies have experienced negative press due to brand suitability incidents, according to eMarketer. Brand suitability is, therefore, the answer to many of today’s toughest brand stewardship questions. Where traditional brand safety tools relied on cookie-cutter approaches to avoid unsafe or inappropriate content, brand suitability is more nuanced and attuned to individual brand risk sensitivities. It helps to identify the advertising environments that will help digital campaigns drive outcomes for the business and uses individual brand profiles, market research insights, and strategic positioning to find and target specific environments for advertising, using a customised approach.

Nevertheless, we should not forget that while suitability is the new game in town, brand safety is an absolute basis which we should all be upholding day in, day out. Brand safety should be applied to every digital advertising campaign. Brand suitability is an important, additional layer.

So how does brand suitability work for programmatic campaigns? We asked members of IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee to share their experiences.

Q&A with Nick Welch, Programmatic Director Northern Europe, Integral Ad Science (IAS), and Tanisha Sakhawat, Senior Business Director, EMEA, DoubleVerify from the Programmatic Trading Committee.

Q1. What is the first step in applying brand suitability to a programmatic campaign?

“First and foremost, it’s important to understand the brand's appetite to risk in relation to the context in which their ads are seen. Having established this, it’s then important to take a multilayered approach defining the brand’s tolerances at a topical, vertical and then at a brand/product or a services level.” Nick Welch, IAS

“Align your brand safety and brand suitability pre-bid settings with your post bid settings. This will help the buyer avoid unnecessary media wastage and enable the campaign to scale across authenticated quality media. Many may think, “Why do I need both pre-bid and post-bid brand safety and suitability on my activity?” And it is a good question.

We liken it to a ‘seat-belt and airbag' relationship with the pre-bid brand safety controls being the seatbelt — something that is always on and keeping the campaign safe — and the post-bid controls, which use blocking or filtering technology, are there just in case the pre-bid setting does not identify an unwanted impression.” Tanisha Sakhawat, DoubleVerify

Q2. What are the benefits of adding brand suitability to brand safety parameters?

“Brands invest a significant amount of time creating an image, cultivating consumer perception, and fostering long-term associations. Therefore, it’s important to ensure digital messages appear in safe and suitable environments. Not solely to avoid risk, but also to effectively reach the right consumers. All brands are unique and their definition of safety and suitability is driven by their own values and goals.

Brand suitability is able to offer a more nuanced control of the context the brand may choose to appear against or avoid. With brand suitability, advertisers are able to address any topical or vertical-specific concerns. Additionally, the benefits of adding on brand suitability means that brands can avoid content specifically negative about their brand.

Brands are consistently having to navigate social issues or global events such as the Euros or Olympics. In such instances, if a brand wants to avoid running ads beside certain contexts that may reflect negatively on the brand, a keyword-only or brand safety approach would not achieve this. It is only by applying robust technology that can execute brand suitability well that such content can be targeted or avoided.

Not having the right parameters in place can have a huge impact on both the bottom line and the brand reputation in the eyes of the consumers.” Nick Welch, IAS

“Brand safety has a more universal floor that is widely adopted by brands and advertisers. Content like graphic photos or terrorism, for example, is seen as unsafe for almost any brand. But brand suitability is different; each brand will have its own specific brand suitability preferences and brand values to uphold. In other words, what may be suitable for one brand may not be suitable for another.

Consider an article about finding cheap alcohol delivery. This most likely would not be suitable for a brand that maintains a family-friendly image. But a company such as Samsung may serve ads alongside such content because:

Their brand preferences allow for this type of alcohol-related content.
Their target audience may be reading it.

Brand suitability requires a more nuanced approach that enables brands to build suitability that fits their specific brand preferences.

Understanding the article is about alcohol gives us context, but the type of article it is gives us more. For example:

User-generated content around alcohol drinking has much higher risk because of the unmoderated and unedited nature of that content.
News articles around alcohol drinking give us less risk due to its editorial standards – but still may be inappropriate for certain brands.
Educational content around avoiding binge drinking or drunk driving is more palatable to a wider range of brands.” Tanisha Sakhawat, DoubleVerify

Q3. How does pre-filtering work? And what are the best practices?

“For programmatic buys, using pre-bid filters ensures that brands only pay for quality impressions that are suitable. Buyers then do not bid on impressions that will be wasted due to brand safety concerns. When pre-bid filters are applied, analysis occurs in the DSP ahead of the bid and prevents brands from buying on unsuitable impressions. Finally, pre-bid filters allow savings on media costs and data fees associated with those unsuitable impressions.

In terms of best practices, ensure that programmatic buys are protected with pre-bid brand suitability segments applied, to avoid appearing adjacent to risky content. Check that the content verification providers’ pre-bid targeting segments are integrated within all major Demand Side Platforms (DSP), allowing brands to target only safe impressions before ever placing a bid.

When setting up brand suitability at the pre-bid level, ensure you have a good understanding of your risk tolerance across all levels; standard brand safety, topical, vertical, and brand-specific avoidance. Migrate away from using keyword-only approaches and use semantic solutions capable of accurately understanding the context as close to human beings as possible, and are able to determine the sentiment and emotion of the content.” Nick Welch, IAS

“Pre-bid avoidance tools (aka pre-filtering) sit within the DSP and tend to be powered by data provided through third-party partnerships between verification vendors and the DSP. It’s important to note that this is not referring to any kind of cookie or audience data. The data here is about content. These tools in the DSP allow third-party verification providers to determine whether or not to bid on a programmatic impression based on impression-level data it receives from the auction that meets the advertiser’s own brand safety and suitability settings, and in many cases is fraud-free. By knowing if an impression is fraudulent or will be shown outside of an advertiser’s brand safety requirements before it’s purchased, a brand can avoid purchasing it altogether — reducing wasted media spend and improving post-bid block rates.

Again, aligning brand safety and brand suitability pre-bid settings with post bid settings will help the buyer avoid unnecessary media wastage and enable the campaign to scale across authenticated quality media.” Tanisha Sakhawat, DoubleVerify

Q4. What are the main considerations for applying brand suitability to programmatic campaigns?

"Determine brand value and campaign goals

Determine the risk tolerance and set brand suitability settings, balancing this with campaign goals.

Choose the right partners

Work with global digital verification partners that are integrated with all the major DSPs. Also partners with solutions that comprehend context fully using natural language processing and can deliver accurate sentiment and emotion analysis.

Reduce the reliance on keyword-only strategies

Migrate away from keyword-only strategies, both with the content verification provider and with the DSP. Rely on contextual segments in their place. Apply this approach at a post and pre-bid level in order to ensure brand suitability whilst minimising wasted budget on low-quality impressions.

Consider buying models and apply the same pre-bid filter against both OMP and PMP buys

Private marketplaces (PMP) are a great opportunity once key partners have been established. However, it is crucial that advertisers don’t lose sight of their brand suitability goals and ensure the quality of the media being passed via these curated marketplaces or PMPs meets their requirements for brand safety and suitability.” Nick Welch, IAS

“By knowing if an impression is fraudulent or will be outside of an advertiser’s brand suitability requirements before it’s purchased, a brand can avoid purchasing it altogether — reducing wasted media spend and improving post-bid block rates.” Tanisha Sakhawat, DoubleVerify

Q5. What are the technical challenges?

“One of the challenges is bid stream transparency, as not all supply is fully transparent. On occasions, the SSP (Supply Side Platform)/ DSP or Publisher masks the URL, which means that content verification partners are prevented from seeing the actual URL at the pre-bid level. Typically, at the point of delivery, i.e. after the bid is won, the destination URL may be exposed, so a verification partner can still perform its role and determine if the context is suitable or not and take the correct action.

Secondly, with a greater emphasis on transparency in the media buying process, it’s important to mirror pre-bid brand suitability settings at a post-bid level too. If post-bid tags are enabled, brands can access programmatic reporting to get access to verification metrics at the DSP, line item, exchange level, and deal ID levels in order to effectively optimise supply paths.

