28th September, 2021, Brussels, Belgium: IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem, has today released its ‘Guide to Quality’ to help and support all stakeholders in the supply chain on being accountable and responsible for the reputation of digital advertising.
As summarised in the Guide, there are various components to quality, and the priority of these will vary depending on each stakeholder. The guide looks at what makes a quality campaign from both a brand’s and consumer’s perspective by detailing best practices and practical examples for viewability, brand safety and suitability, ad fraud, campaign creativity and privacy and consent. The guide is a call for action that Quality is something that all stakeholders have to strive for. The guide starts by defining what quality is and details how it can be achieved.
IAB Europe’s CMO Helen Mussard said “The goal of advertising is for the brand message to be viewed by a real human in an appropriate environment. If that message resonates and drives action, it's been successful for both brand and consumer. Quality media is broadly defined as the subset of inventory in which a high probability exists for advertising to be effective. The guide shows that creating standards for media quality to incorporate industry best practices and to prioritise the user experience will ultimately raise the probability for users to be engaged with ads and, therefore, drive business KPIs. We have included lots of practical examples from member organisations to show how this can be accomplished.”
The guide was written by members of IAB Europe’s Quality & Transparency Taskforce. Contributors included stakeholders from agencies, National IABs, verification companies and ad tech platforms including DoubleVerify, GroupM, IAB France, IAB Portugal, IAS, Magnite and Oracle Data Cloud.
Commenting on the importance of ensuring quality across all campaigns, one of the guide’s contributor’s Akshay Bhattacharjee, Senior Programmatic Solutions Specialist at Integral Ad Science said: We've witnessed a seismic shift in digital advertising over the past 18 months, fuelled by a global pandemic driving digital content and the impending deprecation of third-party cookies. The importance of media quality related to actionable outcomes, matters now more than ever. To that effect, the competition and demand for premium inventory is at its peak. Marketers need to continue to make a concerted effort in ensuring ads run in high quality environments to reach consumers and build better connections with them as well.
He added: IAB Europe’s Guide to Quality succinctly outlines the importance of quality, its impact on consumer receptiveness and best practices for media buyers and sellers. It works as an important guide for publishers to monetise premium inventory and advertisers to build meaningful outcomes with their target audiences. It provides a benchmark for the industry to operate upon which digital ads are viewable by real people, free from fraud, in brand safe and suitable environments, all within the targeted geo of a campaign. IAS is pleased to have contributed to IAB Europe's guide and looks forward to collaborating with industry members to further strive for quality impressions.”
The IAB Europe Guide to Quality follows IAB Europe’s dedicated work track 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. Throughout September IAB Europe has been running a series of virtual events dedicated to discussing Trust and Transparency in Digital Advertising.
The Great Debate – Trust And Transparency In Digital Advertising
Join IAB Europe today for their headline event, The Great Debate. They will address best practices, current initiatives and will deep dive into the latest policy and legal regulations to drive trust and transparency in our industry. Through a series of panel discussions, industry experts from The European Commission, GroupM, Google, Samsung, TikTok and more will share their views on what's being done and what else needs to be done.
Register to attend The Great Debate here and join the event live at 12pm CET.
Download the guide here.