Finally, it’s important that brands apply post-bid brand suitability filters where supply has passed via curated marketplaces or PMPs to ensure the quality of the media meets the advertiser’s brand suitability requirements.” Nick Welch, IAS

“In many native app environments, such as mobile app and CTV apps, brand safety and suitability can only be delivered at the app level, taking into account app store category, store rating, and age rating. More granular controls are being developed by some vendors to offer content level transparency to customers.” Tanisha Sakhawat, DoubleVerify

Q6. What type of KPIs do you see with brand suitability being applied to programmatic campaigns?

“There are a number of campaign measurement parameters that brands should have in place when assessing programmatic campaigns. Some of these are a prerequisite despite the media buying method:

Identifying reduced block rate in post-bid reporting
Reducing media cost, data cost and ad serving costs associated with wasted impressions
Diverting budget to more suitable content, minimising reputational and financial cost of advertising in inappropriate environments” Nick Welch, IAS

“KPIs will usually be reach and scale while targeting the right audience in the best environments. A significant reduction in post-bid blocks or incidents will be seen when applying brand suitability to programmatic campaigns, meaning brand equity is being protected.” Tanisha Sakhawat, DoubleVerify

Q7. What are the must-ask questions when conducting a programmatic campaign with brand suitability?

“There are many questions a brand should consider when conducting a programmatic campaign:

Are brands working with a content verification partner that uses natural language processing to understand page-level semantics, sentiment, and emotion in real-time? Is their solution and technology scalable, and able to work with billions of impressions across all the leading DSPs?
Has the brand migrated away from a keyword-only approach, both with their content verification provider and the DSP’s own verification settings?
Have they applied the same strategy on the pre and post-bid level for optimal results and efficiency?
Have they applied the same brand suitability principles against their PMP deals as well as at the Open Marketplace (OMP) level?” Nick Welch, IAS

“A key question to ask is ‘who is the target audience’? For example, you may want to target females for a new alcohol brand launch, but avoid pregnancy content that females will be reading. Pregnancy content wouldn’t traditionally be seen as ‘unsafe’, but it is not suitable for an alcohol brand to be aligned with. Another question to raise is ‘what is the brand’s stance on diversity, equity and inclusion'? Often, keywords are added to lists that exclude important audiences, for the wrong reasons. Revisiting the technology used behind blocking certain themes is paramount when it comes to brand suitability, so asking what methodology is being used is important (a deterministic methodology is key!).” Tanisha Sakhawat, DoubleVerify

Q8. Any examples of how brand suitability has advanced the targeting and outcomes of a programmatic campaign?

“Brand suitability has most certainly advanced and become much more nuanced. For example, when the global pandemic hit in 2020, Vodafone Italia found that their campaigns were not scaling as well as they had previously. This was primarily because their brand safety settings were being triggered too aggressively as content related to the pandemic — both positive and negative — dominated the news. DV worked closely with them to help develop an enhanced brand safety and suitability strategy for their campaigns — enabling them to strike a better balance between protection and reach.

By quickly reacting to higher block rates, Vodafone Italia saw a significant increase in campaign scale. Daily blocked impressions immediately declined by 49% and quickly returned to Vodafone’s Block Rate benchmark. Also, campaign performance increased materially in the week after implementing solutions — seeing increased sales and a 26% reduction in CPA.” Tanisha Sakhawat, DoubleVerify

Q9. Finally, what’s the future of brand suitability?

“As audiences continue to flock to CTV, advertiser demand for transparency in CTV is accelerating. When it comes to brand suitability, advertisers should ensure they can safeguard their investments from unsuitable environments through measurement and protection controls at content category level — such as Crime, Violence, Copyright Infringement, Inflammatory News and Politics, and many more.

Advertisers will also want to partner with verification companies that allow them to monitor and optimise away from unsuitable CTV apps based on user age ratings, star ratings and app store categories like ‘Kids and Family’ or ‘Adult.’

With continued innovations in CTV measurement and controls, advertisers can exercise more refined and nuanced avoidance strategies catered to the brand while preserving campaign scale.” Tanisha Sakhawat, DoubleVerify

Thanks to the committee for their views on how brand suitability works in the programmatic environment. As well as IAB Europe, there are already a number of business groups actively contributing to the Brand Safety & Brand Suitability conversation:

Trustworthy Accountability Group: TAG is the leading global certification program fighting criminal activity in order to increase trust in digital advertising. TAG recently acquired JICWEBS, which has a brand safety certification program.
The 4A’s Advertiser Protection Bureau (APB) is a group formed to enable agencies to share the collective responsibility of achieving Advertising Assurance, which is how the association defines its efforts to create environments where brands and consumers can coexist with trust.
The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA)’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative: This collective brings together advertisers, agencies, media companies, platforms, and industry organizations to improve digital safety.
Media Ratings Council (MRC) has a number of auditing programs for measurement as well as for brand safety.
IAB Tech Lab focuses on ad tech standards, including those intended to support brand safety capabilities in a consistent and common manner; Tech Lab partners with other industry organizations to enable their efforts in standards.

In this week's member-guest post, we spoke with Nick Morely, EMEA Managing Director at IAS on Integral Ad Science’s (IAS) latest report, Pandemic Effects: What’s Next in Shifting Consumer Priorities, which highlights how UK consumer habits have changed over the past 18 months. He explores consumer priorities post lockdown and shares how advertisers should take note.

Nick Morley leads the strategic development of the EMEA business at IAS, a global leader in digital media quality. He has a proven track record in launching and scaling high-growth businesses across Europe, with a decade’s worth of digital advertising industry experience.

No one can deny that it’s been a transformative 18 months, both for consumers and the digital advertising industry. Consumers have shifted their focus toward digital and the advertising industry has adapted towards an ever-changing landscape. But what consumer habits are likely to stay and how can advertisers continue to build meaningful connections with consumers in a post-pandemic future? These are some of the questions answered in IAS’s latest report, Pandemic Effects: What’s Next in Shifting Consumer Priorities.

New UK habits as restrictions ease

Knowing the preferred activities of consumers and their plans for spending in the coming months gives brands and agencies the ability to optimise their digital campaigns. What’s more, the importance of digital advertising in the shopping experience cannot be ignored.

The majority (92%) of UK consumers plan to continue at least one habit formed during lockdown periods after restrictions have been lifted, the study found. In fact, almost half (49%) of consumers will continue online shopping, and more than four in ten (45%) will continue using contactless payment methods.

Despite the majority (68%) of Brits looking forward to resuming social activities as restrictions ease, two in five (40%) remain concerned over confusing or conflicting guidelines for social gatherings and more than one in ten (15%) will not engage in social activities as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

UK consumers have saved and are keen on spending

As the vast majority of restrictions are lifted in the UK, it’s clear that habits established during recent national lockdowns will have a lasting impact on consumers’ social and shopping activities post-pandemic.

Consumers are keen on spending as establishments open up, with over a quarter (27%) reporting more savings since lockdown, and over a third (38%) anticipating that their spending will increase in the next year.

Retail purchases post-pandemic will be split equally between physical stores and online channels for half (51%) of consumers. Additionally, six in ten (60%) of shoppers confirmed that they will make a conscious effort to support small and local businesses.

As local restrictions are easing, people everywhere are debating what the ‘new normal’ will look like. With the majority of UK consumers looking for a hybrid shopping experience as further restrictions are lifted, brands are presented with an opportunity to align their online and offline strategies to ensure that they’re reaching reinvigorated shoppers.

Safe and reputable sites remain key

More than half (54%) of consumers believe that online advertising will play an important role in helping them find information on the products and services available to them post-pandemic. To source this information, almost half (45%) will use search engines, while more than a third (37%) will use social media sites and apps.

Looking ahead, one in two (51%) Brits believe that online advertisements that appear on safe and reputable sites are important. In addition, almost half (49%) of consumers want ads to be relevant to the content that they are consuming, and a similar amount of consumers (47%) want this content to heavily feature a promotional or discount message.

Furthermore, almost half (44%) of consumers believe that online advertisements should highlight a brand’s commitment to certain social issues and advocacy, while two in five (40%) want ads to recommend products and promotions based on what they have previously purchased.

For brands, it’s clear that this is an opportunity to prioritise digital channels, while ensuring safe, suitable, and contextually relevant ads that build brand preference and long-term customer relationships.

Media outlook

As we look ahead, it’s important to understand how media quality is impacted by global events and technological shifts around the world. Alongside consumer priorities, we also know that UK brand risk increased across all media environments in H2 2020, driven by political and societal movements during an unprecedented year.

Our studies show that safe, suitable, and contextually relevant advertising will be important to engage and build preference among these consumers. Ad environments must be considered from both a contextual and sentiment perspective to drive a much-needed boost in post-pandemic retail revenues and capture consumer interest.

As we consider what the world could look like after the pandemic, one thing is certain: many of the newly formed consumer habits will continue to change and evolve. To find out more about how the industry can utilise these insights to drive better media outcomes, visit here.

Authored by Industry Leaders from Across Europe

Provides Valuable Insights, Key Considerations and Best Practices for Contextual Advertising

28th July, Brussels, Belgium: IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem, has today released its ‘Guide to Contextual Advertising’ to provide further education on alternatives to third-party cookies and to help planners and buyers of media navigate this solution.

This guide has been developed by experts from IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee. It offers a definitive round-up of what contextual advertising is, and the opportunities it provides in Europe, particularly in a post-third party cookie world. It also offers key considerations and best practices. In doing so, it ensures that buyers of media have the necessary tools and knowledge to implement effective contextual advertising campaigns.

Contextual advertising has always been a fundamental part of the marketing mix, but advancements in technology and a shift towards privacy-focused solutions, accelerated by the end of third-party cookies, have brought contextual advertising back into focus. Commenting on the role that contextual advertising plays in the digital ecosystem today, David Goddard, Chair of IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee & Senior Director, Business Development at DoubleVerify said “With the demise of cookies, marketers are seeking new ways to optimise campaign performance and to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of their ad campaigns, as well as creating more meaningful consumer experiences. In today’s privacy-first ecosystem, contextual advertising is one privacy-safe solution that works. The guide, written by experts from across the advertising ecosystem, highlights the evolution of, and opportunity for, contextual advertising perfectly and provides best practices for applying this strategy as we move into a post third-party cookie world. We encourage all industry stakeholders to read this guide to help maximise the potential that contextual advertising brings.”

It has been a collaborative effort to produce this European-level industry guide for contextual advertising, with contributors including Bloomberg Media, CNN International, Comscore, DoubleVerify, IAS, Magnite, PubMatic, Rakuten Advertising, Triton Digital, and Xandr.

Commenting on the value of the Guide to Contextual Advertising, Nick Welch, Programmatic Director, Northern Europe, IAS said "All eyes are on contextual targeting as the industry continues to phase out from third-party cookies. Data and sophisticated technology are coming together to enable marketers to move in the right direction with precision and at scale. As digital media quality continues to evolve and we navigate through the latest industry regulations, IAB Europe's Industry Guide to Contextual Advertising is beneficial to understand the latest developments in contextual targeting opportunities. IAS is excited to have contributed to the guide, which covers important components including a step-by-step guide to planning contextual campaigns and emerging digital channels such as CTV."

"Against the backdrop of a cookieless world, contextual advertising is more important than ever,” Simon Baker, Head of Programmatic EMEA at Bloomberg Media said. “This seismic shift in the industry presents an opportunity for premium publishers to leverage their unrivaled access to audience insights in order to better serve client needs and objectives.”

Rachel Gantz, General Manager, Activation Solutions at Comscore also said “Comscore has long supported clients with GDPR friendly contextually driven targets. We are delighted to have contributed to the latest guide from IAB Europe to share our experience and highlight the vital importance of contextual advertising for the future of our industry.”

This guide is a key output for IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee this year and follows the updated ‘Guide to Post Third-Party Cookie Era’, which was released in February 2021. The committee aims to increase understanding of the programmatic ecosystem and the impact it’s having on digital advertising and to influence industry initiatives to improve the ecosystem. Digital advertising in a post third-party cookie world is a key area of focus and industry topic for the committee in 2021.

For third-party cookie solutions such as contextual advertising to flourish, it is vital to work together as an industry to ascertain guidelines and best practices for each solution. Commenting on IAB Europe’s focus to raise awareness on such solutions, Helen Mussard, Chief Marketing Officer, IAB Europe said, “When we set out at the start of 2021, a main focus for the committee was to continue to educate the market and build confidence in digital advertising and marketing solutions that provide alternatives to third-party cookies. Being able to provide a forum for members to collaborate, and share best practices and advice in this area has never been more important for the future of our industry. The Guide to Contextual Advertising shows that by working together we can open up new opportunities and share greater ideas to ensure success.”

IAB Europe is working with some of its members to provide additional insight into post third-party cookie solutions, including contextual advertising, through a series of webinars, guides, and working groups. These will continue to be expanded upon, alongside new initiatives, for the remainder of 2021 and into 2022.

The Guide to Contextual Advertising can be downloaded from IAB Europe’s website here.

The European Connected TV (CTV) market has soared in recent years to become one of the hottest topics in our industry. Where the worlds of TV and digital have been gradually merging over time, more and more consumers have been tuning out of traditional Linear TV options and moving into online streaming, paving the way for the CTV phenomenon. In Europe, CTV presents a huge opportunity for advertisers to reach engaged audiences with the right message. But for the CTV market to reach its full potential in Europe scale is key, and for that to happen programmatic CTV needs to be adopted.

In this blog post, we caught up with some of the contributor’s to our Guide to the Programmatic CTV Opportunity in Europe and members of the Programmatic Trading Committee to find out what the status of programmatic trading for CTV across Europe is, what buying options are currently available, and what we need to do to scale CTV programmatically.

What is the status of programmatic trading for CTV across Europe? How does this compare to other regions, like North America and APAC?

“It’s a really exciting time for CTV in Europe. While it’s still relatively early days for the channel, we’re seeing a lot of developments on the broadcaster side and ever-growing numbers of brands and agencies incorporating it to supercharge their campaigns.

North America is naturally further ahead but can provide a great snapshot of what’s to come. A major factor that’s impacted adoption in Europe is that linear TV has been so successful for the established broadcasters that they’ve been resistant to programmatic and the change that it brings. However, we’re really seeing the tide turning on this with many big players beginning to embrace digitalisation.

We expect to see European broadcasters evolve their digital TV offering space in the coming months, aligning increasingly closely with other digital channels. Our recent research found that nearly one in five (19%) of Brits watch more than 16 hours of streaming a week - so it’s understandable broadcasters want to keep pace with consumer appetite. As this happens, advertisers will shift increasingly large proportions of budget to this channel.” Patrick Morrell, Director, Inventory Partnerships, The Trade Desk

“According to our latest research, The Future of CTV advertising in Europe, there is a lack of unified definition across the region. During the research, we encountered not only a lack of consistency in what constitutes CTV across different markets, but we also found an array of definitions within markets. For some, it’s any TV connected to the internet. For others, it’s smart TVs, or even on-demand only. And in markets where HbbTV and IPTV are prevalent, there was no consensus on whether those technologies constituted “connected TV”. In one market HbbTV is regarded as connected TV, and in others it isn’t.

In our research, we found a two-speed Europe – large global players with unified content and tech infrastructure are moving relatively quickly, while local players, often with legacy TV businesses, are moving more slowly. Nevertheless, they are actively setting up OTT/CTV operations, though with diverse models and strategies, and in a more incremental fashion.” Hitesh Bhatt, Director, Publisher Development, CTV, EMEA, PubMatic

What are the buying options available for CTV programmatically? How is it typically bought and through what deal type?

“All markets are available for CTV buying, but, across Europe, the majority of CTV inventory is bought through Private Marketplaces (PMPs). Broadcasters will typically go for Programmatic guaranteed with some 1-2-1 preferred deals, but this is changing, and more are opening up PMPs. OTT First publishers will tend to offer PMPs as their preferred route to market.” Patrick Morrell, Director, Inventory Partnerships, The Trade Desk

“With highly engaged, addressable audiences to reach on CTV, marketers should no longer be looking at programmatic as an afterthought, but as an essential part of their strategy to bring more efficiency and accountability into their media investments. Programmatic technology gives brands the dexterity they need in a changing marketplace. They can stop a campaign almost immediately and have a new one up and running within hours.

Programmatic doesn’t just pertain to the open marketplace. It also means gaining access to private, premium marketplaces and environments that give buyers assurance that their campaigns are running where they want them to. In fact, the majority of CTV transactions occur within curated, private marketplaces, giving buyers greater control as to how they structure deals and more insight into how their ad dollars get spent.

Programmatic makes it much easier for buyers to manage all of their placements and vendors through a single source or deal ID.” Hitesh Bhatt, Director, Publisher Development, CTV, EMEA, PubMatic

“The lack of both OpenRTB standards in the open marketplace and a reliable definition of OTT across ad tech platforms has combined with TV publishers’ desire to maintain control over their inventory to produce a closed, deals-based economy when it comes to OTT/CTV.

When it comes to OTT/CTV, deals serve as a proxy for the lack of tech and TV’s traditional direct buying process in three major ways: defining the inventory, providing control, and improving accountability/reporting.

OTT/CTV deals typically take three forms. Private Marketplaces (PMPs): a deals-based method for suppliers to offer ad inventory packages built around audience data, impression attributes, content type, etc., to a group of buyers pre-approved by the publisher. Preferred Deals / Direct Deals: 1:1 deals established between a publisher and a buyer for a fixed-price CPM. And Programmatic Guaranteed Deals: deals established between a publisher and a buyer for a fixed-price CPM that guarantees access (reserved traffic) to a minimum number of impressions for the buyer, and a minimum spend to the publisher.” Adam Noble, Product Marketing Director, Index Exchange

How can a buyer scale CTV programmatically? What types of clients are you seeing have the most success?

“It really depends on what they’re trying to achieve and what the goals of the campaign are. The beauty of CTV is that it offers flexibility and the ability to test so advertisers can really hone campaigns according to their objectives. For instance, if they’re simply trying to maximise reach, they should keep the target audience broad. But if they’re looking for something more response-led, then it makes sense to run a test to find out where their audience is geographically, and on which publishers. What many people don’t appreciate is that it's incredibly cost-effective to run tests, and it will help inform and optimise future campaigns.

There’s no one type of client that CTV works better for - like any digital channel, it has universal benefits and appeal. The key is spending time getting to know how the channel works - with the help of partners - to ensure you’re making the most of it.” Patrick Morrell, Director, Inventory Partnerships, The Trade Desk

“With programmatic buying, brands and agencies win access to addressable audiences at scale. For example, buyers can easily go to 30 premium CTV publishers at once, all with the ability to reach their target audience. This is a planning advantage so buyers do not have to buy from many publishers individually like they would have to in a non-programmatic environment.

Programmatic pipes put CTV inventory in one drive, and we’re seeing demand increase across the board. With programmatic’s targeting capabilites, advertisers of all sizes can deliver their messages for optimal impact to engaged viewers. Whether it’s a buyer from a major agency or a small DTC marketer, programmatic CTV opens up access to premium inventory, regardless of budget size. The attraction of the DTC brands or regional brands is something that many agencies are excited about.” Hitesh Bhatt, Director, Publisher Development, CTV, EMEA, PubMatic

“This depends heavily on the buyer type, audience criteria, and campaign goals. Large buyers will often broker direct deals with premium suppliers, such as broadcast and cable TV networks, as well as select digital pure-plays with scale and/or gated access to inventory, such as Hulu. In addition to direct deals, buyers of all sizes will tap into private marketplaces established by OTT/CTV SSPs for scale across the broader spectrum of OTT inventory that often includes a substantial portion of FAST and vMVPD supply. Such marketplaces typically take the form of general, run-of-network pools of OTT inventory accessed via a deal ID that is targeted by the buyer’s DSP. These marketplaces are also often verticalised according to the buyer needs, with separate deal IDs for CTV-only inventory, and/or deals based on price point, contextual category, audience segment, etc.

Clients with the most success tend to work across the spectrum of deal access, from direct negotiation with publishers to ensure baseline access to premium supply, and DSP activation of multiple SSP marketplaces to ensure scale for fulfillment and audience targeting.” Adam Noble, Product Marketing Director, Index Exchange

What are the typical targeting methods available and what do you recommend to partners?

“With any advertising activity, understanding the desired outcome is key. We work with our clients to understand what they are looking to achieve - which is often multiple elements, of varying priorities. Then, with the help of our platform, we use these goals as the starting point for the campaign plan. Our advanced AI technology is embedded across the platform and analyses millions of data points to help advertisers ensure their CTV buying is as optimal as possible.

This process encompasses a number of different targeting options from demographic to geography to genre. We also work with partners such as Samsung TV Plus who offer data technology that captures everything happening on the glass and enables a more customised content discovery experience.

The key is to stay flexible. It can be tempting to get a fixed idea about the targeting method to pursue, but one of the benefits of CTV is the ability to evaluate performance and update accordingly - so we encourage advertisers to take advantage of that.” Patrick Morrell, Director, Inventory Partnerships, The Trade Desk

“This sounds obvious but the fact that we still tend to target individual users, rather than considering the context of the content, is something that needs to change. The media landscape has evolved, the technology has evolved, and the innovation in the space has really driven new opportunities to leverage the potential of contextual advertising. Thinking contextually creates a number of benefits. Firstly, it ensures accurate content classification, so the brand suitability and targeting are on-point. It's consumer privacy-friendly. It extends reach and allows you to target broader audiences while still allowing for a certain amount of precision in finding audiences at a certain point in their buying journey. Finally, it reduces ad fatigue. The viewer only sees the ad in the right context, so it doesn't feel as though the ad is following them around.” Hitesh Bhatt, Director, Publisher Development, CTV, EMEA, PubMatic

“OTT campaigns are often targeted according to basic demographic targets such as age and gender, zip-based location, and interest-based audience segments composed by data management platforms.

True addressability is limited for OTT campaigns given that Connected TVs are cookie-less devices often viewed by a household, rather than one specific individual. As a result, most OTT targeting is done according to HH file and IP address, which works well for targeting basic audience segments from DMPs, but are inadequate for accessing that next layer of targeting and insight, such as who, exactly, is in front of the TV right now. Authenticated audiences built upon publisher networks of first-party data allow SSPs to help increase match rates by enriching the audience signals sent to buyers, however, this data is often hard to scale without the help of identity and graph partnerships, and even then, is challenged by a dynamic of shared logins and inaccurate data associated with IPs and HH files. As a result, contextual signals are often defaulted to in order to help improve targeting for campaign relevancy.” Adam Noble, Product Marketing Director, Index Exchange

How do you measure the success of CTV campaigns?

“Without wishing to sound like a broken record, it really depends what you’re looking to achieve. At The Trade Desk, we work with various partners that can offer our clients different measurement metrics, according to their goals. For example, for reach and frequency – we work with several measurement specialists that can measure the reach and frequency of your campaigns vs. linear and BVOD, clearly demonstrating the added benefits of including CTV. We also work with a specialist company to help track brand uplift. Patrick Morrell, Director, Inventory Partnerships, The Trade Desk

“Without a doubt, there needs to be a greater push in the industry around standards for measurement. As an industry, we need to agree on what to measure and how to measure across all platforms. This includes a common set of metrics to compare the performance of OTT to linear TV, especially around reach and frequency.

At the moment we have lots of data sitting in silos, there needs to be a shared approach to measurement that is used consistently across all platforms and channels. This will require a lot of collaboration, which may be tough, but will really help OTT take off, and more importantly, provide advertisers with confidence in this new space.” Hitesh Bhatt, Director, Publisher Development, CTV, EMEA, PubMatic

“A majority of OTT campaigns use basic delivery metrics to define success, such as fulfillment, delivery pacing, video completion rates, eCPM, and qualitative reviews of impression delivery by publisher, platform, device, etc. OTT buyers will often seek campaign reach and frequency metrics, as well as brand studies that measure incremental and unique reach compared to linear TV campaigns. While some buyers employ attribution vendors to execute studies related to consumer actions triggered by the campaign, these advanced tactics tend to be reserved for campaigns with large budgets and scale.” Adam Noble, Product Marketing Director, Index Exchange

We know that client adoption of CTV, especially programmatically, is significantly lower than in the US. What do you think needs to happen for Europe (or your specific market) to close the gap and encourage more investment in this exciting emerging channel?

“Europe is far more fragmented than the US, and the technology is different. The market in Europe is also different in that it’s dominated by the broadcasters, so for us to catch up with the US we will need the broadcasters to continue their journey towards a programmatic-first mindset. We have seen a significant amount of progress over the past 12 months, but there’s still plenty of work to do.

Additionally, in the US, there are fewer restrictions on targeting and data. GDPR requires a different approach, but it doesn’t prevent effective targeting. The key thing to understand is it’s not something you go around, instead, you need to work within its boundaries. IDs are a key part of the solution, as they bridge the gap between CTV and other media channels – providing holistic targeting. If broadcasters start to adopt IDs, it will truly unlock the power of CTV.” Patrick Morrell, Director, Inventory Partnerships, The Trade Desk

“In many of the European markets, the education and awareness piece still needs to be worked on. The technology really must work seamlessly and provide the TV-like experience that’s so important to the consumer, the publisher, and the buyer. 

While CTV isn’t exactly programmatic yet, it’s worth noting learnings from the rise of digital display ads (which became programmatic). Display went somewhat down a rabbit hole, as the market quickly developed into a contest about who had built the best one-to-one targeting machine. While some publishers and tech players may well have excellent data sets to enable micro-targeting on CTV, it is essential that CTV respects the empirically proven value of linear TV and that it remains the number one platform to build brands and attain cost-effective reach in a high-quality environment.” Hitesh Bhatt, Director, Publisher Development, CTV, EMEA, PubMatic

This week's guest editors are Filip Sedefov, Legal Director for Privacy at IAB Europe & Giulia Sala, Senior Associate at DGRS and legal counsel for IAB Italy. In this post, they share their views on the Italian data protection authority's (Garante's) newly published set of guidelines on cookies and other tracking tools. They discuss the new challenges for ID solutions and look at what is strictly necessary to ensure compliance.

On July 10th, Italy’s data protection authority (the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali - “the Garante”) published a fresh set of Guidelines on cookies and other tracking tools. These new Guidelines complement and specify the Garante’s previous guidelines on the topic, which date back to 2014. The new Guidelines represent the expectations of the regulator when it comes to compliance with Italy’s implementation of article 5(3) of the ePrivacy directive, which establishes a consent requirement for storage and access operations on a user’s device. The final version of the Guidelines comes at the end of a one-month consultation period and six months of analysis of contributions (including from IAB Italy). It follows the publication of guidance on the topic by a number of other prominent European DPAs such as France’s CNIL, Ireland’s DPC, Spain’s AEPD, Denmark’s Datatilsynet as well as - on the topic of GDPR consent specifically - the European Data Protection Board (EDPB). All guidance by DPAs so far is aligned and compatible with IAB Europe’s TCF. Below, we take a brief look at the content of this latest cookie consent guidance by a European regulator, which companies have six months to comply with.

Scope of the Garante’s Guidelines

As mentioned above, the Guidelines refer to the implementation of the consent requirements of the ePrivacy Directive in Italian law (art. 122 of the Personal Data Protection Code). In the digital advertising context, this means they provide indication of the criteria the Italian regulator will use to assess whether or not valid consent was collected by a digital publisher - or their third-party ad tech partners - for storage and access operations on the user’s device, that are related to the delivery and measurement of advertising and content.

Although the Garante’s prior 2014 Guidelines on “Simplified arrangements to provide information and obtain consent regarding cookies” still apply, these were in clear need of an update following the reforms brought about by the GDPR. The regulator explicitly calls out new privacy notice requirements (e.g., data retention periods), more elaborate consent requirements as well as reinforced transparency and accountability principles, and promotion of privacy by design and by default as elements underpinning its updated guidance.

The Garante also clarifies that the Guidelines apply to all tracking tools. It draws a rather detailed and interesting distinction between “active identifiers” (i.e., cookies) and “passive identifiers”, such as fingerprinting or other tracking tools, that do not necessarily presuppose storage of information on the user’s device but are assimilated to such operations for the purpose of its recommendation.

Collecting valid consent

The Garante offers relative flexibility in the implementation of different methodologies for gathering consent. It sets out some best practices in terms of presenting the information to the user while allowing for approaches that deviate from these as long as valid consent can be adequately demonstrated in line with the accountability principle.

The inevitables: scrolling and cookie walls

Although controversial, continued scrolling by the user was considered a valid consent mechanism in Italy for several years, following the entry into force of the GDPR and at least until the EDPB’s Guidelines 05/2020 on consent “officially” invalidated it last year. In these new Guidelines, the Garante addresses the issue of “scrolling” consent directly. Unsurprisingly, the DPA follows the previously established position of the EDPB, indicating that “scrolling” cannot, in and of itself, be considered as constituting valid consent. However, the Garante still - and somewhat more prominently than other regulators - defends its 2014 stance (established namely following efforts by IAB Italy), which is that scrolling may constitute a significant component of a pattern of user interactions that could lead to a positive conclusion about their clear and unambiguous intent to consent.

Similarly, when it comes to cookie walls the Garante also follows the conclusions of the EDPB’s consent guidance (para. 39), which states that “in order for consent to be freely given, access to services and functionalities must not be made conditional on the consent of a user to the storing of information, or gaining of access to information already stored, in the terminal equipment of a user (so-called cookie walls)”. The regulator leaves the door open, however, for a case-by-case assessment of the legality of cookie walls, in cases where the service provider offers the possibility to access equivalent content or services without consent. Still, the inevitable question of whether a paid alternative would satisfy the “equivalent offer” requirement, or under what conditions it would satisfy it, remains unanswered.

What’s in a UI? Consent notice UI requirements

With regard to transparency and user interface (UI) functionality, the Garante - as in its 2014 guidance - maintains an endorsement of consent request by way of a prominent banner or notice (e.g., a CMP UI), presented to users upon their first visit to a digital property. It nevertheless recognises that other methods of obtaining consent are also possible when particular processing requires it, such as through a log-in or authentication process. These pose their own challenges, which we discuss briefly in a separate section further below.

The new Guidelines contain relatively detailed views from the regulator about acceptable UI design, content, and functionality. The DPA recognises, for example, that a UI may be surfaced on different devices and expects UIs to be designed in a way that takes adequate account of the context and environment in which a user is viewing them so that the transparency objective is fulfilled. In addition, the Guidelines specify that user-facing interfaces should, at the very least, respect the following best practices:

Contain an initial layer with (i) essential information about the cookies and other trackers used and their purpose(s), (ii) an option to close the notice without consenting (e.g. located in the top right-hand corner), including information about the fact that closing the notice is equivalent to a refusal to consent, (iii) an option to consent, and (iv) an option to access a secondary layer with additional information and configuration options concerning purposes and third parties;
Be easy to resurface, for example through a link at the bottom of each page or dedicated icon that allows users to easily view, access, and modify their preferences;
Make use of design and colours that are not deceiving, including by using equal text treatment for UI calls to action so that the user is offered clear options and can exercise a free choice.

Where a user takes no action or actively rejects consent, that decision should, according to the Garante, be respected for at least six months. However, the UI can be resurfaced earlier in cases where one or more processing operations or third parties are significantly modified, or where it is impossible to identify what choices the user has made, for instance, because they have deleted the cookies on their device. There is no specified period for storing consent or an indication of when the user should be reminded they can withdraw their consent.

The key: standardisation

On several occasions in the guidelines, the Garante encourages standardisation. In particular, the regulator estimates that users would greatly benefit from standardisation of UI types of commands, colours, functions, and content. The DPA also refers to the fact that dedicated technical cookies can be used to record and maintain the status of a user’s preferences and serve to document their prior actions with regard to such preferences for compliance and accountability purposes.

IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) is the most prominent instrument in the digital advertising context that promotes and operates standardisation precisely around these topics. The table at the end of this blog article attempts to provide a high-level overview and comparison of Garante’s requirements next to those of the TCF. It serves to demonstrate that TCF policies are aligned with the Garante’s latest Guidelines and that the Framework can be implemented in a way that is fully compatible with the regulator’s expectations.

New challenge for ID solutions and enrichment activities?

Interestingly, since the first draft of the Guidelines, a new paragraph has been introduced, which specifically refers to processing activities that accompany the creation of an account or authentication with an existing account. This is raised in the context of alternative methods to collecting consent that do not involve surfacing a banner or notice.

The Garante provides the example of a user accessing a service through the use of authentication or login credentials. It then states that, in such cases, when the account is created, there is an opportunity for the digital service provider (i.e., publisher) to inform the user and request consent for the use of cookies and other trackers. The regulator appears to suggest that, in addition to storage and access consent, users authenticated through login, must be asked to consent specifically to any activity that links different data sets, irrespective of whether these are from the same or different devices. In other words, the Guidelines could be read as effectively establishing a prohibition on the crossing of data relating to navigation carried out through the use of multiple devices, where prior and specific consent has not been obtained. This could be a challenge for ID solutions or any data controllers involved in linking offline and online data.

An elaborate view on what can be considered as “strictly necessary”

Like the ePrivacy Directive and Italian implementing legislation, Garante’s guidelines make a distinction between strictly necessary technical trackers and so-called “profiling” trackers, used for purposes that are not absolutely required for the operation of a digital property. The question, as always, is what exactly qualifies as a strictly necessary technical storage operation for which transparency must be provided, but which does not require the user’s consent. Interestingly, the Italian regulator goes further in its reflection than others on this point and adopts a slightly more nuanced position, specifically when it comes to first-party analytics.

In short, the regulator is of the opinion that cookies or trackers that serve first-party analytics purposes, can qualify as strictly necessary and hence not be subject to a consent requirement. This is only possible, however, where the following minimisation techniques have been cumulatively applied to these cookies and other trackers:

(i) The possibility of identifying the user is precluded, and they cannot serve to identify a device. The regulator suggests this can be achieved by masking appropriate IP address portions (e.g., at least to the 4th component) so as to introduce sufficient uncertainty in attribution;

(ii) They are used in relation to a single website/app; and

(iii) Third parties intervening in these activities (i.e., who provide the publishers with a measurement service) do not combine such data with other data or statistics of visits to other websites, nor transmit such data to other third parties except in the case where the production of statistics refers to multiple domains attributable to the same publisher (i.e., group’s websites).

Moreover, where a publisher carries out statistical analysis on their own, without the intervention of third parties, they may do so also in relation to multiple domains, websites, or apps, without the above-mentioned minimisation techniques, for as long as such operations do not serve the purpose of making commercial decisions. In essence, this means that a publisher is allowed to carry out statistical analysis on multiple web properties for technical reasons (e.g., deciding on storage and backup requirements) but not for commercial ones (i.e., deciding on digital ad space offering).

Garante’s Guidelines and the TCF

As promised earlier, below is a table that offers a high-level view of how some of the requirements in Garante’s new Guidelines compare to those set out in IAB Europe’s TCF. As always, it’s useful to keep in mind that TCF Policies set a minimum standard and that organisations should, in addition to TCF, implement more stringent requirements where these exist locally.

Topic	Garante updated Guidelines on cookies and other trackers	Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF)
Scrolling consent	Scrolling cannot in itself be considered as an affirmative action by the user that signifies their consent.	TCF does not define “affirmative action” therefore allowing for flexibility depending on local regulatory requirements and guidance. However, Appendix B, Policy C(b) TCF requires “Accept” and “Settings” calls to action in the initial layer of the Framework UI at the very least.
Cookie walls	Cookie walls are not allowed in principle, as they do not constitute “freely given” consent, except where it can be verified, on a case-by-case basis, that the service provider offers the possibility to access equivalent content or services without consenting to cookies / other trackers.	TCF does not define “freely given” consent therefore allowing for flexibility depending on local regulatory requirements and guidance. Appendix B, Policy C(h) TCF, however, accounts for cookie walls (if and where these are allowed) and their impact on other TCF UI requirements.
Prior information	Cookies / trackers that are not strictly necessary cannot be placed prior to informing the user and collecting their consent.	Cookies / trackers that are not strictly necessary cannot be placed prior to informing the user and collecting their consent. See e.g., Policies 13(3) and 14(4) TCF.
Use of cookie banners / notices	Encouraged. The banner / notice must be prominent and separate from other information.	Required. The banner / notice must be prominent and separate from other information. See Appendix B, Policy C(a) TCF.
Content of cookie banners / notices	The banner / notice must allow the user to - view essential information about the use of cookies/trackers - view essential information about collection and processing related to digital advertising - Call to action to accept - Call to action to access settings - Call to action to refuse or other means of closing the banner that entails refusal - access a secondary layer or privacy policy that contains extended information - access a secondary layer where purpose / third party -specific choices can be made.	The banner / notice must allow the user to - view essential information about the use of cookies/trackers - view essential information about collection and processing related to digital advertising - Call to action to accept - Call to action to access settings - access a secondary layer or privacy policy that contains extended information - access a secondary layer where purpose / third party -specific choices can be made. See full information requirements in relation to consent in Appendix B, Policy C TCF.
Consent toggles	Consent choices must be set to “off” by default.	Consent choices must be set to “off” by default. See Appendix B, Policy C(d) TCF.
Resurfacing UI	Users must be able to modify their choices by resurfacing the banner through an easily accessible link.	Users must be able to modify their choices by resurfacing the banner through an easily accessible link. See Appendix B, Policy C(f) TCF.
Purpose limitation & data minimisation	Only data necessary to fulfil a specific, strictly defined purpose are collected.	Only data necessary to fulfil a specific, strictly defined purpose are collected. See Purposes, definitions and guidance in Appendix A TCF.
Design / colours and dark patterns	Design and colours cannot be deceptive. Text treatment of commands should be identical.	Design and colours cannot be deceptive. Text treatment of commands should be identical. See Appendix B, Policy C(g) TCF.

In this week's member-guest post, we hear from Stephanie Hanson, Offering Manager at OneTrust as she explores the CTV landscape and shares privacy best practices to follow.

The time has finally come to cut the cord. Internet streaming TV models are quickly becoming the norm worldwide compared to past cable TV models. At the same time, privacy regulations are popping up around the world, requiring companies to adjust their digital privacy experiences based on different requirements. How can companies jump into the CTV space and confidently adhere to privacy guidelines while meeting consumer expectations in regards to how their data is collected and shared? Read this article to find out.

Dipping into the CTV Pool

A streaming service can provide consumers with video, audio, or other content delivered online. Just a few examples of the more popular streaming services include Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Netflix. In fact, half of Americans (60% of them young adults) access video content through online streaming services.

With a growing number of consumers utilising streaming services, publishers shouldn’t overlook these outlets as an opportunity to advertise. Many publishers already have taken advantage of this new revenue stream, with 60% of Digital Buyers saying that they’ll shift Linear TV dollars to Connected TV (CTV) advertising in 2021). Whereas OTT (over-the-top) is the delivery method for streaming content, CTV (ConnectedTV) is the device on which the streaming services run. Advertisers can purchase ad space from publishers to display across OTT services and CTV applications.

Targeting and efficiency are two of the main benefits publishers and advertisers can hope to see by investing in CTV advertising. However, there are plenty of other advantages of adopting this new strategy. While CTV is a new channel that companies are tapping into, it’s essential to understand requirements that accompany OTT and CTV, especially when it comes to data privacy.

Benefits of CTV Advertising

One reason advertisers are shifting towards CTV advertising is that it is an effective method for reaching target audiences. Because of the nature of streaming services, content is already topic-specific. If you know the demographics and psychographics of your audience, there’s a good chance you can locate them and show them highly targeted ads via the content they’re consuming on CTV.

Advertisers can reap the benefits of CTV advertising by taking a cross-channel approach. Advertising can now span across your website, social media sites, mobile devices, and OTT platforms.

Brands that focus on multi-channel advertising report an average 500% improvement in ROI. It’s not hard to be convinced of the value of CTV advertising. However, with any new advertising outlet, there are always some unknowns.

CTV Advertising and Data Privacy

While CTV advertising certainly is an exciting new advertising venture for publishers, we shouldn’t forget the importance of privacy. As these are new advertising arenas many publishers are still navigating what best privacy practices look like when it comes to OTT and CTV. This new landscape includes a whole ecosystem of partners and vendors who are now receiving personal information.

Consent and privacy strategies should always be at the forefront of planning and incorporated into OTT and CTV platforms. Just like other marketing channels, it is critical to ensure transparency and provide consumers with choice over data collected for advertising purposes via streaming.

In addition to this, publishers leveraging the IAB TCF (Transparency and Consent Framework) v2.0 framework must ensure they are using a verified CMP, such as OneTrust, to appropriately capture consent and preferences to effectively signal it downstream to ad tech vendors.

Although implementing privacy-first practices should be well-thought-out it is always well worth the while. Some of the benefits include honouring consumer privacy and creating a trusted brand relationship with consumers through transparency. Additionally, consented inventory can lead to higher revenue for publishers.

Conclusion: Rely on CTV Privacy Technology

The potential in CTV advertising for publishers is exciting. By providing viewers with a seamless user experience while respecting their data preferences, you have a good chance of making this channel a viable consented revenue stream.

CTV app consent technology is your golden ticket to achieving compliance with privacy regulations while also meeting your advertising goals.

According to the recently released AdEx 2020 study, the European digital ad market is now programmatic first with 50.6% of all display spend now transacted programmatically.

Programmatic is a big deal. But to really understand the status of programmatic adoption across Europe on both the buy and the sell-side of the digital advertising industry, we need your help. IAB Europe is inviting all stakeholders, from advertisers and agencies to ad tech and publishers, to answer the 2021 Programmatic Survey! Take part here.

Now in its seventh year, this survey aims to illustrate the current adoption of and attitudes towards programmatic advertising. The results will help inform the IAB Europe Programmatic Trading Committee that provides guidance on developing a programmatic advertising strategy for publishers, agencies, and advertisers.

The deadline to complete the survey is Friday 6th August and it takes just 10 minutes to complete. Plus your response will be treated in the strictest confidence and all respondents will be sent a copy of the 2021 report with full results.

Help us uncover how programmatic advertising attitudes, adoption, and strategies are evolving. Take the survey today!

Check out last year's report to see what the findings provide so much value and insight.

So far this year, IAB Europe’s committees and taskforces have produced some incredible outputs. From an updated guide on the Post Third-Party Cookie Era and a new Guide to the Programmatic CTV Opportunity in Europe to a deep dive into Brand Safety in CTV and over 20 virtual events, it's been a great start to 2021.

If you're keen to get involved after the summer break, we'd love to have you join us! We have a range of committees and taskforces that every IAB Europe member can join, and below, we’ve put together a summary of our committees so you have all the information you need to sign up and get involved.

Why join a Committee?

Being a part of a committee will help you to expand your knowledge and network, and provide valuable education and guidance to the wider community. You can stay up to date on the latest regulatory affairs and public policy initiatives that promote self-regulation, best practices, and industry standards. Most of our committees organise events, so you have the opportunity to become a speaker or moderator at large events, which bring together hundreds of industry peers. Finally, being a part of a committee means you can influence the work we are doing to drive forward the future of our industry.

What’s involved?

Each committee has a monthly conference call with a quarterly face to face meeting when we can meet again. The committee Chair and Vice-Chair lead each session and proactively involve members to get the very best from each meeting. The latest projects and outputs will be discussed so members can decide what they’d like to get involved with and work on. Most committees will focus on two to three key projects each quarter which could range from producing a white paper or discussing the latest policy situation to conducting industry research and market insights. For any output you are involved with, you and your company will be cited in the report and have the opportunity to be involved in subsequent PR or events.

What Committees can I join?

Please see below for an overview of the committees you can join. For more details on the committees with details on the Chairs, work plan, and contact details, please click here.

Policy Committee – IAB Europe’s Policy Committee represents the interests of Europe’s digital marketing & advertising industry to ensure that future EU policy and regulation enables continuing innovation and sustainable media, while maximising the industry’s potential to contribute to Europe’s digital economy.
Legal Committee – The Legal Committee brings together legal experts to help member companies and National IABs understand and assess the impact of EU legislation, European Court of Justice (CJEU) rulings, and enforcement by Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) as they pertain to digital advertising. It works to develop agreed interpretations of the law and compliance guidance to the market on key issues such as the definition of consent, legitimate interest, pseudonymization, verification for access requests, and other data subject rights, that can be promoted with key external stakeholders, including EU and local regulators, advertisers, and consumer associations. The Legal Committee is also involved in the preparation of IAB Europe responses and comments to EDPB and national guidelines, and other policy documents.
Programmatic Trading Committee – The Programmatic Trading Committee is a multi-stakeholder group that aims to increase understanding of the programmatic ecosystem and the impact it is having on digital advertising and influence industry initiatives to improve the ecosystem.
Brand Advertising Committee – The mission of IAB Europe’s Brand Advertising Committee is to drive brand investment into digital by providing Brand Advertisers with a reliable and trusted Brand Advertising Framework for the converging digital and traditional media environment. The Framework is composed of a set of initiatives designed to be compatible with global programmes.
Quality & Transparency Task Force – The Quality & Transparency Task Force aims to combat stakeholder quality and transparency concerns and address the challenges that the industry is facing in order to fuel consumer trust and brand investment in the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem.
Channels & Formats Task Force – The Channels & Formats Task Force aims to increase awareness and drive investment by providing best practices and guidance in emerging and established digital advertising channels and formats.
Research Committee – The Research Committee provides strategic insight to drive digital advertising investment by overseeing and inputting to all of IAB Europe’s research activities and formulating an annual research plan.
Post Third-Party Cookie Task Force – This is a joint Taskforce with IAB France. The joint taskforce brings European National IABs and their corporate members together to both promote “home-grown” European ideas that surface within the taskforce and to consolidate and submit feedback on proposals emanating from the W3C and Rearc, including the Chrome Privacy Sandbox. Providing users with choices that they can make with confidence based on information is the key to ensuring a fair and transparent advertising industry that can sustain the open Internet we know today. This taskforce helps to shape the technical standards and the future paradigm that will redefine our industry. Participation in the taskforce is open to all IAB Europe, IAB France, and other National IAB corporate members (even if those corporate members are not members of either IAB France or IAB Europe).

On 6th July, IAB Europe hosted its first Digital Audio Day of 2021.

The event brought together the shapers, creators, and noisemakers of digital audio advertising to discuss everything you need to know about this channel!

Through a series of panel discussions and keynote speeches, we discussed all things audio from the audio landscape and programmatic audio, right through to audio measurement, standards, and podcast trends.

In this post, you'll find an overview of each of the sessions covered, as well as the video recordings from each of the sessions for you to view in your own time.

Watch the full event recording here.

Opening Keynote: The Audio Landscape in 2021 and Beyond - Daniel Knapp, Chief Economist, IAB Europe.

In this opening keynote presentation, Daniel Knapp focused on the recently released AdEx 2020 Report to share what the audio landscape in Europe looks like in 2021 and beyond.

Watch the session recording here.

Panel 1: The Audio Landscape

Following on from Daniel’s presentation, this panel discussed how the audio market has evolved over the last year, highlighting the latest investment figures and developments in the market. They shared their thoughts on what this means going forward to help scale the audio advertising opportunity.

The panel was moderated by Catherine Cribbin, Member Services Manager, IAB UK, who was joined by:

Andre Charles-Foster, Product & Innovation Manager, Xaxis
David Goddard, Senior Director, Business Development for EMEA, DoubleVerify
Diana Romero, Digital Standards and Partnerships, Publicis Media
Jan Kumlin, Director, Digital Advertising Technology, Bauer Media Audio

Watch the session recording here.

Keynote: Measuring the Audio Moment - Moomal Shaikh, Senior Product Manager, Oracle Advertising

Audio is on the rise (ask yourself- how many podcasts are recommended to you on a weekly basis?) but there’s still work to be done to measure IVT, brand safety, and overall performance on audio channels. In this keynote we heard Moomal Shaikh break down the state of audio measurement today, and where it’s going.

Watch the session recording here.

Keynote: Unleashing the Value of Programmatic Audio – Benjamin Masse, Global Managing Director, Strategy & Market Development, Triton Digital

Online audio is blossoming around the world through a wealth of new content, new formats, and new experiences. In this educational and thought-provoking session, Triton Digital’s Benjamin Masse presented both strategy and best practices for the programmatic monetisation of online audio. From trends across Europe and as compared to the rest of the world, this session provided helpful information on how best to optimise yield, and keep audio inventory in the spotlight in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Watch the session recording here.

Keynote: Great Talkers. Even Better Listeners – Lee Thompson, Strategy Director, AudioOne

In his talk, Lee explored Irish people’s relationship with digital audio. Based on findings from the most recent wave of IAB Ireland’s Digital Audio Consumption & Behaviour research he lifted the lid on the love affair with Audio and explained how, in the space of a few short years, digital audio has become a media planning favourite.

Watch the session recording here.

Keynote: Top 10 Podcast Trends in 10 Minutes – Adam Bowie, Business Development Manager, BBC World Service

Everything you need to know about the fast-moving podcast marketplace, examining the latest trends and numbers. This session challenged some preconceptions and provided insight and background into a continually evolving digital audio space, including the impact of social audio, subscriptions, and exclusivity.

Watch the session recording here.

Keynote: Update on Digital Audio Global Technology Standards – Where We Stand, and Where We Go – Oliver von Wersch, Founder & CEO, vonwerchpartner, consulting for IAB Tech Lab

The presentation gave an overview of the current state of IAB Tech Lab’s Digital Audio Standards, and provided insights into planned developments in 2021.

Watch the session recording here.

IAB Europe's hotly-anticipated full 2020 AdEx Benchmark Report is now live for all the world to see! Released on 1st July 2021, the report is the definitive guide to advertising expenditure in Europe. It covers 28 markets and details the formats and channels that contributed to digital advertising’s annual growth of 6.3 percent in 2020, culminating in a market value of €69bn.

You can download the full AdEx 2020 Report here.

But if you're looking for key facts, stats, and all the highlights from the report (the ones you absolutely must know), then be sure to check out our short videos, featuring our very own Chief Economist, Daniel Knapp below:

Video 1 - Digital Advertising Growth
Video 2 - Digital Advertising Spend by Formats
Video 3 - Market Overview
Video 4 - Video: Fast Facts
Video 5 - Programmatic: Fast Facts
Video 6 - Format Shares
Video 7 - 2020 Summary
Video 8 - 2021 Outlook
Video 9 - Digital as a Percentage of Overall Ad Spend

Keen to learn even more? Why not join us on 8th July for a Special Economic Trends Forum where Daniel Knapp will dive into the report to look at key digital ad spends and trends in 2020, and share must-know highlights and key takeaways. Register here to secure your space today!

In this week’s member-guest post, we hear from Igor Gubin, Region Manager, Europe at Admitad Affiliate Network, as he reveals the very promising outlook for online fashion sales.

The pandemic and lockdown was a massive blow to the fashion industry with sales decreasing in 2020. This year, however, has already proved otherwise: according to Admitad Affiliate, the number of online orders in the fashion industry increased by +73% from January to April 2021. Gradual removal of restrictions and activities of partners have contributed to this growth.

Meanwhile, the amount of European fashion orders has grown by + 28%, demonstrating that customers have reduced their average check, but at the same time are ready to buy more often. The interest towards websites of brands has grown as well - from the beginning of this year the number of clicks has increased by 18% in comparison to the previous period.

Residents of Ireland, Italy, Slovakia, Denmark and Slovenia increased the total cost of purchases in the fashion industry faster than others. The TOP-10 is closed by Holland, Czech Republic, Finland, Poland and Greece. Let's see which European countries can boast the largest average check for online orders in the fashion segment:

These EU countries show the highest average shopping basket value for online orders in the fashion industry in the first quarter of 2021

Online is the New Offline, Despite Partial Relaxation of the Strict Lockdown Rules

Most European countries are cautiously moving towards lifting COVID-19 restrictions and residents are spending more and more time outside due to the warmer temperatures. The Austrian government announced an easing of the rules from June 10th. From June 14th, the Czech Republic allowed visits to restaurants, bars, and guest rooms to take place. In Italy, the curfew will be lifted in the summer, whilst Germany enjoys lifting some of the current restrictions from June 7th, allowing restaurants to be opened to visitors both indoors and outdoors.

However, cautiousness is here to stay. Most consumers need a test to go shopping offline - meaning that part of the spontaneous fun is no longer there. This explains their spending habits are moving more and more into online shopping.

Seasons No Longer Exist

Fashionistas skipped the summer wardrobe renewal last year as almost all of Europe was in a tough lockdown in April / May 2020. Therefore, buyers triggered a new wave of demand for online shops in late spring and early summer. They have also been motivated to replenish their summer wardrobe with a growing list of countries opening their borders, ready to welcome travelers and vacationers.

Traffic, and More Traffic.

During the pandemic, not only has the number of online communities increased but also the number of websites willing to partner with brands as part of the affiliate marketing program has increased too. This means that the rewards are no longer generated via banners or contextual advertising (pay per click), but measured according to consumer orders (pay per action). The number of such providers and partners increased by +12% at the beginning of the year.

According to the Admitad Affiliate network, most of the orders in the fashion industry now come from these traffic sources:

The fashion future looks promising

Both experts and stakeholders expect further growth in the fashion industry. With the recovery and a growing wave of customers, competition between brands in standard promotion channels will intensify. Therefore, it is important to look for new ways to interact with the audience, experiment, actively work with partners, and make yourself known in order to focus the audience's attention on your brand.

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